My situation is a little different I think. I knew what I was getting into when I joined my bulbs directly to the SmartThings hub but for some reason some of my bulbs stopped responding. I had them off sitting on the shelf for several weeks and some of them worked okay but 4 wouldn’t come back. For now I would just be happy if there was someplace I could send the bulbs to have them reset to factory. When I get them back I’m going to rejoin them directly to the SmartThings hub again.
I do wonder how a bulb would accidentally join to the SmartThings hub. You have to tell the hub to allow joining and then turn on a factory reset bulb right?
Hi Manu, I tried ordering the module on Amazon but it says ‘unavailable’. Are there any sites in the US that carry it? Can I get one shipped to the US now? I am very interested in testing this product.
Hi everybody,
I’ll answer in more detail tomorrow, especially the RGBW driver and how it works.
As for the Touchlink reset support in SmartThings I can assist for implementation if it is any help. Not sure if the firmware already does support sending of interpan frames as this is required for Touchlink?
Further I would also suggest to ask Philips to expand their Touchlink scan procedure of the hue bridge also to the secondary ZigBee channels 12,13,14,16,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,26 it should be fairly easy for them, since they already have Touchlink support implemented.
The reset problem is not bound to SmartThings hub but to every HA coordinator.
RaspBee as well as other products will be available again on Amazon US soon and this time without the $35 shipping cost. Note that RaspBee and everything else is also available in our own store but is more expensive due the shipping cost.
The white channel of a RGBW light strip is calculated automatically based on its selected color and brightness.
Two things are important here:
the color saturation
the brightness
Less saturation and more brightness = more white channel output.
The reason is that in ZigBee all colors are defined within the device independent CIE 1931 color model where no such thing as RGB(W) exists. All colors are defined through their x,y coordinates in the above diagram.
What about a single white slider?
It would have been possible to provide the white channel as a separated logical device (a single dimmable light like the hue Lux). This is allowed in the ZigBee standard, but in our tests we couldn’t find any gateways which supports this.
That’s the reason why we decided to go with the automatic calculation of the white channel for now. Once the gateways support compound devices the firmware could be updated via OTA.
@manu
Thanks for the information. I guess it is a “chicken and egg” situation so to speak.
I think most buy RGBW to have a true white option. My wife can’t stand the “aquarium” white produced by RGB and after using RGBW I’ve come to appreciate her feeling. And I’ve found I prefer the subtle pastel colors produced by cranking the white up full and tweaking RGB. Others prefer RGBWW and RGB up full to give the brightest true white while giving traditionalists a warm light option.
Thus, though you are using the white channel, most won’t consider this a true RGBW solution until you provide a way to split out the white channel. And I can’t see SmartThings nor the community of developers providing a device type for it until you or another provides such.
Until then, I consider your product the best RGB solution for SmartThings users but not yet recommended for RGBW.
Hi, for everyone who was asking the FLS-PP lp is back in stock on Amazon US without shipping-cost.
@beckwith
"chicken and egg" situation describes it very well. For pastellish tones the white channel should be much brighter - that are the colors I use most of the times too.
Over xmas I will try to implement a separate white control which is also supported with Philips hue bridge - not sure if it works, but anyway it could be used optionally by ZigBee HA coordinators like SmarthThings hub with a extended driver (when talking ZigBee directly).
@manu Do you know when your RaspBee Gateway is going to be back in stock on Amazon? I need to order one as all of my Hue Bulbs have stopped responding now. Thanks!
I had it hooked up to my RGBW strip and there was not a very good cool white that came from it. I swapped my RGB to be hooked up to it since it was not working properly through the Hue hub with the RGBW. To get the best cool white, I am using my MiLight until hue gets a better control of the RGBW and not only with RGB. My RGB works great with the FLS-PP but not too well with RGBW using the Hue hub.
@JohnR sorry for the late response. Only the RaspBee premium shield for Raspberry Pi is available on Amazon - if it is any help I can provide a SD-Card Image where the basic RaspBee software is installed so you can reset the lights without configuring.
The preconfigured RaspBee Gateway is only available from our online shop.
Thanks @manu I just ordered a RaspBee Gateway from Amazon looks like they are back in stock or maybe it is just going to be shipped from your office in Germany. It has an estimated deliver date between Jan 30 and Feb 27th. Once I recover my bulbs I will be happy to help others who need their bulbs factory reset.
Manu, Did you get a chance to look into the separate white slider? Also, my strips support chasing, flashing, etc type effects, is there a way to tell your device via programming to activate any such effects? Thanks again for the help!
Yes it’s in progress but till now it didn’t worked out so well.
There are have some more ideas which I will try in the next weeks - in ZigBee there are often multiple ways to express the same functionality.
I’m not aware how to enable the effects for your light strips - is there a device in between? Normally the FLS-PP lp just controls the LEDs via PWM.
What’s the status on the white channel? I use HUE without SmartThings at the moment, but I’m really interested in this product. My goal is to use an RGB lightstrip and also have a set of LED sconces on a separate white channel.
Would this be possible to control the two devices separately but just use one controller? It seems pointless to buy a second ballast when there are already enough channels here.
I have purchased 6 of the FLS-PP IP controllers. So far I have added 3 to my Hue starter kit (has 2 Hue light strips in the base package). When they work, they work great. The problem is that about once a week the Hue loses communications with 1 or more of the FLS-PP devices. I have 1 FLS-PP within 1 Meter of the Hue, 1 FLS-PP is physically in between the Hue light strip controllers (which never lose communications), and the last FLS-PP is about 5 Meters away from all the other pieces. The “fix” is to power cycle the FLS-PP devices, which is not so easy for one of the units. I have plans to put the other 3 pieces in hard to reach points also.
What can I do to prevent the communications loss? Is there an easier way to re-connect the FLS-PP devices to the working network?
I just setup my FLS-PP Ip til a RGBW Led Strip. The Led Strip works great, and i can control it with my Hue app. But i would like to know if it in the future will be possible to control the white channel seperat.
