UK down-lights (recessed) recommendation for an extension

Devices & Integrations
#1

Hello brand new to smartthings and currently only own the starter kit. I love it and looking at how I can automate my house a little bit at a time.

So this will be my first smatterings project.

I’m currently adding an extension to the rear of my property and am wishing to use down-lights (recessed) for lighting. I’ve had a look and can’t seem to see a bulb/product that I can just install that would work with smartthings.

Does anyone know of a product that would allow me to do this in the UK please, ideally without other hubs etc?

Thank you.

#2

Ikea Tradfri.
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/lighting/smart-lighting/trådfri-led-bulb-gu10-400-lumen-wireless-dimmable-white-spectrum-art-00318292/
It takes a bit of fiddling, but they work directly with SmartThings without anything extra, and they’re reasonably priced as well!

#3

I would go with non smart dimmables (Philips , megaman, osram…anything reasonable quality) and then install fibaro dimmers. A lot less faff and you have the fall back of using the manual switch (which causes issues with the smart lights, and they act as routers so sensors that connect to them drop off when you switch them off).

Ask your leccy for 45mm back boxes.

#4

Energy efficient gu10’s combined with a dimmer is a whole world of pain. If a sparky is fitting the lamps and socket hopefully he will be aware both lamp and dimmer MUST be matched/recommended to work together. Wrong dimmer will melt at worst and at best wont dimm to minimum but cut off at about 20% light fade. Or one of the lamps will remain on very slightly even with the switch off

Personaly i would not yet make anything smart, get the lamps and switch/dimmer to work together reliably first and then as Adam says above put in a fib dimmer module

#5

I like the simplicity of the Ikea ones - they do seem a little fiddly but hopefully once they are pair thats the fiddly bit done with.

From looking at Ikeas product I also found this bulb here which is cheaper at £7 instead of the £12 bulb you recommended Gavin_Melling here.

I can’t see any difference apart from the look of it and that it called warm light over basic white light, but since you can adjust the warmth its unclear to me what the actual difference is!

Thank you

#6

The £12 one you can adjust the warmth, the £7 one is fixed warm white.

#7

The only problem with smart bulbs is if you wish to control them with ST, you have to leave them switched on. If you turn the light switch off no more control.
Personally I would go with either a smart light switch to control the lights or maybe a Fibaro dimmer. This way you can still control the lights with ST and also manually using a standard light switch.
There is a topic already on this.
Search for FAQ. Lighting options for the UK.

#8

Thank you again. I did look but clearly didn’t know what I was looking for :grin:

#9

Oh yes good point! I was thinking about using a light sensor along with motion to turn the lights on. But if I’m sitting reading a book then the light may not trigger based on me moving (I’m a slow reader!) so a light switch would be preferable I think!

So for any electricians on here could I use 16 of these downlights with the Fibaro Dimmer 2 in a single switch?

I’m getting an electrician to do the installation of the light etc so will double check with him before doing anything.

Thanks again for all your help.

#10

16 * 8 = 128watts, so fine in terms of limits.

Everything looks good, the one thing i would do personally is get a nice GU10 fitting so the bulbs can be more easily replaced.

motion sensors in main rooms arent great, but a bit of coding in webcore could create something acceptable…personally i would bother. fibaro will be enough.

#11

If you dont want dimmers, i use the aqara switches (£20 from gearbest). they are working well for me. However, if i were starting out again, i would go fibaro

#12

We, almost exclusively, unless specified, use Enlite E8/E5 - they have proven to be very high quality, low failure rate (1 in about 5 years, and it was one in my bathroom!) and they dim really well working along side an Aeon or Fibaro dimmer module which will connect into the first light in the circuit very easily. They dime down very low without any flicker (about 5-10%) and very smooth dimming which is hard to come by, even though LEDs have pretty much established themselves.

#13

Thank you all so much for all your help you have all been very informative.

#14

Does this work with smartthings natively?

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