I’m redoing an addon to our house and figured it might be a good time to start moving towards adding smart lighting to the room!
I started looking at several options but they all seem to have pros and cons. Ideally, I’d love to have RGBW lights in the room but, honestly, I probably don’t NEED the colors, just thought they’d be fun (so if those bulbs cause more problems than they’re worth, maybe just white smart lights makes more sense).
Here were some of the things I looked at:
Individual RGB lights - Sylvania RBG recessed lights
Pros: Pretty decent price for 6 of them ($70 on amazon), has RGB and can pair each with the hub directly, can change the colors and color temperature
Cons: I’ve read these have issues turning ALL the way off, concerned about being able to sync them (since they’re individual lights), sounds like the colors aren’t as dynamic as the regular lightify rgb bulbs
Indidual non RGB lights - Halo RL56
Pros: Seems to have pretty good reviews, sounds like it has good integration with smartthings, color temperature adjustment down to 2700K
Cons: More expensive at about $20 each, not sure how easy these will be to sync up
Some sort of pseudo hub system to keep them synced up (like philips hue)
Pros: Seems like a potentially good way to keep the bulbs up, possibly create zones/scenese
Cons: I don’t know much about this setup so I might need to do some more research/get more suggestions
Use some sort of smartswitch to control the individual bulbs
Pros: Would be easy to link with smartthings
Cons: Not sure how easy integration would be
Basically, I have lots of options and thought I’d pop my head in to see if anyone has some recommendations on the best way to approach this. If you need any additional information before you can make suggestions, let me know. Thanks so much in advance for all your help!
I recommend Sengled BR30’s. Full color and adjustable white. Easily match each other for color. I now have all my indoor can lights switched to these (13 of them). They’re Zigbee lights and often on sale.
The BR30 fits in a typical recessed fixture. I had LED can lights installed when I built my house. They’re inexpensive builder grade (bought in bulk) can fixtures.
The lights can be synced into a group within the Smart Things app (new v3), though the majority of my scenes are setup with Alexa.
If the lights are turned off at the switch, they’ll remember their last setting when the switch is turned back on. They’re end device Zigbee, so if they’re off they won’t kill your network.
Anyone know if these are zigbee repeaters? I have one installed but don’t have many zigbee devices yet. Is there a way to check this in the parameters in the samsung account online?
EDIT: found the answer here. “When receiving power, this device will act as a signal repeater to extend the range of your ZigBee mesh network.”
I found out from the manufacturer that: " Yes, AC-powered HALO Zigbee devices act as repeaters, but only repeat messages for other HALO Zigbee products". So…not, it really isn’t a repeater unless you are heavily invested in the Halo ecosystem.
Reviving this thread to report this is NOT accurate. I’ve been having fits with my Zigbee network after moving to a new house and having 30 or so of these lights installed. I discovered in the IDE tonight that the Halos are repeating to my Sengled lamp bulbs, which I have struggled to keep connected. Well, the light switches often get turned off. Now I’ll likely be pulling a dozen of the lights out and putting in dumb lights.
The extremely irritating thing is the cans in this house are not compatible with my old Sengled BR30s which were amazing.
If you like the smart recessed lights other than the fact that people keep turning them off at the switch, you can use a smart switch cover to prevent that. These are available from several different manufacturers now, with different form factors.
The simplest, least expensive is the go control Z wave two button switch cover. Zwave Products usually has these on sale for less than $15 each.
You could also use the inovelli mains-powered zwave switch configured to smart bulb mode:
There are a couple of other options if you’re interested. It’s basically the same issue as finding a wall controller for any smart bulb, except that you can’t use the options that only work with a Hue bridge.
I just discovered a different issue with my RL56 Halo and Sengled bulbs. The Zigbee path re-routed on one of the bulbs, such that it now tries to go through the RL56 Halo. IDE shows RSSI = 0 and all messages transmitted to device failed.
Will the bulb or hub figure this out on their own? Or is there some way to force the uncooperative RL56 Halo to stay out of the signal path? The Halo has been installed for a couple of weeks. Not sure if it was responsible for other wonky stuff on my Zigbee network (door sensor didn’t work a few days ago).
I doubt it. I’m finding that these Halo bulbs are incredibly strong and can pick up a signal at very long distance with zero repeating. I have three Sengled bulbs one wall away within 10 ft of the hub and find that they will still route through a Halo before going to that hub. There are Halos above the hub, but they are 20-ft up in the air.
You can try to force those bulbs to reroute by unplugging your hub for 20 plus minutes. While that is going on have the halo bulbs off at the switch so they have no power. This will send the Sengled bulbs into a frenzy to find a route. After the 20 or so minutes, plug the hub back in and still leave the Halo lights switched off. After you know the Sengled bulbs work, try turning the Halo switch back on. No guarantee they won’t reroute to the Halo again, but it gives you a chance.
I’ve been having no problems for about a week now, but that required a ton of troubleshooting. I ended up having to move my hub to a different room in my house. There seemed to be something blocking my signal to the Sengled bulbs only. Now that I’ve moved the hub, they’re staying connected even though some are still routing through a Halo.
I just took another look, and they seem to be suddenly and magically talking. I have Wyze cam that can see the bulb, so I confirmed that it is responding to commands.
No kidding that this thing must be strong - it has the best Last Hop LQI in my network … slightly better than a sensor that is within 10 feet and nothing in between. The Halo is one floor down.
