Hi everyone. I recently started my Home Assistant journey by replacing Google Calendar and Keep Notes with Home Assistant. A couple of light bulbs burnt out and I want to replace them with bulbs that I can use exclusivity on Home Assistant and bypass the manufacturers app entirely. What brand should I look for?
These are standard wall mounted lights in my kitchen and my laundry room.
Edit: I’m looking to replace burnt bulbs anyway.
General advice is smart switches, dumb bulbs. Switches mean that you can control the light without getting out your phone, or whatever it is you use to control the bulb. Sure HA can talk to many bulbs, but only if the switch is on. Guests will not have the ability to control your bulbs - either there is too much work to install an app for a short stay, or the system is a security nightmare (often both). Use a smart switch because they have a control on the wall that guests can use to get what they want done without having to worry about apps.
Most often you can choose bulbs with the right color temperature, but if not some dimable bulbs change color temperature. If this is not good enough two lights: a general room like, and a separate special effects light, don’t combine them (HA can control both, but they are separate systems generally not used at the same time)
I go to a half-way house: Smart bulbs, dumb switches, but a zigbee button next to the switch.
1 click toggles on/off in the last state.
Press+Hold for warm-white evening.
Double-click for daytime.
And now, a sticker on the 230v switch that says “don’t switch off!”IMHO color temperature, dimming or color are the best thing of smart bulbs
For people who want this, you may want to try Inovelli switches they cost a bit more than others but are very configurable, including many potential actions
So it looks and works like a standard dimmer, but perhaps you could make, say, a double click cycle through the colors.
If they are regular bulbs, I’d go with smart switches instead.
The bulbs are burnt out.
Do you want normal bulbs? Or do you want RGB bulbs? If you’re sticking to normal bulbs, they’re cheap and you are likely going to be better off with smart switches. But it does require some hardware spend.
I want them to dim as the sun comes up and brighten when the sun goes down. I’ll probably also look into smart switches at some point too.
Even something as simple as that has a ton of possibilities for automation, once you have bulbs or switches in HA.
This was similar to my first automation and I ended up with
- turn on dining room light 15 minutes after sunset
- dim to 50% at 9pm
- if weekday, turn off at 9:30pm
- if weekend, turn off at 10:30pm
