LifeX Bulbs (Or other smart bulbs) am I missing the point?

jpaul said:
it is instinctive, especially for upstairs light where you might turn it on before going upstairs, unless, you have a motion detector facing down stairs.

Does that rely on having an active hub that speaks to the bulb after the power-off, or, it is functionality(eprom) in the newer BT/bulbs
.... ie. I shouldn'y buy old bulbs.
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I was under the impression it needed the bridge, so new bulbs (BT) would still work, they would just pick up their power on instruction from the bridge.

Tradfri bulbs don't support this from the Hue bridge. You might get it to overlap with the Tradfri hub to get it to return to previous status, but frankly that would be a waste of extra hardware/power for the very rare occasion. Plus with a centrally controlled smart hub, there's much easier options.

Schizophonic said:
it does become that lifestyle change to remember not to manually flick the switch off but its the convenience of walking out of a room and the door has the light switch right next to it. It takes longer to find your phone to open the app and then scroll to the light and switch it up.

I've been reading up the options I have to have both functionality of the light switch on the wall and get it functioning on the app.
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It's even better than that. One of the best setups i've got is a contact sensor on my front door, so as soon as the door opens, the hallway light switches on. There's no faffing around with voice commands, or waving at motion sensors (Hue motion sensors are **** btw), the light just comes straight on before i can even open it fully to walk through.
 
Bluecube said:
Hue bulbs will use their previous colour and brightness if turned off and on. This has been the case for a good couple of years now.
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Mine definitely do not remember brightness but they are just the regular white ones.
 
Semple said:
The option is definitely there. You can choose default, last used state, or custom.
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Do you have a Phillips Hub? I'm connecting to the first ZigBee compatible Alexa hub and don't see it in my options.
 
tres said:
I changed my wall switch to a smart switch. No need for expensive bulbs then.
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I thought about this as well but I didnt want the hastle of removing and replacing them all when I moved house and when I priced it up I was actually able to get the blubs cheaper than the switches!
 
Slade2 said:
I thought about this as well but I didnt want the hastle of removing and replacing them all when I moved house and when I priced it up I was actually able to get the blubs cheaper than the switches!
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Took me <5 minutes to change a switch, and they were on AliExpress for £6 each - but the benefit of the other half & visitors not switching the smart bulbs off with the traditional switch meant I would have paid lots more

Plus I'm lazy and love going to bed and turning off every light in the house with a quick ask
 
Semple said:
I was under the impression it needed the bridge, so new bulbs (BT) would still work, they would just pick up their power on instruction from the bridge.
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I had thought/implied the converse, if you need to have a hub, and, have it powered up, to get the bulbs to restore correctly thats a bit naff,
versus storing that instruction on the hardware/eprom in the newer BT hue bulbs.

edit:
tres said:
Plus I'm lazy and love going to bed and turning off every light in the house with a quick ask
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If I'm in a room, there is really no inconvenience turning the light off with the switch,
the only remote control that would, personally, be useful to me is turning on/off the espresso machine in the kitchen, from the wfh office.

maybe remote contol lighting via Alexa is good for reducing any in house covid transmission.
 
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It might be the bulbs can't update the firmware with the Alexa bridge and/or you can't use it to program them with the default behaviour.

I remember a colleague who had the Alexa bridge telling me it was missing lots of features at the time so he bought a hub. You can still use it with Alexa afterwards.

No idea whether it's the bridge or the bulb that tells it what to do though.
 
If by Alexa bridge you mean echo dot , yes they are limited

jpaul said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hue/comments/c8oaby/new_bluetooth_capabilities_and_new_hue_bulbs/

So basically bluetooth just lets you do what you can already do with wifi?
Just not as well, limited to 10 bulbs, limited range to control them, have to use a special Bluetooth Hue app, no routines, no Hue sync.
Basically a limited version to get you to upgrade to a bridge where all the features are.
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I also learned the echo dot is not a replacement for either the hue hub, or 3rd party zigbee hubs .. Amazon being economic with the truth,
so the black friday dot deals, for controlling hue anyway, were not a gift horse 2xcolour+dot£69

jpaul said:
Dot gives bluetooth control for 4 bulbs - https://www.reddit.com/r/alexa/comments/cdjsw9/echo_dotalexa_questions_with_phillips_hue_smart/
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jpaul said:
I had thought/implied the converse, if you need to have a hub, and, have it powered up, to get the bulbs to restore correctly thats a bit naff,
versus storing that instruction on the hardware/eprom in the newer BT hue bulbs.
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I'm not sure why you're finding that strange when you literally quoted a while ago (as referenced above) that BT is pretty pants. It lacks huge amounts of features over the zigbee variant.

Hue basically added BT functionality just to keep up with the market, and allow those people who buy a single smart bulb and now perceive their home as smart.

For most of us with large amounts of smart home tech, BT isn't to be used for lighting.
 
Semple said:
I'm not sure why you're finding that strange when you literally quoted a while ago (as referenced above) that BT is pretty pants. It lacks huge amounts of features over the zigbee variant.
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sorry I wasn't clear - when they enhanced the bulb semiconductor hardware to support bluetooth this also enabled them to add capability to store bulb state,
hence the (yet to be refuted) theory that restore is only for newer bulbs
 
jpaul said:
sorry I wasn't clear - when they enhanced the bulb semiconductor hardware to support bluetooth this also enabled them to add capability to store bulb state,
hence the (yet to be refuted) theory that restore is only for newer bulbs
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You mean older bulbs?

But yes I agree the only way to know is someone whos got their bulbs connected by BT to confirm.

A quick look at the requirements says you must have a gen2 bridge.

So yes they could have added some memory to the bulb when updating them with BT, but could be several reasons why they wouldn't have the power on functionality on their own.
 
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Semple said:
You mean older bulbs?

But yes I agree the only way to know is someone whos got their bulbs connected by BT to confirm.

A quick look at the requirements says you must have a gen2 bridge.

So yes they could have added some memory to the bulb when updating them with BT, but could be several reasons why they wouldn't have the power on functionality on their own.
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(to clear up confusion for others ) No i mean exclusively on the newer bulb,

but your later later sentence (your edit?) indicates you'd later understood, what I mean
 
Pho said:
It might be the bulbs can't update the firmware with the Alexa bridge and/or you can't use it to program them with the default behaviour.

I remember a colleague who had the Alexa bridge telling me it was missing lots of features at the time so he bought a hub. You can still use it with Alexa afterwards.

No idea whether it's the bridge or the bulb that tells it what to do though.
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I know I'm not able to pair a hue switch to a bulb through my echo (not dot, the bigger ZigBee one). Need to grab a hub ... Anyone have one spare? :)
 
stop buying smart bulbs, whilst they do have some advantages, there disadvantages outweigh those.
Its a hideously expensive way of getting smart lighting.
My front room has 1 circuit with 8 downlights, and another with 2 light fittings each with 3 bulbs in.
my kitchen has 2 circuits totalling 18 bulbs, sod coughing up for smart bulbs for all of those

buy normal bulbs (much much cheaper)
and smart switches

I do use some smart bulbs myself but not in main room lights, they are used in table lamps and in the form of LED light strips, but even those are "dumb" light strips connected to an RGD wifi/zigbee controller.

So I can still control all of my lights by app/voice command but also by room/wall switches.

The only downside is that it doesn't allow RGB, but take my living room as an example.
I have my TV mounted on a floating wall that has an RGB strip behind it, then another behind the TV itself
I have a shelf unit that also has an RGB strip mounted inside it, then either side of the sofa I have 2 lamps each with an RGB bulb in them, so I can dim my main lights and have all of those RGB strips turn to whatever colour I desire with a simple voice command by using an alexa routine
 
But why would you put smart bulbs in a kitchen in the first place? Smart bulbs should augment and expand your lighting. You don’t need to replace every single light bulb in your house with a smart equivalent in order to benefit.
 
I agree with Massive,
also, people have also been putting in smart bulbs because smart (mechanical) switches for dumber bulbs, sub £10, are pretty new, versus £70 last generation, newer houses have 3way wiring too, plus, hassle of installing those smart switches too (eg 2 way landing lights) may deter people
- with an economic alternative/competition, smart bulbs may drop in price.

Smart dimmer switches for dumb bulb still seem problematic/expensive - with possible flickering problems from dumb bulbs, well, many smart bulbs have dimming/flickering issues , anyway.

Even dumb bulbs have significant electronics in them, so although the smart electronics add some cost, it's sub £1, that doesn't justify the (hue bulb) £12 versus dumb £2.
Dumb bulb that offer some dimming/K control, by pulsing the switch are a good hybrid.

Maybe 10% of my led bulbs fail per year, if I had hue at £12/shot, I'd be annoyed, but maybe their guarantee is good.
 
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