So, I just bought a few inovelli zwave dimmers and they had a deal were you’d get some free colored lights. I’ve never found the need/want to get these but they came with the deal.
What is everyone using their colored lights for? I need some ideas, otherwise they’ll just sit in a box!
Yeah, I tend to use rgbw lights and pretty much ignore the rgb bit
The only exceptions are a bit of red at christmas, yellow at easter and orange at halloween
I have one that I use for kids medicine reminders. There is a door sensor on the medicine cabinet and automations that will send out a reminder text in the morning which was helpful, but still required pulling out the phone to verify medicine was given by me or wife by looking at HA app or checking notifications. So I instead turn the light red/green in the morning as a visual indicator that the medicine door was opened. It’s only this color for about 30 mins around the time we leave in the morning.
Another is used to signal when the damn kids come out of their room after bedtime. They wont say anything…just sneak out and stare at you. So a light changes colors to show when the door is opened after bedtime. Could get the same effect with a blinking light, but oh well, it works well.
I’ve seen other people use it for garbage day bin color…but pretty sure that’s a Europe thing or something. It’s always the same day/same color for me in the US anyway.
So, yea…a notification system of some sort? I can’t imagine ever wanting to just have some random light colors on for no reason
Yeah, that’s where I am at the moment.
I might use it to let us know when the dog is fed, not a bad idea.
I was in the same mindset as you, then I started coming up with all sorts of ideas. 
I use one in the hallway that turns red when the bathroom door shuts (we only have 1 bathroom). That way, everyone knows when the bathroom is occupied.
I have one in my office that changes color and brightness based upon the temp and weather conditions (lower temps are darker, higher temps are brighter and colors for different weather conditions). Makes a quick, easy to see weather station without having to know exact details. The same bulb also changes colors (briefly) when Alexa sends notifications and also ties into my Unifi equipment to notify if any of my switches or APs go offline. I have another one on my desk that flashes based upon notifications from my email or Slack. The reason for this one is that I typically stay in a full-screen VM session (to remote into work) and will oftentimes miss a ton of Slack messages (especially when I have my sounds turned off and music blasting 
). It uses colors to indicate what kind of notification I’ve received.
I have one in the kitchen that changes color if our laundry room door is open (which is outside). The purpose is to have it red if the door is open and keeps someone from closing the back door (which leads to the laundry room) and locking it. It’s also good as a reminder when someone leaves the laundry room door open (happens WAY too much). The same bulb is also used for a mail notification (via contact sensor on the mailbox).
There’s one in my dining room that I use as a reminder lamp to feed the dogs and fish. It turns on in the evening and stays blue until a contact sensor on the dog food container is opened and then closed. I also have contact sensors on my tanks that trip when I open the hoods to feed them.
In my living room, I have two bulbs in our living room lamps that will alternate colors when an Alexa timer finishes in the kitchen (for when I’m cooking and I can’t hear it from the living room). I also use them when motion is detected in the backyard after dark.
Then, there’s the holidays where various color bulbs will change to make it a bit more festive during parties and such.
Doorbell notifications during noisy parties.
Sunset shenanigans (green flash).
System errors ( a lamp goes fuchsia).
Room temperature at a glance ( red too hot, orange just right, blue too cold).
Early mornings they come on dim red to preserve night vision for aurora viewing or to make it easy to go back to sleep after a nature call.
I have a lamp in our family room that can clearly be seen from our kitchen.
10 minutes before our kids need to leave for their school bus pickup I have the lamp turn purple, then 2:30 later yellow, then 2:30 later orange then 2:30 later red. (Then 10 mins later resets to white and turns off)
Gives a decent visual of how much time they / we have to get them out the door.
That’s all I’ve come up with to date…
how do you accomplish this?
(the alexa part getting the timer status into HA not the light flashing part…)
A second light in my kitchen does this for generic faults or alarms ( IOT device fails ping / AC turned on with doors or windows open / garage door open for more than x mins , Zwave battery level below X, etc )
Using the Alexa-Remote2 “Alexa Other” node in NodeRed. I don’t send it back into HA, but that would be easy to do with NodeRed as well.
I use them for decoration… I thought that was it’s purpose 
I have them in my living-room and kitchen and they turn on automatically depending on sun state. So when it’s dark outside they will turn on with the lowest brightness setting and some nice color, just to give an ambient to the room.
If using the light in that room they will just switch to full brightness in white as part of the other lights, and back to being ambient lights when powering off.
They are not always on though, they are only on from sunset till 23:30 and then from 6:30 till sunrise.