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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

#91

Post by tass »

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?

I had a house full of a variety of switches I just moved out of - some Lutron, inovelli, and Leviton.

For zwave, the best actual physical control was with Leviton - they have a rocker switch for dimming and are therefore easier to use than most. They don’t support multi-press scenes or anything like that but I found that to be a bit of a gimmick anyway, and dedicated buttons are a better option.

Inovelli had the most features, but aren’t precisely colour matched to other brands - they are kind of whiter than the standard white colour so stand out if you put them in a bank with others or against certain face plates.

In my new house I have a few zooz switches for special cases alongside Lutron for everything else and Zooz work fine.

Inovelli and Zooz dimming controls are both done by holding down the on/off paddles which isn’t intuitive for visitors, and it’s hard to fine adjust without resorting to app control.

Of everything my favourite is Lutron Diva for hands down the best looking and easiest to use actual physical control but these use a proprietary (albeit easy to integrate) hub.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#92

Post by sebazzz »

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've found HomeAssistant with Zigbee to be extremely reliable, but the idea that a botched software upgrade or failed VM could make it so I can't turn my lights on and off feels like a bit too much.

That is really an implementation problem of your smarthome. Where we used to have unobtrusive javascript, enriching the web page as it got applied - you also can have unobtrusive smart switches: There are units which get built into the wall, yet allow for Zigbee connection: you both get to run the light in a smart and in a manual way. Many smart sockets also have buttons on them to allow a manual override.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#93

Post by BeefWellington »

theshrike79 wrote: post #58
BeefWellington wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've replaced all of HA with just some Python interacting with an MQTT server. I just script all the automation and don't have to care about the other 90% of what HomeAssistant brings to the table. Not for everyone obviously but it's simple and works well.

Have you looked into AppDaemon or Pyscript, both provide a Python interface to HA. They let you use HA's massive library of supported devices, but you don't need to bother with their YAML "programming" horrorshow.

I haven't because what's described didn't really suit my needs. I can run my own daemon that will handle the integration with MQTT, and that's all I needed.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#94

Post by fransje26 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #57
audunw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use IKEA trådfri with Philips Hue. It’s a bit annoying to pair but once that’s done it just works, at least it has for me.

Ironically the IKEA hub is better than the Philips one. Less options for automation, but it's 100% local only by default. You need to specifically enable remote operation.

The Ikea Dirigera Hub?

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#95

Post by philjohn »

baq wrote: post #81
philjackson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe how? I have the IKEA bulbs throughout and it's difficult to imagine how they'd be any better.

Well... they're better, slightly or more noticeably, at everything: better color accuracy, dims lower, brightness is more linear, transitions are smoother... on paper they're similar, but when you actually use them, the differences become apparent quite quickly. (Disclaimer - have some GU10 Hues and some E27 Tradfris, both RGB).

At some point though it becomes "are those improvements worth the inflated price tag" and for a LOT of people, the colour accuracy is good enough etc.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#96

Post by baq »

philjohn wrote: post #95
baq wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... they're better, slightly or more noticeably, at everything: better color accuracy, dims lower, brightness is more linear, transitions are smoother... on paper they're similar, but when you actually use them, the differences become apparent quite quickly. (Disclaimer - have some GU10 Hues and some E27 Tradfris, both RGB).

At some point though it becomes "are those improvements worth the inflated price tag" and for a LOT of people, the colour accuracy is good enough etc.

Well there's a reason I have those Tradfris ;)

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#97

Post by mvanbaak »

audunw wrote: post #8
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…

You can use IKEA trådfri with Philips Hue. It’s a bit annoying to pair but once that’s done it just works, at least it has for me.

There are at least 2 problems with this setup (besides the fact that brightness and colors are a lot better on hue then on any of the others) 1) non hue lights wont be homekit compatible (they dont even get exposed to homekit) 2) non hue lights cant be used in multimedia zones so no ambilight there

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#98

Post by mvanbaak »

ZekeSulastin wrote: post #21
audunw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use IKEA trådfri with Philips Hue. It’s a bit annoying to pair but once that’s done it just works, at least it has for me.

I have some random Amazon Zigbee bulbs connected to my Hue Bridge; the only annoying thing is that, while they show up in the Hue app, Hue doesn't expose them to Homekit like it does its native bulbs. At least Homebridge will get them to show up.

They also cant be part of a multimedia zone so no ambilight/sync with the hue sync box or a philips tv

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#99

Post by Rotareti »

addandsubtract wrote: post #77
Rotareti wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's called 'direct binding.' All of my lights are directly bound to my switches, so they work even without the server or Zigbee coordinator running. With some switches, you can even bind light scenes directly to the buttons. For example, you can bind the four buttons of a Philips Hue Tap Dial to different light scenes using Zigbee2MQTT. Some switches don't allow direct binding, though. All of the Hue switche…

Do you have to choose between direct binding -or- controlling them through HA, or can you still control them through HA even when they are directly bound? Because I directly paired a switch with a light before (in Philips Hue), but then wasn't able to control it through the app anymore. Since switching to HA and Zigbee2mqtt, I just used triggers with switches, but wasn't aware that direct binding is a possibility. Go…

I configure bindings through Zigbee2MQTT. You can view the bindings in the switch configuration, where you can also update or remove them. I use Zigbee2MQTT to handle low-level Zigbee tasks such as pairing, binding, creating groups, setting up scenes, and configuring devices. Most of these things are stored within the devices and work without the coordinator/ha-server.

The configurations you set up in Zigbee2MQTT are synced with HA and can be used there as well. I use the options provided by HA for higher-level tasks, such as automations, custom sensors, statistics, and more. Everything I configure there will not work when the server/coordinator goes down.

Re: Replace Philips Hue Automation with Home Assistant's

#100

Post by 15155 »

tass wrote: post #91
elcritch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I had a house full of a variety of switches I just moved out of - some Lutron, inovelli, and Leviton. For zwave, the best actual physical control was with Leviton - they have a rocker switch for dimming and are therefore easier to use than most. They don’t support multi-press scenes or anything like that but I found that to be a bit of a gimmick anyway, and dedicated buttons are a better option. Inovelli had the most…

Inovelli is now color matched to Lutron Claro plates.
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