Ok a couple follow up questions. I use IFTT for other things but don’t currently use it with SmartThings - would there a long lag time for the light to be triggered? Also if it’s a noise sensor of sorts, could it sense a doorbell? Not sure how familiar you are with the product, but any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
IFTTT lag varies from house to house. At my house, it’s a pretty consistent eight seconds, which is good enough for most things, but might not work for everyone. You just have to try it and see.
If you need a light for a doorbell indicator, you could just go with a regular hue light if you already have a Hue bridge or again, the Homeseer Device. At our house we have a Hue light strip next to my housemate’s television and it will blink blue if I tell echo to do that or press a logitech pop button, so that’s our emergency signal. (He doesn’t check his texts if he’s playing video games.) so there are several options depending on exactly what you need. 
If I may jump in here quickly, I’m also interest in a colour changing indicator light…need the most basic, cheapest option…even the standalone wifi light colour light bulbs at ~$50CAD seem overpriced for my use case. @JDRoberts is the Leeo the cheapest option for colour changing lights you know of?
It depends on what you’re looking for.
1. Cheapest color bulb for now:$25
Xioami’s “yeelight” brand has a $25 Wi-Fi RGB colorchanging WiFi bulb available in both a 110 V and a 220 V model. It looks very nice, but like a lot of Xiaomi products it tends to disconnect from the network about once a week. And of course it’s Wi-Fi, so I hesitate to recommend WiFi bulbs since many Wi-Fi routers can only handle 30 devices, and others can only handle 100, and if you have everything in your house on one Wi-Fi network you can run out pretty fast once you start using addresses for bulbs.
But it does have an IFTTT channel (yeelight) and it does have native echo integration, and if you want something cheap and you’re OK with it glitching once a week, it’s definitely something to consider.
They also make a Bluetooth bulb and a zigbee bulb which doesn’t work with SmartThings or Hue, so read the product descriptions carefully as the Wi-Fi Bulb is the one that will be easiest to integrate.
this guy, Adam Lobo, does really good in depth reviews from a consumer standpoint. ( he doesn’t discuss technical specs) here’s the one he did for Hue versus LIFX versus yeelight. It’s interesting.
If Ikea comes out with the color bulb in their Tradfri line, that could change things again.
But of course this is a bulb, which means you need a lamp and an outlet for it.
And again, I am listing this here for people who are looking for a budget option, but the engineering on this is not great.
2. USB LED: $29.95
If you just want a tiny indicator that changes colors and you already have a laptop connected to the Internet which is running 24/7, then it’s worth looking at the “blink one.”
This has a lot of limitations because it has to be cabled to that laptop. They give you a program that runs on the laptop to manage it, and they do have an IFTTT channel.
But the need to be plugged into a laptop limits where you can use it. Even if you stick a 4 foot cord on it and taped LED on the wall, there still has to be that laptop that it is tethered to. Some people are in love with this thing, but it has limited uses compared to the other devices.
https://www.amazon.com/ThingM-blink-USB-RGB-BLINK1MK2/
3. Homeseer Wall Switch with Indicator Lights. $55
Lights can be all set to the same color or set individually. Zwave. Small Discounts available on multipacks.
Multipacks:
4. Homeseer Multisensor: $69.95
Although it’s the most expensive, if you can use the “multi” part of this indicator, you get a lot of value out of it. It has a temperature sensor, a motion sensor, and a weird kind of lux sensor that you probably won’t use. It’s a plug-in device. Certified Z wave, so it’s also going to act as a Z wave repeater. And since it’s Z wave, it will work with any zwave controller, you’re not dependent on the company staying in business.
So I do like this, and if you were also planning to use a motion sensor in you use case, this is really nice.
So as always, different things work for different people.
And again, Ikea might upend all of this if they come out with an RGB bulb and an RGB LED strip in the next few months.
5. Meross Table Lamp $42, but often on sale for $34
This is a Wi-Fi color changing small table lamp that has a manufacturer provided integration with smartthings and is very easy to set up and use. Price lists at around $42, but it’s often on sale at Amazon for about $34. We have several of these at our house and really like them. available for both the US and the UK. One of the best things about them is that you can just tap the top to turn it off or change colors which can be useful if you’re using it for a signal notification like the laundry is done. You can also use it as a regular white table lamp and then have it change color for the notifications.
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Hi Andrew, I realise this is an old post but I’d love to hear if you still use it and what the battery life has been like?
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BTW, the 2nd generation Lowe’s Iris Keypad ( A rebranded centralite device) has a built-in LED notification light that some people use as well, particularly if you also want to use the keypad:
The price of this varies a lot, so check both Amazon and lows and if necessary wait for sale. ( don’t get the first generation, which is more horizontal looking, as it will not work with SmartThings. Also, the reviews were skewed by people who had the first generation and liked it better, so look for reviews by people who have it working with SmartThings.)
You can talk to people who are using it with SmartThings in the following thread:
Also, There are a couple of light switches which have an LED indicator light which can be turned on and off from SmartThings. The newest homeseer switch is actually intended for this purpose, but there are some other brands as well. 
The homeseer is interesting because it also allows for double and triple tap, so you can use a single tap to turn the switch on and off, and a double tap to arm and disarm your security system, changing the color indicator light at the same time.
So if you have a light switch in the area where you want the indicator, that’s another good option as well.
Does anyone have any pictures or descriptions of what happens with the lights? For that matter, where are the lights in question?
At my last house, I used the HomeSeer light switch successfully for color notifications to inform me of the status of the house at bedtime. At my new house, the bedroom door blocks the light switch from the bed. So i have to figure out another solution. I have line of site to an outlet. But I’m thinking about using a color LED light strip. Does anyone know of an LED light strip that would let you set the color of individual LEDs?
LIFX has one that lets you set sections, but it would be pretty big.
How many different indicators do you need?.
Please, where did you get the LED light?
Thanks
This has a similar form factor if it’s of any help:
This would be really great to hang on the door of my new pandemic home office (aka spare bedroom) to indicate that I’m on a video meeting…
Love your work! May try this out myself!
It’s an eternal topic, but as I’ve been thinking about that for quite a while, I’d throw in a couple of unusual ideas for it. On the plus side they’re cheap and seem to be effective, I’ve yet to try them very soon.
Both require an IR emitter around though, which depending on the case could be a problem.
First - battery operated multicolor lights like these:
Second - not battery powered, but can be used for audio notifications as well:
I’m posting images instead of links, because these are very generic products available at any tech site, be it amazon, banggood etc.
If it’s really an IR emitter, you could probably get integration with SmartThings, You could probably get at least limited integration through SwitchBot or Harmony.
That said, from the pictures they don’t look like an IR device. Those little tiny flat handheld remotes are almost always using a low RF frequency or Bluetooth, and then there’s no easy integration. There’s a small possibility that they would work with harmony, but obviously that depends on the specific brand and model.
So the form factor for the puck light is great, but the integration possibilities are going to be limited. The Bluetooth bulb has more possibilities.
You might be right, I’ll have to wait and see, I’ve seen many tiny flat IR remotes as well, but you’re right I shouldn’t assume IR over RF. If it’s RF, it would probably be an experiment gone wrong, and a funny gift to a less tech-y friend 
I was actually hoping for IR, as I have Broadlinks and Harmony in every place I need those.
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Have you seen https://github.com/isaacrlevin/presencelight ? I have it running with a hue lightstrip to test and it’s working pretty well…
This is an interesting idea. The Remote for these is likely RF…just like these:
Submersible LED Lights - Qoolife Remote control Battery Powered, RGB Multi Color Changing Waterproof Light for Vase Base, Floral, Aquarium, Pond, Wedding, Halloween, Party, Christmas
by Qoolife-US
Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HKRGPEA/
The question would be, how to control them from ST.
The one you linked to says it has an IR ( infrared) remote, not an RF (radiofrequency) remote. there’s a big difference between those two methods.
If it is truly IR (there are other obvious translation errors in the product description, so I’m not 100% confident), then you could use a SwitchBot mini as a “man in the middle“ to get smartthings integration.
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