homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Buying advice (Zigbee) (self.homeassistant)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by p5f20w18k to c/homeassistant

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I’m planning to put HA on a pi, with a usb antenna

I can’t decide which bulbs to use, Philips hue looks great but it’s pricey and I’m pretty sure it’s got too much “phone home” crap. I don’t want anything to leave my network. If I can use Hue bulbs without the hub, or block the hub from phoning home I would consider it?

I found some Sengled bulbs that look fine, but I don’t know if they are any good.

Can someone recommend some decent bulbs? Colour ones preferably, but white is OK too.

Any other advice? Got a home server, so can host just about anything to get this working together.

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[–] thehatfox 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Welcome to Home Assistant. If you are starting out it’s best to start small, pick a particular room or two you think would benefit from smart features and go from there.

I have tried a few of the IKEA bulbs and they have worked OK. For lighting however I much prefer to to use smart relays or smart switches. The problem with smart bulbs is they don’t play nicely with dumb switches, and they depend too much on a working HA instance.

If a smart bulb is turned off by a dumb light switch, it can’t be turned back on via Zigbee - because dumb switch cuts all power to the bulb including the Zigbee chip. Likewise, if you turn a smart bulb off via HA and then HA breaks, it’s going to be difficult to turn the smart bulb back on until HA is back up and running.

Smart relays and smart switches avoid both these problems. They still function normally as physical switches, and will function independently even when HA is down. The main downside is these require minor electrical wiring work to fit, so consult and electrician if you are comfortable with that.

My current favourites are the SONOFF ZBMINI smart relay and Samotech SM232 smart dimmer switch. The latter is one of the few UK style smart dimmer switches available (I am assuming you are in the UK as you linked to Amazon UK and mention bayonet fitting bulbs). I prefer to only use smart bulbs in lamps etc for secondary or accent lighting.

Another option for lamps is to use smart plugs, IKEA, SONOFF and Smarthings Uk smart plugs have all worked well for me.

[–] p5f20w18k 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think long term using relays and switches is what I want to do, but I live in a rented house so I can't go changing the electricals in the wall.

I'll buy a few and practice wiring them up though.

[–] thehatfox 1 points 1 year ago

Ah sorry, I didn't think that you might be renting.

A few people I know have also recommended Aurora AOne range for smart lights. They have a mixture of Zigbee and Bluetooth bulbs and other smart devices. Bluetooth is another good option for local control - especially if paired it ESPHome Bluetooth Proxies to extend range. I don't have any Aurora lights personally but I have recently purchased some of their smart sockets and they have been great quality devices so far.