As the title implies. I’ve been incredibly frustrated as of late trying to get new bulbs for my house. The Sengled bulbs I have are awful and dim. If I turn the on during the day with the curtains closed, you can’t even tell they came on without looking up.
My requirements for a replacement are:
Can be Zigbee: I have many devices and they work great
Can be ZWAVE: I have 700 series zwave light switches in every room
Can be Wifi: so long as it meets the other criteria
Can NOT be Thread: Thread basically useless right now
Can NOT require a dedicated smart phone app at any point during setup: any device that requires a smartphone app to setup is basically e-waste two years time
Can NOT require internet ever at any point during setup or use: My home assistant server has internet access, but all wifi devices go on an isolated wifi that only allows communication with home assistant and nothing else.
One caveat on thread: I will reconsider if someone recommends a decent border router that meets all the above, AKA isn’t apple, amazon, or google. I’m not wasting time with home assistant as the router anymore. I already bought a zigbee radio that claimed it Supported Thread(spoiler: it didn’t) and the second radio I bought was a waste
my issue so far is
Wifi: every thing requires a damn app, and I’m not putting more proprietary apps on any phone.
Zwave: can’t find any.
Zigbee: I the ones I find seem to have terrible quality, like the sengleds mentioned. Connectivity wise they are perfect, but all the bulbs i’ve tried are uselessly dim. and I Phillips are 1. way, waaaayyyy overpriced and 2. getting harder to find as it seems most of their new bulbs are going wifi now.
Without going into specific models I’d like to point out one thing about the Sengled bulbs - they were specifically built to be zigbee end devices and not route your zigbee mesh, despite the fact that they’re plugged in.
Great if they’re connected to a dumb switch and want to avoid the risk of mesh issues when they’re switched off. Not so great if their power won’t ever be cut and you thought they’d be ideal to place in each room.
This, along with no-neutral switches, is an exception to the general zigbee rule which says battery = end device, wired = router.
Just wanted to make things clearer for you in case you weren’t aware (and potentially adding another item on the things you don’t like about Sengled bulbs)
I used to have similar questions, and then I asked myself : what do I use the colors for? does all my bulbs absolutely have to do pink and red and blue and green…?
And after I think it through, I turned around and searched for smart switches instead… opening the world for a lot more non-smart but good bulbs to choose from, at least for me.
I have some SwitchBot WiFi bulbs because they are easy to flash over-the-air with alternative firmware to avoid the app nightmare. Other bulbs often require painstakingly cracking open and soldering, but I flashed my 4-pack in under 20 minutes with Tasmota using only my laptop. They’ve been working great app-free, on a completely isolated subnet, for almost a year now.
Also of note that — at least in theory — Matter-capable WiFi bulbs are supposed to work without any proprietary app, which was one of the selling points of the standard (although some people are claiming their bulbs don’t always work on an isolated subnet). That said, the currently-recommended method for commissioning Matter devices is using a mobile device with the HA companion app, although an “experimental” method using your server’s bluetooth adapter is available for advanced users.