I’d like to share my favorable impression, and success, with using Philips Hue bulbs to serve as pool lights.
My inground pool has two light fixtures located about 40 cm (16") below the surrounding concrete walkway and about 25 cm (10") below the water line. There are small hatches in the walkway to access the light fixtures in order to install bulbs (or remove them prior to winter). The two lights are about 11-14 meters (37’ to 45’) away from the Philips Hue Bridge with no intervening devices to serve as routers.
Originally, I planned to use two LIFX Mini bulbs. I used a WiFi app on my phone to test signal-strength. I opened one access-hatch and placed the phone into it, at the same depth as the light fixture. My home’s WiFi signal-strength read about -90dBm which is effectively “no signal”. I didn’t even bother testing the second (farther) location.
Honestly, I didn’t have high hopes for Zigbee faring any better. I installed two Philips Hue Color Ambiance bulbs. To my surprise, one was detected quickly but the other took some time. They were both controllable but one was clearly operating at its margins (occasionally failing to respond to Hue group/scene commands).
Encouraged by the results, I ran a new network cable to a more central location on the first floor (in the kitchen). I relocated the Hue Bridge from an upstairs bedroom to above a kitchen cabinet (clear view of the pool through a large picture-window). I left it off for over an hour so that, on startup, it would rebuild its mesh network (I think only a minimum of 15 minutes off-time is needed).
After that, both pool lights developed solid and reliable connections. I can adjust brightness and color with neither of the bulbs missing a beat. A cool white is superior for general illumination and, after toying with all colors, sky blue (or darker) matches the pool’s interior color and produces a pleasing blue glow for “mood lighting”.
I have an automation that turns on the pool lights shortly after sunset but only if the master pool schedule flag is enabled and the pool schedule is either “Regular” or “Shoulder” season. The automation calls a script which activates a Hue group and sets a predefined Hue scene. The same automation is used to turn the lights off at 23:00.
# automation
- alias: "Pool Light Schedule"
trigger:
- platform: sun
event: sunset
offset: '00:10:00'
- platform: time
at: '23:00'
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.pool_pump_schedule
state: 'on'
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ states('sensor.pool_pump_schedule') in ['Regular', 'Shoulder'] }}"
action:
service_template: "script.pool_light_{{ 'off' if trigger.now is defined else 'on' }}"
## scripts
pool_light_on:
alias: Pool Light On
sequence:
- service: hue.hue_activate_scene
data:
group_name: 'Pool'
scene_name: 'Pool Blue'
pool_light_off:
alias: Pool Light Off
sequence:
- service: light.turn_off
entity_id: light.pool