Want to be able to animate any of our Home-Assistant-connected RGBW light bulbs (standard A26 style). Have both Zigbee and Wi-Fi styles, but would like to include any and all of them. A few are outside, and most are inside. Some are Wyze, some are Ikea Tradfri, and one is Philips Wiz, and could also use some Feits or whatever else we might have. Preferably this would be brand and protocol-agnostic.
Looking for full flexibility… every light addressable individually. And can’t put a strain on HA (such as cycling through some bunch of pre-built scenes… that would be too rigid and also tough to manage).
Of course, this is “possible,” but don’t know of any out-of-the-box software solution or method, and have looked. Mostly found people setting up indoor lights to gradually turn on and change color temperature to match sunrise/sunset, which is not what I’m trying to do.
All lights will be local control, no cloud-serviced bulbs, so we can remove that as a variable.
The “why” isn’t important, only the “how.”
The ‘how’ absolutely matters.
I assume when you say ‘animated’ you’re talking about fast switching and sync to music kind of things?
Zigbee and other low speed low bandwidth transports simply aren’t made to handle the traffic. (you won’t have a great experience)
You’re going to be looking at something like WLED. Which is built for this very thing.
You could use the zigbee etc. Lights as background and put wled in places where you need fast /complex animations
Yep, just like I said… why isn’t important, only the how.
Unsure what you mean by “fast switching.” Hadn’t thought about it being synced to music, but more like allowing lights in a group to precisely transition to an on or off or changed state, such that they can be choreographed in the timing, which happens first, or run a slow cycle of color through some set of lights, continuously, and with enough delta-color resolution that the steps aren’t visible (so, lots of steps).
We have a chandelier in the dining room with five RGBW bulbs in it. Might be cool to have a them come on in a sweep, with one starting to fade on, followed by the next, and the next, so they’re all fading up together but at slightly different points in the fade, over about two seconds (maybe?). Is one of those things that will have to be taste-tested to find the right moves to make it look cool but not gaudy. And that’s just an example of one of many things that could be done… some of them are more context-based, that give the home user a cue to something in the environment, like the subtle cues that happen in animations on your smart phone… very subtle but still instructive to the user, like the bounce at the bottom of a list. A smart home should be similarly friendly in that same way, in a way more than just turning lights on or off… how it happens is also important (the details of the actions, not just the technical how).
Yep you won’t get that precision with standard home bulbs the back ends aren’t designed for it. I generally tell people don’t count on anything less than a half-second precision. Some of the custom things that Philips adds in on Hue products is to combat that but fact is, Zigbee simply wasn’t designed to guarantee the timings. At its low bandwidth you’re doing good to get it all out there in a second. ZWave gets worse, as in spec it allows speeds down to 9600 baud…
You can get some of what you want with esp32 light controllers syncd to WLED but if you want sub-second precision to HA with sweeps and precise animation then you’re looking at something like WLED. Which can ABSOLUTELY do that.
The why is always important. XY problem - Wikipedia
Have both Zigbee and Wi-Fi styles, but would like to include any and all of them.
Might be cool to have a them come on in a sweep, with one starting to fade on, followed by the next, and the next, so they’re all fading up together but at slightly different points in the fade
These two absolutely don’t match up. If you want budget lights that only need bulb/switch replacement and no extra wiring, you won’t get latencies that are required for sophisticated light animations.
As an iOS/macOS developer I can tell you that people don’t want slow 2 second animations delaying their workflow, 0.2-0.4 second is the sweet spot for these animations. Just think back to fluorescent lamps taking multiple seconds to turn on.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have a WLED setup doing animations in the background but you don’t need all of your lights to be synchronized up to be able to have that, just the ones participating.
I’m going to disagree with the “the why is always important.” Sometimes. Not this time. Mansplaining - Wikipedia
Too many times I’ll ask in a forum for advice on how to do something, and someone invariably first has to know why when it doesn’t pertain to their ability to answer the question, only goes to satisfy their curiosity. If I tell them why, I’m apt to get an answer like “you don’t really need so-and-so.” Says them. If they don’t have an answer, they can say so. If they have some relevant info, it would be appreciated. But if I ask “how do I get to the nearest Home Depot” and they want to know why instead of helping with an answer, it isn’t productive for me (on the contrary).
Now you’re mentioned WLED. Is that the only potential solution? And yes, I’m aware that people “don’t want slow 2 second animations delaying their workflow,” but there’s the danger of me needing to explain “why.” I give some off-the-cuff example and then I’m told I don’t want it, and somehow that’s the answer. Some animations would get 0.2-0.4 second animations, but I’m not going to spell out every use case. But sometimes there are uses for animations of other lengths (longer).
So shame on me for giving out any “why” and starting this. That’s why the “why” isn’t important.
This is not perfect but I have been trying this.