I have 4 older fluorescent tube fixtures under my kitchen counter cabinets. The color temperature is fixed. The tubes are replaceable, but many have been failing, and I want to replace the fixtures.
Currently, they are controlled by a Z-Wave smart switch, and Yolink motion sensor, using HA automations. The frequent cycling is not appropriate for fluorescent tubes, and is causing them to die early.
One option I’m considering is going to non-smart LED tube fixtures, that should hopefully survive more power cycles.
Ideally, though, I would prefer smart fixtures that are always on the network, and controlled by Wifi, and with the ability to change color temperature, or color.
I have researched this a little bit, and I mainly see products from GE Light Sync. There is a Cync integration for HA that is reported to work with it. Unfortunately, like many smart devices, it depends on a cloud account. This is a no-no for me for permanent installation devices.
Edit: it looks like Cync now makes some Matter-compatible devices. They still require Internet to setup, but should work locally after initial setup. It’s not clear if all features are supported through Matter, though.
Amazon has many no-name Chinese smart light products, but I have no idea if any of them can work with HA or locally.
Has anyone else found a suitable product that doesn’t require cloud ?
I have some under counter lighting using BTF Lighting zigbee controllers from Amazon on some old Govee RGB strips where the Govee controller’s wifi had failed and they work just fine if you have zigbee available to you. You can pair the controller with other RGB/RGBW/RGBCCT LED strips you can find on amazon.
I am setup this way using govee lights only because the govee wifi in the govee controller failed so I replaced the integral controller so that I didn’t have to replace the strips. If I was starting fresh, I would not do it that way. I would probably pair the controller with a generic RGBW strip. But there are all sorts of strip options depending on what your desires are.
I settled on those GE Reveal. They work through Matter. I was able to provision them even when firewalled, as long as my phone and HA itself had public Internet. I could not update their firmware without temporarily unblocking their Internet access.
They are very bright, which is great. I am able to set the colors through Matter. The light show functions are not available through Matter, though, only cloud. But since these are solid color only, they can be emulated through HA automations still.
FYI, I brought up the feature parity problem with Cync - the lack of support for light shows in the Matter integration vs cloud app. This was their response.
Those under cabinet lights are definitely Matter compatible. You can install them into any Matter compatible hub/app combination.
***When you install them into an app like Home Assistant via Matter, then the device control for the lights is limited to the Matter Spec. *** The issue is that we cannot push light shows from the Cync app or Cync device to a Matter app.
In order for any Matter compatible app to perform a light show, the CSA (Connectivity Standards Alliance) would have to agree to adopt that feature as part of an upcoming Matter Spec release. Then the software developer of the app would need to do some work on their end to make sure the light show controls display properly in their app.
The Matter specification supports basic lighting functions (on/off, brightness, color temperature, and basic RGB hue/saturation) but lacks native, standardized, cross-platform support for advanced dynamic color lighting effects like color/brightness transitions, or music syncing. These advanced features currently require manufacturer-specific apps to achieve.
Certainly, we would appreciate those features in Matter for our customers; as well as for ourselves as users of Matter hubs. Light show/Music show control (dynamic color control) is one of the most frequent inquiries we get concerning Matter.
Basically, it comes down to the Matter spec being incomplete, and not extensible for non-standard features.