Hue Light Hack • Hacker News Board

Re: Hue Light Hack

#81

Post by jon-wood » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

javawizard wrote: post #26

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how you know it's not AI generated :) Full of typos. Fixed now. Looks like “pry” was chosen.

Fun story: "prise" or "prize" are more common in the UK, "pry" is more common in the US. I do wonder what those from other countries where other spellings are more common think when us Americans come in and correct them, as if our spelling is objectively more correct...

Prise is used in the UK. Anyone spelling it Prize would be told to stop Americanising their spelling.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#82

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #65

tiborsaas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fun exercise I'd encourage everyone to count the number of computers they have in their home, being in the walls, bulbs, coffee machines, scales, toothbrushes and eventually Macbooks should all count.

How many do we count laptops as? Do we just count the main cpu, or do we count one more for every hard drive controller, etc.?

You would count by function, otherwise you don't make it past a BluRay player.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#83

Post by christoph » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #64

xxpor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also works find with other zigbee stuff (in both directions, you can pair MUCH cheaper Ikea bulbs to the Hue bridge, and pair Hue bulbs to other zigbee coordinators), even if they don't really advertise that.

I've tried using other products that were "cheaper". They work at first, but then issues. First, I bought a compatible bulk LED strip. The listing suggested the power supply to use, but it was way too weak to push the entire strip. Luckily, I bought the strip to cut into sections for using in multiple places. The suggested power supply was still to weak for the smaller sections. Knowing how to calculate the draw per…

I did the underside of all our kitchen cupboards in CCT RGBW LEDs linked to a Hue bridge (nearly 5 metres split over three controllers and PSUs), I’m thankful I thoroughly researched the topic before buying anything as nearly a year on, I’ve never had a single issue with any of it.

The key learning from my research was to buy commercial grade PSUs and LEDs from a proper retailer that supplies industry and over spec the PSUs - if you calculate your LEDs need 40w, get something like a 60w PSU. I don’t think it cost significantly more than if I purchased cheap no name Chinese stuff off Amazon.

As a side note, I didn’t go for the Hue strips because the LEDs would have been a lot less bright, the cut points were far more restrictive and it also would have worked out more expensive.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#84

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

Three fiberglass circuit boards, one aluminum LED circut board, plastic covers and coatings, epoxies and coating compounds, capacitors, chips and transistors with heavy metals, at least 100 unique components, aluminum heatsink housing... That'll only sit in a landfill for 10,000 years or so and took materials from all around the world to create.

Remember when lightbulbs were thin glass with a bit of wire?

At least the new LEDs are better, hiding their electronics in the screw base and the LEDs are placed on a strip.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#85

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #78

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hue bulbs are on the dimmer side compared to a traditional bulb (LED or otherwise) so this would defeat the purpose for my use cases. The color bulbs in particular are horribly dim, but fun nonetheless. The only failure I've encountered in ~10 years is my original Hub started crash looping a few years ago and I ended up getting a new starter kit to replace it. The bulbs seem to really last, however.

> The Hue bulbs are on the dimmer side compared to a traditional bulb What do you mean, do they not produce the advertised number of lumens? Just looking at specs, their highest output coloured bulb produces 1521 lumens at 4000K white colour temperature and 1055 lumens at 2700K [0]. That's very close to the brightest regular bulb I can find in stores (1600 lm). [0] - https://www.philips-hue.com/en-gb/p/hue-white-and-…

It looks like there are newer bulbs which are substantially better. Mine do 800 lumens @ 4000K which is fairly atrocious, even if I ran them at 4000K, which I would never do as it's horrible.

I suppose I have to consider replacing everything now...

Re: Hue Light Hack

#86

Post by SparkyMcUnicorn » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #60

xxpor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also works find with other zigbee stuff (in both directions, you can pair MUCH cheaper Ikea bulbs to the Hue bridge, and pair Hue bulbs to other zigbee coordinators), even if they don't really advertise that.

The only caveat with this is that they don't expose them over Homekit if you do this, you'll need to use Homebridge to get that going.

HomeAssistant also has a built-in HomeKit Bridge integration. Was a seamless setup experience for me.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#87

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

globalise83 wrote: post #41

wpm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set my Hue Color bulbs to 25% and pure red at around 1AM every weeknight. It's dark but I can still see enough not to ram my toes into the coffee table.

Also gives you that Hunt for the Red October feeling

Submarines use red lights for the same reason that they make great night lights (and were used in old photography dark rooms): human night vision isn't disrupted by red light so red lights can be kept minimally dim and be more than enough to see by.

Admittedly for submarines light pollution can be life-or-death (because you don't want an enemy submarine to spot you) and it's a little less critical in cities already full of light pollution at all hours.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#88

Post by c-hendricks » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #70

bee_rider wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are pretty convenient for the owners. It would be sort of nice if the hub would provide a convenient website. Visitors don’t want to use an app to turn on my lightbulbs. There are button peripherals, which work fine of course, but then it is not much more convenient than a light switch or a remote.

The tap switch is pretty great, can be placed anywhere, four action buttons, and doesn’t need batteries. For the most part I use motion sensors and timers and rarely need a switch

Motion / timers / "presence" are where it's at. Smart should be smart, not a different looking light switch.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#89

Post by mindslight » Thu, May 04, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

methyl wrote: post #5

taneq wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that bad? If you're turning AC into DC you're gonna have to rectify it somehow.

It might have been a reference to Electroboom [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5Ftm1-jik

I know his entire shtick is doing dumb stuff and getting hurt (or at least pretending to?) in the style of "Ow! My balls!", but he wouldn't have been able to touch across 170VDC without flinching (@ 1:55). I've felt ~48VDC in the summer with my hands a bit sweaty. And both those terminals were actually still bouncing between +/- 170V along with the AC supply.

Then at 3:55 he gets shocked from touching those same terminals (as he should), with the circuit disconnected from the AC line, to segue into the need to discharge capacitors. This is what makes me question how much of his "getting hurt" is actually acting.

(Also just in case anyone is watching those videos and thinks there's a distinction between his usual haphazard behavior and when he gives explicit "safety" advice - there isn't).

Re: Hue Light Hack

#90

Post by mananaysiempre » Thu, May 04, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

humanistbot wrote: post #54

I got a chill of terror when I saw this at #1 on the front page, thinking it was the other meaning of "hack" and that it was some massive vulnerability that is going to ruin my morning while I take my bridge and bulbs offline and make me regret ever buying into it. I know this is Hacker News, but the classic hackers lost that linguistic battle or at least achieved stalemate decades ago. If you're going to use the wor…

> [T]he classic hackers lost that linguistic battle or at least achieved stalemate decades ago.

The classic hackers weren't above breaking computer or even physical security where they felt it was in the way of their work or curiosity, either, so in relation to pre-extortionist hacking it's probably less like a battle Stallman and others branded it as and more like a messy civil war. Of course, once less-than-technical reporters get into it, everybody else might as well give up (witness "dark web").

I did have the same misunderstanding as you, to be fair :)