I have a few ideas about connecting the following Four major systems to smart things, I will post details here as I work my way through them.
LimitlessLED wifi enabled smart light bulbs, www.limitlessled.com I will integrate using IP Address: 192.168.1.100 UDP Port:50,000 Control Colors and Light Groups using 3 byte commands.
2) Schneider Electric Clipsal Cbus, micro controlled light switches, and micro controlled light dimmers and sensors. I will integrate using a cbus direct connect SIM 5000SM/2 module board.
national control devices www.controlanything.com allows up to 48 window sensors on one board, I will work to integrate this with smart things also.
Limitless Designs DIN rail Smart Meter. I will also look to integrate this with perhaps turning off appliances or changing colors of lights depending on power usage in each room of the house.
I hope somebody is working on something like LimitlessLED (or LIFX, I guess) that uses Zigbee or Z-Wave instead of wifi. Surely that would be cheaper to produce than a bulb with wifi, right?
One odd thing about LimitlessLED, as others have pointed out, is that they’re claiming the bulbs are $14 or $17 but shipping is expensive. More generally, it’s kind of sketchy that they don’t seem to want to tell anyone any basic information, like where they’re actually based.
We are based in Melbourne, Australia. We currently have stock available in our Melbourne warehouse, and shipping worldwide.
The postage costs are from our Melbourne warehouse where we are shipping from until we can get enough sales to ship a container to our California warehouse. If you would like to organize a group buy for shipping to your country, you can order through the website, even for large orders our shopping cart shipping prices are up to date, and it already gives discounts for larger orders – therefore place all large orders and payments through our website, thanks. We ship using EMS and DHL Air Express Track and Trace Courier.
I was actually talking about the controlanything (NCD) input boards (used as security panels for up to 48 zones). not their relays. Although their relays actually work out cheaper by the time you factor in your time and parts to build DIY relay cubes and attachments.
Gray, WiFi is actually now cheaper than Zigbee or Z-Wave due to the influx of technology brought about by insane numbers of smartphones, and tablets that need WiFi.
LimitlessLED… thanks for posting here. I appreciate the info about your company.
Here’s one question that I have: How fully will LimitlessLED integrate with SmartThings and the SmartApp?
What I mean is this: Will Smartthings be able to dim or change color of the bulbs? Or will this still be something that needs to be done via a LimitlessLED app?
And while we’re talking about the LimitlessLED app… will there be an Android version?
Also just thought of this… While I understand that WiFi is cheaper, you may want to examine the possibility of using Zigbee or Z-Wave. My understanding is that due to the mesh network having Zigbee or Z-Wave might be very attractive to certain customers, even if it costs a little bit more.
What I mean is this… My house is a VERY solidly built house…which is a good thing for the most part. The builder build my house for his daughter originally in 1950s, so it was constructed very well. Poured concrete, heavily insulated, all interior walls have gypsum board and then a think later of plaster on top of that. Now I would trade this nice solid construction for thin walls and cheap materials, but the downside is that my house isn’t very conducive to wireless signals. I see a marked drop in wifi signal when moving around. Having light bulbs that act as Zigbee or Z-wave repeaters to extend and strengthen the mesh network would be attractive to me.
Yes SmartThings will be able to dim or change color of the LimitlessLED bulbs. There are many opensource examples available, it is just a simple network TCP/IP command to activate any color or brightness.
Yes there are some free Android remote apps that are being currently integrating with LimitlessLED, I will post up the android source code as soon as its tested, should be just a day or two. They will be posted up on to this page: http://www.limitlessled.com/dev/
All ipads, iphones, smartphones, laptops have wifi. WiFi and 2.4Ghz is my preferred technology, the primary reason I chose it is because it uses the same frequencies internationally, so that you don’t get frequency compatibility problems from country to country. I understand your house is solid, my house is also solid. It will work just fine for lighting control to be honest. You can have multiple wifi bridges in your house if you like, they are only $18 each.
LimitlessLED: Thank you for adding that information to the website, but it definitely wasn’t available there yesterday. There was just a media contact e-mail address, no physical addresses.
And as said above, using a mesh technology like Zigbee or Z-Wave removes the need for additional wifi bridges. But I understand that you’re sticking with wifi.
Oh, I think you mis-understood me Limitless, or I just didn’t explain myself well… I’m not worried about the WiFi reach. I’m worried about Zigbee or Z-wave reach. Especially if I’ve got battery powered devices like many of the SmartThings are, I’m worried that those might not have enough signal strength to communicate with the hub. I was hoping that a LimitlessLED that is running Zigbee/Z-wave would act as a boosters/extenders for the mesh network for those devices.
Maybe LimitlessLED could build/offer a bulb with both Zigbee and wifi that could also act as a bridge? Would probably be a bit more expensive and it would definetly not be a big seller, but it would be very convinient(for us). It would “just work”, and that is key. But is it doable?
Is the Limitless Smart Meter networked? wifi? Is it certified for use in Europe? Up to 100amps?
Gray: I already knew they were shipping from Australia/New Zeland so it was no secret. Don´t remember where I heard it and I agree they should make it clearer to justify shipping costs. I too was a bit sceptical to a company that as far as I can see have delivered nothing but a few youtube clips. (No “independent sources” confirming the quality) Also prices seemed to be to good to be true Glad they showed up here. Their future seems bright if they can deliver what they promise.
@RockLobster, “too good to be true”, I like the sound of that. We are just realistic in our pricing given today’s technology, and we have the luxury of being a small agile company. We are already delivering on what we promise, we are currently shipping orders. I have a great idea, maybe you can ask your local tech blogger to buy some and review them, that would be a great help to us both
Anyway back on topic…
UDP commands for limitlessLED color light bulbs are by default on 192.168.1.100 and port 50,000 you can run the wifi bridge in adhoc mode (direct iphone) or Infrastructure mode, i.e. connect it to you LAN via Wifi WPA2 password and assign it an IP Address.
0x3b 0x0 0x55 = All Lights ON 0x33 0x0 0x55 = All Lights OFF 0x3C Brightness Increase 0x3E Warm White Increase 0x3F Cool White Increase 0x34 Brightness Decrease orange color = 0x20 0xA0 0x55 blue color = 0x20 0x1F 0x55
@chrisb, ahh yes, I see your great point. it wouldn’t be a big seller, and yes I could do that easily, add a $10 smartthing mesh device into each lightbulb because I already have transformers that take the voltage down to micro-controller levels. Unfortunately that would double the price of my light bulbs, I’m not too keen on that. Also, I’ve seen some zigbee/z-wave devices that are not compatible with other companies when they should be. “the great thing about standards, is that there is so many to choose from and each standard is implemented slightly differently.” We are stuck with WiFi/2.4Ghz for LimitlessLED for the time being. I’ll keep this in mind for the future though. Thanks.
@rocklobster Limitless Smart Meter are currently only available to commercial outfits in quantities of 2000 units or more. and yes they are networked using wires to a single Wifi Controller.
@Gray, yes you will need the iPhone Starter Kit to WiFi network enable the light bulbs. They are only $18 bucks so, it works out really good. Like for my living areas I have 5 zones and 15 cw/ww SmartBulbs, 3 RGB SmartBulbs and 1 wifi receiver bridge. I’ll use this as my test set up for connecting directly with the smartThings hub.
@LimitlessLED - your product sounds awesome. I’m from Melbourne also - great to see you’re representing us well!
Compared to LIFX, your offering is way cheaper by the looks of it.
In my ideal setup, Smartthings will work out of the box with Limitless, i,.e I won’t have to do any programming. Perhaps someone will build an app in the smartthings store to enable full auto control (including via the web)… (I’d pay for it!)
I was having trouble convincing my family who is building a new home now to use LIFX, but can probably easier purchase them to use LimitlessLED as its way less of a cost.
@Joel, yeah LimitlessLED has a fantastic line up of full brightness warm white and cool white smartbulbs and the rgb ones are great for kids rooms and parties.
Yes your ideal setup will come true… because the whole point of this thread is to build a free SmartThings app that will work out of the box with SmartThings, we are working with a developer SmartThings maker kit. I will hopefully have the app ready for the time of SmartThings launch.
We are also integrating with the Pebble Smartwatch too with a free App.
Yeah my friends were struggling to swallow the high LIFX pricing too. We’ve been developing these products for over 2 years now and are much cheaper and proven.
Yeah I’ll add full auto control of the LimitlessLED smartlights (including via the web) which I know you will love.
Glad they showed up here. Their future seems bright if they can deliver what they promise.