I have a question. Since the the smart bulbs will not be connected to a wall switch such as a Z-Wave or Zigbee dimmer, could a wall switch be used to control the smart light bulbs through Home Assistant? For example, I want to change color temperature (two buttons for warm or soft) and brightness.
Now I know that a dimmer isn’t appropriate for smart bulbs that gets wired up to the smart bulbs, but the reason why I ask is so I can control the group of recessed lights in the hallway or in an office/studio room. If I connect a regular non-dimmable light switch to a group of smart bulbs and I turn off the lights, Home Assistant won’t be able to control the lights at all. This is even with a smart light switch that must be turned on in order to turn on/off/dim/brighten the smart light bulbs and be able to change color temperature from there, so I do not know how a smart light switch could interoperate with smart light bulbs
Now that I think about my question that I asked, it seems the smart light bulbs would be directly connected to the circuit breaker, along with the automated/smart light switches. I mean, that does not seem very logical, is it? Because once I sell my house, how are people going to find out how to turn off the smart light bulbs? I believe I have answered my own question and I came to a conclusion that my question does not make sense at all.
So how about I ask this question: What is to become of smart bulbs? In my opinion, I don’t think controlling smart bulbs from a smartphone with a Home Assistant app does not make sense if I have guests, as I don’t want guests to have total control over my entire house. For me, I don’t want to get out my smartphone so I can change color temperature. I want to be able to control lights using a tablet-like kiosk, through voice commands, or via light switches. I want to be able to change the color temperature from even a light switch from there as well.
Is there such a thing that can do that? That the smart bulbs can be wired up to the light switch and be automated by Home Assistant? Maybe something that allows me to disable the switch’s internal on/off functionality and let Home Assistant communicate with it?
Am I making sense here? It seems like I should go with dumb LED bulbs and a smart light switch (not IoT-like wall switch such as WeMo or Wink might require Internet access, but I don’t have one of those), so how am I going to change color temperature if I am buying LED bulbs that do not have smart capabilities in be controlled in a group?
Pardon me for such a long post, but my Google-fu is not helping me at all. When I did a search for smart light bulbs and switches, all I get is “versus” and I do not need to know the difference between the two. I guess my point is, I want to take full advantage of what LIFX has to offer using a smart light switch, but then I guess I have repeated myself a couple of times in my post as I do elaborate a lot.
Anyway, I’m planning to build a 900-square-feet house in a couple of years from now with Home Assistant being the brain of the entire house and local access to smart devices (local API) being very important to me in case the Internet goes down.
http://www.graysonpeddie.com/2016/06/my-finished-homestyler-floor-plan-with.html