This one is really interesting. As we mentioned before, anything in the US which uses radiofrequency has to have an FCC license. And those licenses typically are granted several months before the company even acknowledges that it’s working on a device.
Time to market can vary a lot after the FCC license is granted. The Logitech Harmony hub extender, for example, had its license about a year before it finally got to market. Sometimes the FCC license is the very last thing needed, and the device shows up about a month later. So that part you can’t predict until The manufacturer actually starts talking about the device, and not always then.
( The FCC license materials for the smartthings V2 hub included the Bluetooth antenna which has yet to be turned on almost a year after the product started selling.)
OK, background out of the way, here’s the exciting bit: an FCC license has been granted for a Phillips hue zigbee motion sensor. Guesses are that it will retail for about $40, which is high relative to other zigbee motion sensors ( notably the Lowe’s Iris which runs around $20), but it would likely mean you could combine motion sensors with Phillips hue lights through the hue bridge and thus get some HomeKit compatibility. It’s not clear how much. HomeKit still doesn’t allow for battery-operated sensors to trigger other events. So on the HomeKit front, will have to wait for more official details.
It’s also unclear whether these motion sensors would be visible to SmartThings. They might be like the Hue dimmer switch, where they just become a parallel means of control.
But whatever happens, if these actually come to market as is currently being predicted in early October, it’s going to make things interesting.
Was hoping that the little black dot might be luminance sensor, and for that I may have paid extra, but it turns out that it may just be an annoying ‘ambient light’ which I hope is optional, unlink Blink. Time will tell. But as solid as the lights are, I expect an equally solid motion activated Hue bulbs. And if they run locally, which I am pretty sure they will, makes it a very strong competition to Smart Lightning.
They should run locally with anything connected to the Hue bridge. The big question is whether they’ll be exposed to any other system, including SmartThings and HomeKit.
My guess is they will have a very minimal set of features. But that that will be enough for a lot of people, especially if it’s simple and reliable. We’ll see.
When it comes to motion lighting, the biggest feature is reliability and a good scheduler and Hue has both. I can see myself adding a few Hue sensors to operate the bulbs and keep the sensors I have to operate everything else. It’s definitely a step forward.
Yeah, me, too–and I think you bring up a really good point, which is that the use cases for interior “motion lighting” may be quite different than the use cases for security system motion sensors. Security system motion sensors need notifications. And often some way to disarm. But interior motion lighting doesn’t.
I mean, sure, it’s nice to have all different kinds of complex rule sets to change what comes on when. But many people will still find value in a really simple set up, especially if it’s a “set and forget” system.
No way to tell. Not all devices which attach to the hue bridge also work with SmartThings. For example, neither the hue tap nor the hue dimmer switch show in the SmartThings things list for that bridge. So we’ll just have to wait and see when it comes out.
FWIW, I’ve been using a Fibaro Motion Gen 1 sensor with my Hue Light Strips for my kitchen cabinet lighting and it has been incredibly reliable. I haven’t had a single problem with it as far as freezing up, false alerts, etc. I also love the fact it has a LUX sensor and the form factor is small and easy to mount. The only issues I’ve ever had was the middle man, Mr. Smartthings which is probably where this Hue motion sensor will be more reliable.
I did want to note that if you order from the meet hue online store, that is operated by an Irish company and you will be charged an international fee from your credit card company. Which is super annoying.
As I was watching my lights fade this evening, was thinking that would be nice if I had more dim down stages. I only step down my lights to 50% then off. It would be interesting how Philips worked this out. If more than one stage, that would be awesome.
It is my understanding that the Hue Dimmer Switch is accessible just as easily as a Hue bulb. All the Hue devices share a common AP, so in my opinion there is nothing that would prevent one from integrating this with ST. Especially now that there is no longer a need to use a ST device manager app to access the Hue hub.
Now available for pre order at Amazon, listing an
October 2 release date.
I ordered 4.
And a reminder once again: we still don’t know whether the new Hue motion sensors will be visible to SmartThings or not. It could end up being a parallel means of control, like the Hue dimmer switch or the Hue tap.
That is, SmartThings would know if a bulb attached to the bridge came on that had been triggered by the motion sensor, but it wouldn’t know anything about the motion sensor itself.
That will still work for my purposes, but it’s just not yet clear whether the Hue motion sensors could be used to trigger other SmartThings events. We’ll just have to wait-and-see.
Congrats! I am right behind you, I am just reorganizing and reassessing every gadget I have. I probably will preorder at least 4 or 5 shortly I was just about to upgrade my rooms to NYCE ceiling. I’ve been testing one and it works very, very well. In places where I have 2 sensors I could put one NYCE ceiling, but then I saw this Philips Motion picture…
I’m saying that a DTH can access the Hue bulbs and Hue Hub directly. And that the Hue API makes it possible to send / receive sensor info. Plus the Hue sensors appear to be Zigbee, so i don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be ST compatible.
Lots of people have tried to get the Hue dimmer switch to work directly with smartthings. The problem is that unlike Hue bulbs connected directly to the SmartThings hub, the dimmer switch keeps dropping off the network.
See:
A typical post from that thread:
Unfortunately for me it doesnt work. No matter how many times i add and remove,… after 30 - 60min the connection is broken everytime… really annoying… otherwise the dimmer is perfect for the setup i have in mind.
If you think it’s possible to access the dimmer switch through the bridge so that it could be used as a button controller, I know there are a lot of people who would be very interested in that. I just don’t think there’s a way to get the button presses communicated on over to the smart things hub when the dimmer switch is connected to the bridge.
The problem is that the way smart things currently gets information about a bulb is to query the bridge. The dimmer switch doesn’t have a status most of the time it just sits in a “Ready” state. Then when someone presses it A message is sent to the bridge, but I don’t know anyway to pass that along to the SmartThings hub.
So I would think the same issue would come up with the motion sensor. If it’s connected to the bridge, I don’t think there’s a way to make the bridge tell the hub when the motion sensor is activated. That’s a very different control dynamic than for a bulb.
But maybe its event reports will be visible to SmartThings , it would be great if they are.
I was just about to upgrade my rooms to NYCE ceiling. I’ve been testing one and it works very, very well. In places where I have 2 sensors I could put one NYCE ceiling, but then I saw this Philips Motion picture…
