Recommendations for Zigbee Bulbs
I realized I have some old hue bulbs laying around, and they're working well enough with my Zigbee controller (no bridge), but if I decide to scale up I definitely don't want to pay the Hue premium.
Anyone have a Zigbee bulb brand they recommend? I hear Third Reality is nice?
Ikea's smart bulbs are compatible without much effort (Home Assistant running Zigbee2MQTT). Much cheaper and widely available year round, only downside I've seen is the temperature range isn't nearly as impressive as the white ambiance Hue bulbs.
2nd vote for IKEA bulbs. They just work. (Also using ZigBee2mqtt and HomeAssistant)
Considering this thread, guess I should look into why zigbee with mqtt is better then just the default zigbee HA gives.
Zigbee is a mesh network, but Zigbee with mqtt has a hub that stores messages. I haven't used it myself but it would mean that if, say, a Zigbee bulb was routing a message on the mesh network through a smart switch across the room to the hub, and the switch dropped the connection for a moment, a hub reply could be dropped entirely. Just briefly, but thatd be the intermittent issues that people are describing here.
MQTT stores all those messages in the hub though and makes the light bulb check in to get the messages, so if a light bulb were to do that and the switch disconnected, the light bulb would notice the failure and just retry, and the message is still on the mqtt hub to be redelivered.
Dunno if this description is exactly correct, but it sounds like it from my brief look on Wikipedia on communication differences.
I just want to add that the Hue bulbs are also compatible to Home Assistant. (I'm currently using it with the 'default' ZHA which doesn't work with some China sensors and actors. AfaIk, Zigbe2MQTT would do.)
I just want to kindly share experience: You might want to consider not making the bulbs smart but rather the wall switches. So you can still use the switch and also Automate it. If you should consider this, there are sonoff zigbee switches, but my experience with zigbee is not the best to be honest. I would rather recomment shelly wifi switches (IMO scaling and maintaining a smarthome wifi is much less pain and more reliable than zigbee.
I second the smart switch strategy, especially when using a fixture with several bulbs.
As for ZigBee however, I've been using Home Assistant Yellow with its built-in ZigBee radio and ZHA, and it's been flawless. Any issues I've have been a matter of reinforcing the network by adding a few smart plugs. I got over 60 devices hooked to it at the moment. Z-Wave has been just as problem-free. The really nice thing about having a Z-something network is the ability to use low power devices like battery powered sensors and switches/controls. Want a smart doorbell that plays a chime on all speakers and sends you a phone notification? Stick any ZigBee button to the outside of your door and program the automation. Its battery lasts two years.
Altough you are right about this and I do also still have a zigbee network for these purposes, I did observe range, repeater, and stability issues. For light bulbs, which are not battery powered, there are more options to consider :)
I agree in principle but went with bulbs anyway because I have a lot three and four way switches and I don't get how to wire them.
Great points. I have white a few smart switches through the house to control things both physically and via Home Assistant. Most of the other lights are wifi based and work mostly as expected with occasional drops (which can get annoying). Was wanting to experiment with ZigBee to see if it was more reliable, but it sounds like that might not be the case
I wanted to chime in and say I have had no issues with my ZigBee or Z-Wave networks (I run both) not being reliable in my house. I made sure I built out the mesh by installing devices close to my server closet where my ZigBee/Z-Wave receiver is and then out from there starting with powered devices that work as repeaters.
Some smart switches can also be configured to run in Smart Bulb mode, where they can be used to control a smart bulb without actually shutting off the power. You can also set up device groups to be able to control the device directly even if Home Assistant is down. I find that this gives me the best of both worlds, as I can do cool things like changing light color and intensity with automations while still having the ability to turn the light on/off if my server or WiFi network goes down.
I'd recommend the sengled ZigBee bulbs. They're cheap, reliable, and have good colors. Ive been using many for years without issue.
The IKEA bulbs will also work. I've tried them in the past, but didn't like them. I found they were too dim at full brightness. Also, their colors are much much worse then the sengled bulbs, especially the "greens" (I say this in quotes because the best the IKEA bulbs can do is a pitiful color that's 85% yellow and 15% green).
Same here. I put two in the lights on our porch, and they've worked great for at least 2 years now. And we get high and low temperatures here.
The high CRI Philips Ultra Definition bulbs with a smart dimmer. I use them with a Z-Wave Leviton but there's ZigBee options too if you don't have a Z-Wave radio. Those bulbs make the most beautiful light... I use the warm ones 2700K or so because they're the best for the eyes. It seems Cree and Feit also have high CRI bulbs but I haven't tried them.
I went with innr bulbs per the recommendation from the hookup and have had good experiences. I think I've switched most of my bulbs now and currently have 10.
Mostly echoing what's already been said, but i use Ikea and aliexpress tuya bulbs. The Ikea ones I like best, and the Tuya i only use for RGB. They arent as bright, but they arent bad for the price.
Just bought some Third Reality bulbs to replace TP-Link wifi bulbs a couple of weeks ago. (The TP-Link bulbs require continual communication with TP-Link's Chinese servers or they reset every few seconds.)
Zigbee2MQTT detects the Third Reality bulbs immediately and they have been working perfectly. The same goes for TR power monitoring smart plugs.
Oh that's good to know. I have a handful of Kasa bulbs and I don't give them WAN access. They seem to be mostly fine without WAN, but I do get communication issues with them from time to time (which is why I'm exploring zigbee as an alternative). Thank you for the reply!
The bulb resets are known to TP-Link and they created a firmware version that fixed it. The company didn't release the update and now TP-Link support reps deny that the new firmware exists, so obviously the communication failures and resets are design intent.
https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/666612 - post #7
I use both Sengled and Innr bulbs with zha. Mqtt worked well with these also.
No issues from the few models I have from both. Innr has a decently bright tone controllable bulb, 270 series I think, easily the brightest I have. 260 series are bright enough and super cheap at about $7.50 each in packs.
Chiming in to let people know that SengLED bulbs do not act as repeaters and are thus the worst bulbs you can use to build a Zigbee network.
The positive for Sengled is the option of some sizes that I've not found in other brands.
My recommendation is based on use case. Not every device needs to be a router, and OP might be perfectly fine with this.
It is good to know, but I'd not call them the worst since they still are inexpensive and function in all other ways well for my needs.
I don't have any bulbs from them, but I did just recently get a smart plug from third reality. And so far I like it, although I've only had it a couple of days.
Many devices fail to pair with Home Assistant. However, smart bulbs all work very well when they have Zigbee.
If you just want some lights that work, I would recommend picking some random Zigbee bulbs up from AliExpress. Far cheaper than the name brand stuff. Else IKEA also works.