Soldato
Hi gang 
I was wondering how you're all getting on with RGB LED domestic bulbs? Sorry for the long post, but I'm here to compare 3 different systems.
DMX - protocol used for disco and stage lights
iDual - LED RGB bulbs
Philips Hue - LED RBG bulbs + IOT (internet of things)
I started out with DMX - my main weapon of choice for LEDs. Most DJs use a DMX desk (looks like a sound mixer), but I use a USB-to-DMX interface and run the lights from my laptop. They're not consumer LED products but they have lit up my house (downstairs) since 2006. With clusters of 12-watt diodes in a single fixture, you can get some pretty hefty brightness. Also good colours and colour temperatures as they have white and amber diodes on top of the usual RGB primaries and they mix together. Some diodes also have UV to accentuate certain colours.
3 years ago, I swapped all of my white domestic LED bulbs for iDual bulbs. They are 16 watts each and they light up to the equivalent of 100 watts incandescent spot bulbs. The colour mixing is good too, plus warm to cold white. These bulbs remain powered on via the wall and you turn them on/off via the colour palette remote which takes 3 AAA batteries. The remote also has animated programs such as simulating fire (flickering and different shades of orange), and water scenes, romantic, party mode + others, all animated.
This week, I tried Philips Hue. Started with a pair of E27's, 9 watts each, so not as bright as the iDuals, but they do look more presentable as they're normal bulb shape. In white mode, they output about 60 watts of the incandescent type which I could probably make do with if I ordered more bulbs, but the colour mode is very dark compared to the iDuals. I also didn't like that there weren't any animations in the app like the fire and water effects. All worked perfectly fine though over bluetooth. So I ordered 4 more bulbs and the Hue Bridge which acts as a network repeater. I was disappointed. The first problem I had was to get my phone and laptop to detect the bridge, which is wired to the router via a LAN cable. The router saw it fine and it had an IP address of 192.168.1.104. When I typed it into Firefox, that also resolved ok. After looking around on Reddit, it turns out that the Hue bridge conflicts with Nord VPN, which I have on both phone and laptop. In principle, I shouldn't have to disable a VPN to access the bridge/bulbs when the router can see it? When I disabled Nord, the bridge was detected ok. However, the bridge then couldn't detect my 2 bulbs. I took them out of their sockets to get their serial numbers, typed them in and tried a manual search based on those numbers. Also I made sure that the bulbs had power going to them. No joy. Tried line-of-sight (so the bridge and bulbs could see each other). Again no joy. Switched back to bluetooth and they worked again via the app.
I have now cancelled the remaining 4 bulbs and I'm returning the original 2 bulbs + bridge as it was a lot of money, £260 all-in. I think I'll try again in a few years time when Philips issue more powerful bulbs (like 14-16W), and when they can come up with another network protocol. The 6 iDual bulbs btw were around £100 all-in in comparison.
I also have wireless DMX which expands on wired DMX, which can be fiddly as you work with channel numbers like on a regular router. I have 1 transmitter (I guess equivalent to the Hue Bridge) and 3 receivers, and it's a piece of cake compared to the Philips system.
So what systems are you all using? I'll still remain as a DMX kid for bright stuff, but just after some ideas on the domestic side.
I was wondering how you're all getting on with RGB LED domestic bulbs? Sorry for the long post, but I'm here to compare 3 different systems.
DMX - protocol used for disco and stage lights
iDual - LED RGB bulbs
Philips Hue - LED RBG bulbs + IOT (internet of things)
I started out with DMX - my main weapon of choice for LEDs. Most DJs use a DMX desk (looks like a sound mixer), but I use a USB-to-DMX interface and run the lights from my laptop. They're not consumer LED products but they have lit up my house (downstairs) since 2006. With clusters of 12-watt diodes in a single fixture, you can get some pretty hefty brightness. Also good colours and colour temperatures as they have white and amber diodes on top of the usual RGB primaries and they mix together. Some diodes also have UV to accentuate certain colours.
3 years ago, I swapped all of my white domestic LED bulbs for iDual bulbs. They are 16 watts each and they light up to the equivalent of 100 watts incandescent spot bulbs. The colour mixing is good too, plus warm to cold white. These bulbs remain powered on via the wall and you turn them on/off via the colour palette remote which takes 3 AAA batteries. The remote also has animated programs such as simulating fire (flickering and different shades of orange), and water scenes, romantic, party mode + others, all animated.
This week, I tried Philips Hue. Started with a pair of E27's, 9 watts each, so not as bright as the iDuals, but they do look more presentable as they're normal bulb shape. In white mode, they output about 60 watts of the incandescent type which I could probably make do with if I ordered more bulbs, but the colour mode is very dark compared to the iDuals. I also didn't like that there weren't any animations in the app like the fire and water effects. All worked perfectly fine though over bluetooth. So I ordered 4 more bulbs and the Hue Bridge which acts as a network repeater. I was disappointed. The first problem I had was to get my phone and laptop to detect the bridge, which is wired to the router via a LAN cable. The router saw it fine and it had an IP address of 192.168.1.104. When I typed it into Firefox, that also resolved ok. After looking around on Reddit, it turns out that the Hue bridge conflicts with Nord VPN, which I have on both phone and laptop. In principle, I shouldn't have to disable a VPN to access the bridge/bulbs when the router can see it? When I disabled Nord, the bridge was detected ok. However, the bridge then couldn't detect my 2 bulbs. I took them out of their sockets to get their serial numbers, typed them in and tried a manual search based on those numbers. Also I made sure that the bulbs had power going to them. No joy. Tried line-of-sight (so the bridge and bulbs could see each other). Again no joy. Switched back to bluetooth and they worked again via the app.
I have now cancelled the remaining 4 bulbs and I'm returning the original 2 bulbs + bridge as it was a lot of money, £260 all-in. I think I'll try again in a few years time when Philips issue more powerful bulbs (like 14-16W), and when they can come up with another network protocol. The 6 iDual bulbs btw were around £100 all-in in comparison.
I also have wireless DMX which expands on wired DMX, which can be fiddly as you work with channel numbers like on a regular router. I have 1 transmitter (I guess equivalent to the Hue Bridge) and 3 receivers, and it's a piece of cake compared to the Philips system.
So what systems are you all using? I'll still remain as a DMX kid for bright stuff, but just after some ideas on the domestic side.
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