Smart cheap Downlight options in Australia

Hardware
1

edit after 2+yrs of using Arlec:
Sometimes they drop out. No idea why and requires pulling out the step ladder, removing from the ceiling and swearing at them a lot while trying to get them reset and paired up again. Super annoying. Happened again today while trying to sort out a bunch of other unrelated issues and I’m finally giving up. Going to Bunnings to get Lifx 2pk Downlights. Have other Lifx lights that have never given me any issues so hopefully this will be the same.

edit: For anyone else looking for cheap smart RGB downlights in Australia, get the $25 Arlec ones from Bunnings. Bought two today and used LocalTuya integration to add them to HA. No flashing needed, just connected to Tuya App, and then got the keys to connect them. So far they’re are working great. And they’re bright enough for me to put one in the Lounge Room and one in the Kitchen. I’ve unplugged the rest of my downlights and left them in place so they cover the holes but don’t turn on.

I’m looking at switching out my two kitchen (and eventually three lounge room) downlights for smart ones. My other rooms, and lounge lamp have either Lifx or Yeelight bulbs and much as I’d love to get lifx downlights, they are far out of my budget at $70-$100 per light. Want the cheapest reliable ones I can get, but am having trouble figuring out which ones.

Zigbee might be ok and I have a conbee attached to my raspberry pi with a lot of sensors and door lock, but I’m a bit worried about lights being completely unavailable if HA is down, messing up or rebooting. At least with the wifi ones I can resort to using the lifx or yeelight apps on my phone to control them. If HA server is down, is there any other way to control the zigbee lights? Being completely unable to control them would leave half my house without any lights.

Leaning more towards wifi. As far as I can tell with wifi options, excluding expensive Lifx or philips hue, I’ll be reliant on finding ones which connect to HA via Tuya. Is this right, or are there other options? But I’m a bit wary of needing to mess with them and flash them to make them work.

Ones I’ve looked at so far:

Arlec from Bunnings - video I found suggests they need to be flashed to fully integrate into HA. Really want to avoid flashing. Don’t have any tools to do it. No postage cost and can buy one at a time to test out - $24 each / $120 all together

Kogan SmarterHome Smart LED - can’t find anyone else saying they’ve connected kogan lights to HA, but I do have Kogan smarterhome dehumidifer and curtain which work ok, just sometimes have to reload the integration after HA reboots. I’m using LocalTuya for that. Free trial for free postage and can buy just 2 to try out, though 4 pack is cheaper per light - $29.99 each / $50 for 2 / $69.99 for 4 / $99.98 for 5

RGBW Downlight from OzSmartthings - Tuya, not sure how well they connect to HA. To avoid paying for postage twice I’d need to buy all 5 at once - $27.89 each / $139.89 for 5

Nue Smart WiFi downlight - Tuya, again don’t know if they fully connect to HA without flashing. No free postage and are on special so would have to buy all 5 at once and within 3 days - $28.89 each / $144.78 for 5

Has anyone had any experience with any of these and know if they’re reliable or will even connect to HA, preferably using LocalTuya or other local integration so that I can block them from the internet? Or know of any other options.

2

Do you need RGBW? If not, one option is to install a device at the switch and just use your existing bulbs. Either a shelly 1, shelly dimmer or sonoff mini would use wifi - there are zwave and zigbee options as well and all will work with HA out of the box.

3

Thanks, but I’d prefer RGBW, and like being able to change light brightness and colour depending on time. And I rent so permanent changes to house are not an option. Besides which, doesn’t changing light switches or installing devices behind them require an electrician?

4

Legally and for a whole pile of other reasons, yes you do need a sparky. For a renter, bulbs are probably the way to go as you can take them with you. I’ve gone down the ‘dimmers behind the switch’ path as I don’t need RGBW and at around $20-30 per switch it’s cheaper for me ( I know a sparky).

5

Is Australia really that strict?

6

Yes - we’re unique in so many ways…

7

Unfortunately I think I have to stick with bulbs. Pretty sure that even if I could install switches, the price of an electrician installing them would make it far more expensive.

9

You’ll need an electrician for that too.

correction: I see those lights all have plugs. Do you really have sockets in the ceiling? Most such lights IME are wired in.

10

Yeah, I pulled one out to check what type I needed. Definitely plugs

11

Got the Arlec ones and am using LocalTuya to link to HA. No flashing required. Also used an Afterpay referral bonus to get a $50 Bunnings card for $20, so only cost me $10 each, so am pretty happy with it.

12

Hi,

Were your Arlec Downlights RGBW? I bought after seeing a YouTube Hive Mind tutorial stating they were Tasmota flashable. It seems they updated the module to a WB3L and now that’s not possible. I used the new official HA Tuya integration but I’m not able to control either colour temp for W channel and RGB doesn’t appear at all.

In the Tuya Smart app that functionality is there so I only assume it’s the HA integration…

[EDIT: Scratch that. I did a server restart and it’s all good!]

13

Yeah, I have the Arlec RGBW Downlights. Didn’t flash them, just contacted to Tuya App, and then to HA using LocalTuya as I prefer to keep devices blocked from internet. Currently have one in kitchen and one in lounge room. Might buy more brighten both rooms.

14

I’m currently using the official Tuya integration but it is very unreliable currently. I’m using a workaround which is to reload the integration every minute using an automation.

The Arlec RGBW downlights now have a WB3L module and so can’t be flashed with Tasmota. I’m seriously considering investing in a flashing jig and a hot air rework station and swapping out for an ESP12 along these lines:

As these boards used to have the ESP chip on them I’m wondering if it’s going to be a straight swap out or if bridging pins and use of resistors will be necessary. More frustrating than trashing one would be to discover there’s been modifications to the board to prevent the swap out. Anyone know or know where/who to ask? I could trawl through the data sheets but experience would be more useful for other gotchas.

15

If the downlights have a plug to a driver and you place a switch between the driver the LED downlight like a Sonoff RM3, surely that doesn’t break regulation?

At that stage you are dealing with 12 V DC at a couple of amps or something

But as mentioned:

16

Have any directly supported downlights come to market in Australia since this thread was added to?

17

Unfortunately not as far as I can tell. I use local tuya for some arlec downlights and they are pretty sketchy with status and availability (>50% of the time). I’d say LIFX is better but even that I occasionally have unavailable (maybe 5% of the time). I have 35 LIFX and wanted to replace another 8 tuya ones also, so maybe that’s my problem…

18

I take it you mean ‘local control’? There’s Tuya based options available, eg.

19

This is old but thought I may give some feed back. I tried the RGBW Downlight from OzSmartthings. At first they appeared to be OK but as things moved forward I had more issues. They are very slow to react and give many errors the further away they are from the Home Assistant Yellow ZigBee hub. Randomly will not turn on or off and sometimes reporting incorrect status as the acknowledgement from a state change never makes it back. On investigation they were not communicating with any of my wall switches or other powered items. The lights had power all the time and needed to communicate through each other. They are very unreliable. Other cheep down lights I have used did not have this issue. Highly recommend not using them.

4 Likes
20

Arlec downlights don’t work with Local Tuya.

21

I think I had them connected but they were unreliable. Sometimes lost all connection and had to be fully reset and readded. I’ve replace them all with LIFX ones and now have no issues