Led Strips - Is it worth get a Hue or are there other solutions?

OK, I have ST and a couple of WeMo bulbs at the moment. But I wanted to add LED strips. The first place I had the idea of doing was on my stairs. They have a lovely overhang allowing for strips to be put underneath them. I’ve considered getting the Phillips Hue hub but this has thrown up all sorts of questions, any help is appreciated !

Phillips Hue:

  • If I wanted this on my stairs would I literally have to buy a strip for every step, as far as I can see you can cut the LED strips but you cannot reconnect, this means every step will cost £80 ?
  • How well does it integrate with ST, if I trigger the LED to come on when a sensor is activated would it allow me to say come on in this colour at this brightness ?

Other LED strips

  • Are there any other better solutions for an LED strip on each step?
  • If I use a ‘normal’ LED strip on an ST plug presumably it will just come on full power when triggered ?

As I said, any help or thoughts appreciated :grin:

The following is a little old but may help:

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Sylvania (OSRAM) 73795 LIGHTIFY Smart Connected Lighting LED Flexible Strip RGBW

Works with ST. Decent price.

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The Hue Lightstrip Plus are very nice, but I’m not sure they are truly worth the cost if you need multiples and extensions.

A cheaper solution is to get a Harmony Home hub linked with ST and use Taotronics LED strips as Harmony works with those. You won’t have as clean an interface, but you can set up Harmony activities to go to all the different colors or brightnesses you would typically use.

The Osram LEDs also work great and are Zigbee.

DRESDEN FLP LED Module . . . turns dumb LED STRIPS into smart ones . . . i have installed a few for myself ans friends, they work a charm and can even be picked up by actual HUE as been one of there own strips haha :slight_smile: this way you can make a 20m led strip for the same price as a 2m hue one :slight_smile:

Cheers guys. I’m liking the Lightify range and I’ve saw mention of the Dresden before as well.

So this leads onto a couple of more questions. With lightify, can you cut and going the led strips therefore making more use of them (With Hue you can only cut and throw away the bit you cut off).

If I went down the Dresden route, are there recommended brands of LED strips that anyone has used ? (And power etc) and once again I presume I can cut and join these as I want but is there an easy way with extenders of some kind ?

Love my Osram’s

No, the Osram lights are 2’ each, and when you cut it, you throw away the bit.

I like getting packs like this, too : http://www.amazon.com/Osram-73826-Connectors-Lightify-System/dp/B0142T2HW8, which allows you to do all this cleanly, especially if you want lights on every step.

For Events, I LOVE osrams, easy to pair too. They’re ZigBee based, and they’re the most reliable things in my setups, especially when I have to build a house full of ST in 2 days.

Cheers. I’m now toying with the idea of building a window into the dark area :slight_smile: complete change of plan !!! But I think Osram’s will creep into the under lighting everywhere else, the extenders will allow me to take them around my kitchen cabinets (Which is next on the list). Do you have to get the hub or can they be used direct with ST (I know that is probably in another thread!)

No, but you’d have to cut each segment (assuming you only want light along the width of the step), and then join using either commercial or custom connectors.

Another limitation is that you can only cut the light strips in specific locations (Hue light strips are clearly marked), which will then dictate the length across the step (rather than letting you decide how much of the step to line).

Depending upon the length of run you’ll need, the Lightstrip Plus will probably be more appropriate, as it can go up to 33ft in length, but that strip has 6 wires (I think), vs. 4 in the regular Lightstrip, and so you’ll need different connectors.

Chris,

If you had the Lightstrip plus and my steps are 75cm, would I be able to cut every 75(ish allowing for the cut marks) and use a commercial connector to join up to the next step (Around the back of the stairs). Therefore making the most use out of the strip itself ?

Does anyone know if there is some easy to use connectors to break and reconnect the lightstrip plus ?

(By the way cheers for all the help so far !!!)

Some bell wire and a soldering iron.
Clean off the covering, pre tin tape and cable. It’s pretty easy, and allows for some neat install.
will work fine over the distance of between stair treads.

The hues have to plug into a socket for each individually controllable strip. That can add up to a lot of sockets quickly, and take up a lot of space. It’s like a good sized all in one PSU plug

Going by the 1 meter Lightstrip Plus Extension that I haven’t installed (so it’s easier to measure)…it has two evenly spaced places where it can be cut…so each is about 33.3 cm apart. I would assume the initial Lightstrip Plus has similar spacing (but you should verify that).

Here’s a post on Reddit by someone who used CAT6 wire to extend his Lightstrip Plus segments around his kitchen.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hue/comments/3pj9dp/successfully_split_and_extended_the_hue_light/.

Personally I’d look for a solution that avoids soldering, but that’s just me…further down in the Reddit posts, there’s a link to a 6 pin connector that should work for you as a starting point at least.

Cheers everyone. Great info, good to see I’m not alone :slight_smile: