I’m thinking about adding some kind of color changing LED to my Smartthings setup and I see “official” choices are limited to the Phillips stuff (which is a bit more investment than I want to make right now) and the LIFX. Is that about it? No other non-supported color changers that anyone has found to work?
And if I do go with the LIFX (around $60 right now) does this work well with Smartthings? I’d like to have a light in our living room give off a soft blue light early in the morning (sort of a night light for my wife to navigate) but normally just a “regular” light for company. I assume I’ll be able to create a routine to set it up both ways, right?
Correct! I’d recommend making those routines based on Rule Machine, or any other smart app that you’d prefer.
Unfortunately, the options are kind of limited right now. If you’re looking for something that’s considered the best, Hue is your best choice, but even the hue isn’t perfect
If you’re interested, I’ve got a custom device type for MagicHome Wifi devices in the works that I will be releasing within the next week, but it requires a raspberry pi to host an internal server since SmartThings hubaction is so limited. Luckily, the bulbs are inexpensive (I get mine for $23/piece, and they do full color + warm white)
Finally, the MiLight bulbs also support colors, but they only do 256 colors, and have no saturation support. I think it was Jared who wrote that device type.
Some people have directly connected the Hues but there are caveats. There’s a thread on it if you search. The Osram devices do not require a hub, they pair directly with default device types.
I ended up buying a Lightify RGB A19 to try out (from Amazon, as they were the cheapest and, actually, ONLY place I could find them, although I could find the other Lightify products).
If I don’t have any luck I’ll send it back and try the LIFX (which is about $20 more). I just don’t want to go the Hue route because I don’t want to any hub or other thing (like another server ) to my network just to get colored lights working.
While I’m not a huge fan of CNET, check the results of the colour accuracy test… Philips had one job with the Gen2 bulbs to fix the most common complaint of the Gen1 bulbs, they failed and you can see how much better the LIFX are:
I have a handful of the Lifx bulbs - I like them a lot. I will say though that I usually just use the Lifx app to schedule and control them (simple timers, and whatnot). Definitely use the Lifx app when I’m at home for manual control. The UI is much easier than ST’s. I use ST to do more advanced automations with the bulbs, so a bit of both.
Philips Hues run cloud to cloud with ST. Philips Osram lightify you need the Lightify hub to update the buld firmware. Then in the Osram app you just remove the bulb from your account and include it into ST and control it directly.
With the Lowe’s sale earlier this month ( and HD price matching) I have replaced all of my Ge Wink bulbs with the Osram bulbs and replaced all of the recessed can lights in the house with the Osram RGBW 5/6 " can lights. Wife not as impressed as you might think that the whole Kitchen starts flashing yellow ( nothing has actually triggered a red alert yet LOL ) when Nest decides she burnt the toast LOL
Hi, did you have any luck with this custom device type? I’ve currently got an LED wifi controller working though a hue emulator on openHAB. But this is only picked up via a harmony hub. So not the quickest route!
Hi Peter, sorry—I don’t tend to check in here very often these days. I’m in the process of transferring all my smart-home devices to HASS.
I’ve had great luck with my device type for these bulbs. I’d honestly consider it the best iteration of 3rd party MagicHome drivers.
If you’ve got some spare cycles on a Raspberry Pi, I can send you some instructions and files on how to get it set up. I didn’t (and still don’t) want to release it to the public due to the TCP unsigned byte issue not being fixed, but I’d gladly send it to you in a PM. In its current state, the devices respond almost instantaneously. Your bulbs, ST hub, and Raspberry Pi (or server of choice) will need to be on the same network.
