Best zigbee full color bulbs/led strips/plugs: I am green

Let me start off with:
I am new to HA :frowning:
I am familiar with making Hue and Alexa work together (this should clearly show my skill set with HA and ZigBee). My Hue bulbs are dropping like flies; they are only 2 years old. Phillips warranty/support are not very nice when you are outside the warranty period. Hue is not an option moving forward. I just did the amazon prime day thing and chose Sengled only because it wasnā€™t hue and it was ZigBee :slight_smile:. I chose poorly. :stuck_out_tongue:

I found out that I spent a lot of money that isnā€™t supported by HA or they did the ā€œclosed ZigBeeā€ approach. I did indeed make the bulbs work, but no controlsā€¦ even the plugs and light strip were able to be turned on but nothing more; no color or no brightness control.

At this point I would like ZigBee full color bulbs that can be fully controlled by HA. I am trying to eliminate adding more hubs/repeaters to my system. I am not fully opposed to WiFi or Z-Wave but honestly I need a lot of bulbs/lights/plugs and I really donā€™t want to break the bank.

I am fully aware this is going to illicit opinions - please understand I am just trying to learn and get more familiar with the options out there.

What zigbee co-ordinator and integration did you use? You mention nothing of your hardware except that is it sengled bulbs, but you donā€™t even say the model.

ZHA? zigbee2mqtt? Conbee?

Plenty of sengled stuff does work. see zigbee2mqtt.io | šŸ“˜ Zigbee2mqtt documentation and Database of Zigbee devices compatible with ZHA, Tasmota, Zigbee2MQTT, deCONZ, ZiGate and ioBroker

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I hope this helps someone out thereā€¦
Sengled works fine with ZHA. deCONZ is the wrong way to go with Sengled. Use ZHA (ZigBeeHomeAutomation).

Begin rant:
YouTube and various searches only point to using deCONZ for ZigBee Pairing. I donā€™t get it. I spent 5 hours pairing my first device because that is what the youtubers/bloggers told me to use. Everything I wanted to do was available via ZHA - and fully available and supported via HA.

To all the YouTubers and bloggers out there - Please donā€™t start and then edit out the middle of the pain and say ā€œWhoomp There It Isā€. If something takes a long time - talk about the pain and donā€™t edit it out pretending to make it super simple. Be Honest. HA is super simple until it is not. I had no idea how awesome HA was until I didnā€™t use deCONZ. Without the full explanation of what deCONZ is and what it can really doā€¦ There is no context. Not everyone needs 130 demonstrations on how to do the same thing. Explain the differences between ZHA, Phoscon, and deCONZ. Please start educating and not only demonstrating.

Thank you for that. I honestly didnā€™t know what I was supposed to ask. Sengled works perfectly fine when I use my brain + docs and not the ā€œyoutube/blogā€ here is another demo on how to do this one thing that worked for me once. @nickrout I will include my coordinator next time I need help. As you can see above I was trying to follow guides and not take the time to read the docs. I absolutely agree with youā€¦ Sengled works fine. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Most youtubers snd bloggers are quickly out of date, or are complete idiots.

Searching the integrations docs would have led you straight there Zigbee Home Automation - Home Assistant

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No problem.

Sadly, that tab was open shortly before my rant. You are 100% correct. What I needed was there and also located here as you mentioned previously. I just needed to read the docs.

I rantedā€¦ Not it is time to praiseā€¦ I have had a Hubitat or a long timeā€¦ I was never able to get it to work the way I wantedā€¦ I have some nice scenes/scripts working in the ā€œimpossibleā€ HA that was never possible in Alexa or Hubitat. Thank you @nickrout for helping a newbie that is just trying to have some fun!

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We all have a lot of fun. If it were otherwise it would become a chore.

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