And I know what you’re thinking – stick a $5 adapter on there and your A19 will be a GU24. Well I tried that and didn’t work. Maybe it was the bulb or the adapter. The adapter was from Amazon, got top reviews but like all the adapters, was Chinese and cheap. The bulb was Osram Turnable white. Bulbs work fine in regular outlet. Adapter works fine with regular bulb. But combine the adapter and the wifi bulb and no dice. I cannot change my wall switch (old house). But I really need a connected bulb on my daughter’s ceiling fan because she keeps waking up at 4 AM and turning her light on, waking her brother. So I thought, put in a wifi bulb on a schedule and she won’t be able to turn it on until a reasonable hour. Any ideas around this problem. It’s a standard Hampton Bay ceiling fan, if that matters.
I’m not sure this will work like you’d like. Smart bulbs turn on when power is cut and restored, so if she’s turning on the light bulb it will still turn on, even if it’s a smart bulb.
I’m also not familiar with any GU24 compatible smart bulbs in the US.
All the smart bulbs in my house only turn on if both the wall switch and the smart bulb are turned on. Which is why I strongly prefer changing the wall plates vs smart bulbs. If there are smart bulbs that turn on even if the wall switch is off, that must be something I’ve missed.
If I wasn’t clear – the plan was to schedule the bulb to always be off until she is allowed to wake up.
But I wonder – could I buy one of those wifi switches (or whatever they’re called) to operate the light, and would it then now work with an Osram A19 bulb and an adapter?
That’s most unusual. I have Cree and Hue bulbs, and regardless of their existing state they turn on if you turn the wall (or lamp) switch off and then on. What bulbs do you have??
Mostly Cree. Perhaps it’s because my wall switches don’t have neutral wires?
So if you have the bulb off on your app and someone toggles the light switch on the wall, the light comes on? Regardless of the app?
Surely there has to be a solution here – willing to buy a wifi outlet that controls the lights. But I need a solution where I can stop (by rule) her from turning on lights before 6 am.
The solution here won’t be a smart bulb. She’ll be able to toggle the wall switch and have it turn on like a regular bulb. Setting the bulb to “off” in the mobile app just turns it off if the bulb is already on. It doesn’t define the “default state” of the bulb should power be restored.
It sounds like you’re trying to disable power to that light during certain hours so that the bulb can’t be turned on. The only thing that I can think of would be wiring in a micro switch, like one from Aeon Labs. You’d be able to turn off the micro switch, cutting power to the light, and have it not work until you decide to turn the micro switch back on. These micro switches can be hidden inside of a wall, inside of a gangbox, or even in some ceiling fixtures.
So, what the others have said about how these bulbs work is true in my experience so I won’t comment on that, however I did want to give you my experience with those adapters you mentioned. I too bought probably the exact same adapters from Amazon. I too, initially believed they didn’t work with my GE Link bulbs in this case. What I realized is the base of the connected bulbs is too fat which doesn’t allow it to seat all the way into the adapter.
I took a sawzall and cut the top of the adapter off. It’s just excess plastic so it doesn’t hurt anything. After that the bulbs screwed right in and have been working perfectly for months now. I can probably take a picture of you need or are interested. Good luck!
Wait that might be my solution for this and for my house. It looks like that can be used on “old house” switch boxes to control the lights via Smartthings, which is exactly what I need. I am not familiar with these micro switches but can they be used to turn on/off the light via Smartthings?
Yes, this is used to wireless control a load from SmartThings.
Got it. It looks like the reviews on Amazon that without a neutral on the wall switch this gadget needs to be installed on the light itself. Correct? Because the neutral is on the light fixture box, not the wall switch. Seems crazy to me and I don’t understand how that will work but hopefully my electrician can figure it out.
REALLY REALLY easy to do this on Planet X! You Earthlings are so far behind on the “Smart” tech.