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Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

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Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#31

Post by mikeyouse »

15155 wrote: post #14
rainsford wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zigbee is good, but for lights or anything else you really want to always work, I'd recommend going with something that also works independently of HomeAssistant and Internet access even if you then need a proprietary hub to integrate with HomeAssistant. Lutron's Caseta system is what I went with. I've found HomeAssistant with Zigbee to be extremely reliable, but the idea that a botched software upgrade or failed VM…

Why are Lutron Caseta or RadioRA any different than a locally-hosted Home Assistant installation with an attached Z-Wave or Zigbee radio? Why is "work[s] totally independently of Home Assistant" a desirable property? https://www.zwaveoutlet.com/pages/z-wave-associations https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/application-notes/AP...

Lutron has a physical switch that you replace your lightswitch with -- it works via the Caseta smart stuff, or it just works as a normal light switch that's 100% bulletproof. Also they use a much lower and less busy frequency (433mhz) so you get great range, no interference, and very low battery consumption when using the remote products. I went from 1/20 button pushes not doing what I wanted on Philips to 0 failures ever when I bit the bullet and replaced everything with Lutron.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#32

Post by 15155 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #31
15155 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are Lutron Caseta or RadioRA any different than a locally-hosted Home Assistant installation with an attached Z-Wave or Zigbee radio? Why is "work[s] totally independently of Home Assistant" a desirable property? https://www.zwaveoutlet.com/pages/z-wave-associations https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/application-notes/AP...

Lutron has a physical switch that you replace your lightswitch with -- it works via the Caseta smart stuff, or it just works as a normal light switch that's 100% bulletproof. Also they use a much lower and less busy frequency (433mhz) so you get great range, no interference, and very low battery consumption when using the remote products. I went from 1/20 button pushes not doing what I wanted on Philips to 0 failures…

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers?

https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s...

https://www.getzooz.com/products/

https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz

https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave

How are any of these functionally different?

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#33

Post by jliptzin »

rainsford wrote: post #12
philjohn wrote: post #2

If you're going down the HomeAssistant route I'd recommend ditching any proprietary hubs and getting a Zigbee dongle instead, I've been using the Sonoff Zigbee dongle and even though it's connected to the server, in a rack, in the garage (so thick breezeblock walls between it and the rest of the house) there are enough always on mesh nodes in the lights themselves that the network is steady. Granted, the Dongle itsel…

Zigbee is good, but for lights or anything else you really want to always work, I'd recommend going with something that also works independently of HomeAssistant and Internet access even if you then need a proprietary hub to integrate with HomeAssistant. Lutron's Caseta system is what I went with. I've found HomeAssistant with Zigbee to be extremely reliable, but the idea that a botched software upgrade or failed VM…

I love my Lutron Caseta. Falls back to regular light switches if wifi is out, plus I didn’t have to change any light bulbs! Never had any problems with them. These “smart” devices should always fail back to dumb mode. If there’s ever a situation where the dumb version is better, they’re doing it wrong.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#34

Post by elcritch »

15155 wrote: post #32
mikeyouse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lutron has a physical switch that you replace your lightswitch with -- it works via the Caseta smart stuff, or it just works as a normal light switch that's 100% bulletproof. Also they use a much lower and less busy frequency (433mhz) so you get great range, no interference, and very low battery consumption when using the remote products. I went from 1/20 button pushes not doing what I wanted on Philips to 0 failures…

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers? https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s... https://www.getzooz.com/products/ https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave How are any of these functionally different?

Thanks! I've been wanting to automate my home. I'd prefer something like these with backup and without proprietary hubs.

Any that you'd recommend in particular?

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#35

Post by acidburnNSA »

philjohn wrote: post #2

If you're going down the HomeAssistant route I'd recommend ditching any proprietary hubs and getting a Zigbee dongle instead, I've been using the Sonoff Zigbee dongle and even though it's connected to the server, in a rack, in the garage (so thick breezeblock walls between it and the rest of the house) there are enough always on mesh nodes in the lights themselves that the network is steady. Granted, the Dongle itsel…

This was my path. After Philips Hue required that I make an online account with them and wouldn't let me use my local-only devices without it, I rage bought a Sonoff dongle and transferred all my HUE lights over to it and then unceremoniously threw away my hue bridge. Zigbee2MQTT is working great. I'll always pay more for freedom from corporate project managers subscription metrics in my smart home devices. This philosophy works too, I've been pretty deep into home automation since 2015 and haven't lost even one device due to deprecation or sunsetting yet.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#36

Post by 15155 »

elcritch wrote: post #34
15155 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers? https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s... https://www.getzooz.com/products/ https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave How are any of these functionally different?

Thanks! I've been wanting to automate my home. I'd prefer something like these with backup and without proprietary hubs. Any that you'd recommend in particular?

The Inovelli Red series Z-Wave dimmers are probably the best dimmers around with the most customization, software features, and spec compliance.

Zooz is probably a close second, and probably the go-to for switches, relays, smart plugs, sensors, etc. today.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#37

Post by mikeyouse »

15155 wrote: post #32
mikeyouse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lutron has a physical switch that you replace your lightswitch with -- it works via the Caseta smart stuff, or it just works as a normal light switch that's 100% bulletproof. Also they use a much lower and less busy frequency (433mhz) so you get great range, no interference, and very low battery consumption when using the remote products. I went from 1/20 button pushes not doing what I wanted on Philips to 0 failures…

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers? https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s... https://www.getzooz.com/products/ https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave How are any of these functionally different?

Well I just went into the first one, and you can't use it if you have e.g. low volt LEDs in your kitchen like I do.. and they all look to be in the 900mhz range. I'm sure there's some combination of Zigbee stuff that could match the Lutron setup -- they look more customizable so maybe that's a plus for people too. We were just tired of fighting to get our smart home to not be annoying so plug and play with Lutron was a big win, and you can layer in more control with HA that has no danger of breaking everything. If I were starting over, I might take a look at some of those, and I'm glad there's some competition in the space.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#38

Post by 15155 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #37
15155 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do many Z-Wave and Zigbee manufacturers? https://inovelli.com/collections/z-wave-light-switches-red-s... https://www.getzooz.com/products/ https://leviton.com/products/dz15s-1bz https://byjasco.com/products/smart-home-automation/z-wave How are any of these functionally different?

Well I just went into the first one, and you can't use it if you have e.g. low volt LEDs in your kitchen like I do.. and they all look to be in the 900mhz range. I'm sure there's some combination of Zigbee stuff that could match the Lutron setup -- they look more customizable so maybe that's a plus for people too. We were just tired of fighting to get our smart home to not be annoying so plug and play with Lutron was…

> and they all look to be in the 900mhz range

Why is this an issue? Z-Wave is a mesh network, all hardwired switches/outlets/etc. are repeaters by default.

> low volt LEDs in your kitchen like I do

What is "low volt?" 12-24V? I have this in my kitchen using a 110V -> 24V dimmable LED PSU and a Z-Wave triac dimmer.

Zigbee is not Z-Wave - Z-Wave has far more definition and structure to available devices and can do everything Lutron can do at this point.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#39

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

Fair warning to anyone who hasn't touched Home Assistant - HA brings so much value, but is simultaneously so frustratingly atrocious.

For example, it operates on an "update" data model. There is no difference between a sensor being offline and not reporting info vs a sensor being online but reporting a repeating (previously seen) value. Add to that the way data is stored (two week retention; this weird relationship with Grafana and Influx where not all data actually goes to Influx from HA)... Even the date picker is frustrating.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#40

Post by Cyph0n »

ramses0 wrote: post #24
Cyph0n wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run Home Assistant OS in a VM and snapshot it on a schedule.

aka: pretty much how the HA hardware devices (yellow/amber/green/blue) work by default.

Oh cool, never heard of these! I might just have to grab the Green to try out how easy it would be for less tech savvy family :)
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