I have some outdoor lights in the garden and I want to put smart GU10 bulbs in them so I can change colour etc.
The garage is near the lights and I’ve been able to chain together some SmartThings power sockets in the house and garage so I have a ZigBee mesh that can reach the lights. I’m currently turning them off and on using a smart socket in the garage.
I have a Phillips Hue bridge, but I’m aware that Hue uses ZLL instead of ZHA, so if I want my Hue mesh to reach the outdoor lights I’m going to need to either chain loads of bulbs along the garden so the mesh reaches, or put another hue bridge in the garage.
Its pretty frustrating having to have two meshes so I can have smart sockets and smart bulbs in the garage/garden. Are there any coloured GU10 bulbs that use the ZHA network so I don’t have to have 2 meshes? I’m aware you can pair a ZLL bulb with the SmartThings hub but then you can’t unpair them.
First of all, most of the bulbs coming out these days are Zigbee 3.0, neither ZLL nor ZHA.
Second, it’s Typically quite easy to unpair any bulb. The one exception has been the Hue bulbs which can get tripped up if you use them without the bridge.
So I think the challenge is less difficult than you imagine as long as you stay away from trying to use hue bulbs without a hue bridge.
As far as brands for outdoors, i’m not sure exactly who’s making an RGBW GU10 for outdoors. I know Osram has outdoor models, but not sure if they have RGBW ones. INNR and Gledopto have RGBW GU10 bulbs that work with smartthings, but I don’t know if they have outdoor models. Hopefully someone with better information will post.
Thanks for the reply, oh ok I didn’t realise there was a newer standard It’s good to know I can pair other (non hue) bulbs directly to the ST hub. Sounds like I just need to get ZigBee 3.0 bulbs and pair then pair them to ST.
I was just going to put indoor GU10s into the garden lights (the light fittings themselves are water proof), is there a reason to buy bulbs designed for outdoor usage? Is temperature an issue for indoor bulbs?
I do have a scenario at the front of my house, there is an outdoor light with a hue bulb in it and on the other side of the wall is a zigbee 3.0 smart socket. but the outdoor light has really bad connectivity whereas the socket as good connectivity. I’m guessing that maybe the bulb itself is ZLL? I can’t seem to find anywhere what protocol the bulb uses. It has a product number of LCT015 if anyone out there knows?
The Hue bulb is connected to the Hue bridge and the smart socket is connected to the SmartThings hub. I have connected Hue to SmartThings though.
I did ask a question about this in the thread below. Upon reflection and the answers in that thread it makes sense that they actually wouldn’t talk to each other since they’re on different ZigBee networks.
Which is a shame really. Although with Zigbee 3.0 hopefully I can remove the Phillips Bridge in the future and have everything connected in the same network. Atm Hue is pretty is useful for creating scenes that cycle through colours without needing complex stuff like WebCore, and I also have multiple Hue ZLL bulbs that I’d rather not replace.
Why not put the plug on the Hue Bridge? It is compatible according to the description on Amazon. Then it would repeat for the bulb.
I would not assume this. Just because a bulb is Zigbee 3.0 doesn’t mean it is going to be a good repeater. ZLL devices repeat for ZHA and ZHA devices will repeat for ZLL, if they are on the same network. The problem is that most bulbs that utilize ZLL are designed with very small message buffers, so the larger ZHA messages get dropped. If a bulb is a crappy repeater, it’ll be a crappy repeater. Period.
Also, you do realize that unless your NETWORK is zigbee 3.0, your zigbee 3.0 devices are going to fail back to either ZHA or ZLL. Since ZHA devices are not supported on a zigbee 3.0 network, in order to have a Zigbee 3.0 network you have to have a zigbee 3.0 coordinator and all zigbee 3.0 devices. I know that’s not going to be practical for me anytime soon. I have too many ZHA devices already.
Unfortunately I can’t put the smart socket on the Hue network as it also repeats the signal for a leak detector I have under the kitchen sink.
I do realise unless the whole network is ZigBee 3.0 it won’t work and that is why I said I’ll keep things as they are as I have too many ZLL bulbs I don’t want to replace. I think we’re saying the same thing tbh.
It’s good to know I can pair other (non hue) bulbs directly to the ST hub. Sounds like I just need to get ZigBee 3.0 bulbs and pair then pair them to ST.