Smart Lamp

Devices & Integrations
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22

The following topics might give you some more ideas:

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23

Also wanted to say that although voice is the primary method we use now, we have also added several of the $25 battery-powered Phillips hue dimmer switches so that we have intuitive controls in certain places. There’s one on the guestroom nightstand, for example.

These don’t connect directly to SmartThings, but they serve as a parallel means of control. It will take SmartThings about five minutes sometimes to update the status of the light, so it might think the light was still on even though someone had turned it off with the switch. But it does catch up pretty quickly. Like I say, it works very well for us in certain areas.

The iris Zigbee button has better integration with SmartThings, so you can have it do more stuff, but if you just want to turn the smart bulbs in a room on off or dim I really like the Philips remote.

24

We use the minimote in our bedroom + smart bulbs. After the lamp got turned off with the switch the first time the switch was removed forcing the use of the button that is next to the lamp.

It was the force of habit to turn the switch, but now the habit is to hit the button.

No Alexa in my house yet. :frowning:

Edit: forgot to mention, she likes it better now because it fades off rather than flicks off.

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25

I have two lamps in my living room as well as the overhead light. The two lamps have smart billings in them and when they are off, you can not tell based on the lamp twist switches. The overhead is controlled by a smart switch.

The only time the overhead light is used is when we want a lot of light in the room. So I’ve set up triggered rule. When the overhead light is physical turned on the two lamps go to 100%. When it is turned off, they go to 60 & 40 %. (I haven’t figured out how to return to previous state yet).

The point of this example is this


What you can do with a table lamp is limited only by your imagination and your budget.

My WAF is very high. She acts like she hates talking to Alexa, but once something goes offline she is all flustered until she no longer has to deal with light switches.

26

What happens when the knob ok the lamp is in the off position? No automation can occur. Removing that from the equation is the ultimate goal.

27

I told mine not to physically turn it off. It took her a few days but she came around.

You can always remove the little screw part on the lamp
 then what’s she gonna do? Sit in the dark?

28

Wow[quote=“JDRoberts, post:23, topic:34501, full:true”]
Also wanted to say that although voice is the primary method we use now, we have also added several of the $25 battery-powered Phillips hue dimmer switches so that we have intuitive controls in certain places. There’s one on the guestroom nightstand, for example.

These don’t connect directly to SmartThings, but they serve as a parallel means of control. It will take SmartThings about five minutes sometimes to update the status of the light, so it might think the light was still on even though someone had turned it off with the switch. But it does catch up pretty quickly. Like I say, it works very well for us in certain areas.

The iris Zigbee button has better integration with SmartThings, so you can have it do more stuff, but if you just want to turn the smart bulbs in a room on off or dim I really like the Philips remote.


[/quote]

WOW! 5 minutes? that’s with the GE switches?

29

No, nothing in the post you quoted refers to GE switches. As the picture and the link show it refers to the Phillips dimmer remote.

And the five minutes isn’t the amount of time it takes the light come on when you press the button on the Phillips switch. The light comes on immediately. The five minutes is the time it may take the status tile on the things listed in the official SmartThings mobile app to show the change in status from off to on.

For many people, including us, that five minute lag doesn’t matter. If there’s somebody in the guestroom and they turn the switch on, the light comes on. It’s not likely that anyone else is going to be using a phone in that time to consider changing the status of the light, and even if they did, tapping on it wouldn’t change the light in the guestroom since it’s already on.

The five minute delay in updating the mobile app primarily matters for people who are using automations so that, for example, turning on the lights in the guestroom is supposed to also turn on the hallway light. This is called “following” The other light and requires that the hub know when one changes so it can send the message to change the other one. That’s a situation where the parallel means of control may introduced too much lag.

30

Thanks for the clarification

Hypothetical here: If I connect ST to an amazon echo and I have some scenes. There is a potential for a light to be turned off when it’s intended to be on if the status hasn’t updated.

Like, “echo turn lights off” lights go off;
“echo I want to watch a movie” (receiver turns on, lights are supposed to go off)" but the lights turn on due to the hub thinking the light is on but needs to be off.

Thanks,
Joe

31

Echo doesn’t do scenes yet. Just turns a device or group of devices on or off.

You can get the same results by having a virtual switch that is known to echo trigger multiple events either through harmony or through SmartThings.

But in both cases asking to turn off a light that is already off won’t turn it on instead. It will just still be off. :sunglasses:

32

Not to be pedantic, but I will :sunglasses:

It’s very unlikely, but if someone turns on a light with the phillips remote and then gets in bed or whatever and triggers a routine to turn off all the lights, the light turned on by Phillips will stay on because the hub thinks it is off.

Not likely, but believe me, it will happen when you are trying to show off how cool your HA system is. (Or when the wife is already having a bad day.)

33

This definitely used to be true. It caused problems if Echo was used to turn off a light via the Hue bridge rather than through ST.

However, sometime since October this appears to have changed, and commands are sent to the device regardless of the account’s recorded status. This may have been part of updating the echo and Harmony integrations, I don’t know.

Anyway, test it. I think you’ll find the off command gets sent regardless. If not, let us know.

34

ST changed, or echo changed? I don’t have an echo. I was thinking if you used a minimote or Siri or something like that.

35

ST changed, I think because there were third party options throwing things off. This used to be an IFTTT issue as well.

36

then how does the instant status work? Or what does the instant status do?

37

As usually used in a Home automation context, “instant status” refers to a patent held by Lutron which allows a radio frequency dimmer wall switch (any protocol, including zwave and zigbee) to immediately inform the controller (which in this case would be the SmartThings hub) if someone manually presses the switch.

Only a few companies have licensed this patent for use with Zwave or zigbee devices, including Cooper and Leviton. GE and Philips have not licensed the patent.

There are some workarounds that other brands use but they’re not quite as instant as the Lutron method.

So if you’ve been reading up on light switches in the forums, that’s likely what was being referred to.

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38

Perfect response. What’s the approximate delay for GE switches without the workarounds?

39

I have GE switches and I haven’t noticed a delay longer than a few seconds.

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40

Well assuming my wife is okay with the look, it’s GE switches for me!

41

I have an old GE switch (not dimmer) and it is pretty instant.

I have the newer variety GE dimmer and it is not instant. It can take up to 10 seconds for the hub to notice.

I do not know if the new switches are as instant as the old.