Lights power-on behavior. That famous power outage problem

Hardware
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Greetings! I’d like to double-check with the community before making my move.

I want to use smart lights in my bedroom and want to prevent that beam of light right into my face in the middle of the night in case a short power outage. I was searching the community and it looks like that the only reliable way is Philips Hue bulbs with their “Power-on behavior” feature.

:question: Can anyone confirm that since the end of 2018 Philips is really the only manufacturer providing such a functionality? Or do I miss something here?

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Don’t know if they’re the only ones, but they have it, yes. Calling it reliable is something else though…

But I never really notice it because I almost never have any outages, I’d worry more about that in the first place.

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I only have smart bulbs in lamps - not ceiling lights.

But the bedroom lamps are both plugged into one smart socket which has been flashed with ESPHome. There power on behavior of the smart plug is to be OFF.

That way if there is a power outage in the middle of the night, the bulbs will stay off when power is restored.
I then have automations to automatically turn back on in the morning and reset the lights as well as turn on when the bedside switch is used.

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Oh, that’s an interesting remark. Can you share your experience with Philips bulbs?
Are you saying that in case power off and back on they do not respect power-on configuration and turn on regardless?

Well, i can say the same. Almost never. But just once a year is already enough for me. :slight_smile:

That’s actually the “backup idea” I have in my mind. I have some ESP32 controllers and relays. I can easily make a switch to completely shut down the lights via Normally Closed part of the relay. It has a drawback though.

It will disconnect the smart light from the smart home infrastructure completely. And what is more important it will leave me with only one option for turning the lights on - switching on the relay. Which is equal to turning on the lights at 100% brightness. Unfortunately, I have got used to waking up by increasing brightness from 1% to 100% during a couple of minutes… which means I need a smart light bulb which is really smart :slight_smile:

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Yes, it is a failsafe, for the rare occasion that we have a power outage in the night. So far, although we have had a few outages, never happened at night.

I am confident that I (and my wife) would prefer the very occasional 100% turn on in the morning when I’m supposed to wake up rather than during the night when we’re asleep.

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I’ve never worked with smart bulbs but with smart switches like above.
Tried tasmota, esphome and sonoffs (w/ original firmware).
Never had an issue, they all support “power on state” so you can set them to whatever you want.
I personally dont have the power outage issue at all, but since i have them wired to the physical switches, i have them set to on, so they operate like normal lights too.

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Sorry I should have clarified. I have bedroom lamps with smart bulbs (Ikea) so I have dimming.
They’re power on state is ON (which I like, If HA goes down, and I’m not around, the lamp switch still works, just toggle off/on). So the socket stops them from having power after an outage until it is needed.

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This is becoming a different topic. Smart switches versus smart lights. A switch is a different beast that does not have to be “backward compatible” with ordinary (non-smart) usage patterns. So let’s stick to the initial topic. OK?

I want to use smart lights in my bedroom and want to prevent that beam of light right into my face in the middle of the night in case a short power outage. I was searching the community and it looks like that the only reliable way is Philips Hue bulbs with their “Power-on behavior” feature.

:question: Can anyone confirm that since the end of 2018 Philips is really the only manufacturer providing such a functionality? Or do I miss something here?

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I believe LIFX do this too.

But just remember - what happens if HA or WiFi/Hub goes down, and the lights are set to stay off if power is restored? Having a back-up way of turn lights on should always be available.
This is why smart bulbs default to coming on when they get power, so they can be used as dumb bulbs as well.

1 Like
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Yep, exactly my point when I said have to be “backward compatible” above. I do have dumb bulbs in case HA goes down.

Thanks for the hint! I’ll take a look.