WiFi Light Recommendations

Hardware
1

Hello everybody,

I am messing around with zigbee lights since years when they first came up. Used them with their proprietary controllers (TRADFRI, HUE, etc.) and later changed to HA (via ZHA) trying conbee and now SONOFF CC2652P including routers on every floor again using them all (OSRAM, HUE, TRADFRI, INNR, and many more).

Event though this sure is a challenge with 40-60 lights in a four-floored house including the difficulties coming up with separate WiFi setup, different other proprietary radio controlled systems (Rademacher Window Covers, DECT-Telephone, etc.), I always thought this should be working.

But now, as my neighbors now started using more and more WiFis (about half a dozen in range) some even have set up their own zigbee home automation systems, I now end up repeatedly in unbearable connection loss events to more and more devices.

To make a reeeeeally long story short: I don’t think the parallel use of dozens of 2.4 GHz radio systems will have a future. So my idea is (was always): why the hell not use ONE system for all. And as I have a nearly perfectly set up WiFi System established by very well working UNIFI APs (one on each floor): why not WiFi-Lights?? As I NEVER hat WiFi issues in the house (with about 40 WiFi devices) I hope to finally solve the endless zigbee connection problems this way…

Now my question would be: what would be you recommendations on WiFi connected lights comprising E14, E27, GU10 and LightStrips?

And pleeeease: don´t tell about you well working zigbee setup - this does not help
:wink:
As I described in the beginning: since 2016 I really tried a lot to get a working zigbee system…

THANK YOU ALL-
any help would be appreciated!
:kissing_heart:

1 Like
2

:100:

This is mainly what I do - virtually all my mains powered devices (around 100 at this time) are esp(home) based :rocket: The few battery operated ones :battery: on BLE or RF are actually captured by mains esphome devices :signal_strength:

It is somewhat expected that in a shared medium (air) the “loudest” one wins. If the “battle” is WIFI VS. ZIG-:honeybee: the latter one should loose based on the technical specifications AFAIK!

Actually I totally avoid wifi connected lights/bulbs and rather use esphome based (no touch) wall switches instead for my normal scenarios. The reason for that is quite simple as the expect lifetime of a light bulb is much shorter than that of a wall switch :bulb: I also safe quite a bit of “standby” energy as I use the three gang versions and therefor have only one device running 24-7 for controlling actually three lights (or other things like fans) instead having each of the three lights/devices on standby :no_entry_sign::zap:

I also make use of (DC) light strips (high density fcob) and mainly use (dirt) cheap esp based controllers flashed with esphome for it which were like $4 shipped the time I stocked them. :shopping:

In general athom sells a lot’s of esphome pre-flashed stuff ranging from light strip controllers over wall switches and plugs down the road to light bulbs :shopping_cart:

3

If you’re in the states, there’s Kauf bulbs preflashed with esphome

KAUF A21 RGBWW Smart Bulb with ESPHome, Compatible with Tasmota, Made for Home Assistant https://a.co/d/0Mh0ZR9

For esp32, there’s Vont Bulb
The pins are labeled and exposed, makes it easy to just make a jig and start flashing or just solder wires to the pins

For gu10, e14 & led strips there’s the athom store
Or you could still get any tuya products and flash with libretuya

4

OK, I won’t. My Zigbee lights have been the least reliable at my home. My WiFi devices are the easiest to install in Home Assistant (because they are all flashed with ESPHome*).

Other than two Ikea bulbs, I do not have any “WiFi lights” in my home. I use a mix of WiFi wall switches, a few Sonoff WiFi devices and a couple of Z-Wave switches. WiFi light bulbs makes no sense to me. Why spend $20-30 per bulb when I can install a $10 WiFi switch and use a $5 LED bulb.

Unless you are going to provide a whole-house WiFi, then you might consider Z-wave. Z-Wave operates on a lower frequency (900MHz) then Zigbee and WiFi (2.4GHz) and has a slightly better range. Plus they build their own mesh network.

*My most recent purchase of WiFi switches, KS602S, have the Beken BK7231N chips in them. I purchased two switches from Amazon about 18 months ago and they had ESP chips. I bought two more switches this year and discovered that they were not ESP switches any longer. These switches are now flashed with OpenBeken software that mimics Tasmota.

5

I am slowly moving over to wifi bulbs from zigbee for similar reasons. I now only have 8 zigbee gu10s left. I have a few issues every now and then when all my zibee bulbs go offline until I power cycle them.

I use some Athom bulbs flashed with esphome, they come in a few different bases. Unlike their plugs, which are rubbish, the bulbs have worked great for me. I too have a unifi network and now have over 120 wifi devices with no issues.

There are shelly bulbs as well and I have a few flashed with esphome and they work well too. Word of warning though, the GU10s are really long and don’t fit normal sized fittings, they are not like the picture on their website.

6

Thank you very much for your many responses - I was very pleased!

:slight_smile:

Especially because your recommendations confirm what I have long suspected: in the long term, Zigbee will have no future with an extensive setup…

:innocent:

I still have a few questions:

@orange-assistant

  • The power savings of using light switches instead of bulbs makes sense to me, but the Athom buttons can then only be used for the connected circuits, right? So I can’t control any other HomeAssistant devices…?

@orange-assistant

  • Why did you choose the ESPhome variant of Athom switches: why not tasmota?

  • I acutually would like to use them mainly with my HA setup, but also would hate to be irrevocably tied to it via ESPhome: on the ESP8285 (that come inside the athoms ESPhome preflashed devices), have any of you used the web server (for a long time)? On the 8266 it is seen critically…

On the other hand:

  • If the Athom bulbs are preflashed with ESPhome, it should theoretically also be possible to subsequently flash to tasmota (and vice versa), if you change your mind, right? Then you could also switch to a webserver controlled bulb this way…

@Holdestmade:

  • Why do you think their plugs are rubbish?? Any issues? Anyone else?

Thank you all! :hugs:

7

I’ve had 4 and they all failed within 9 months and Athom would not replace them, only give me 50% off buying new ones. There’s a few posts on here about their reliability

1 Like
8

If tasmota v11 is flashed, you can ota back and forth to esphome/tasmota
V12 switched to different partition layout (if flashed via serial method), you can still ota to v12 from v11.

9

No.

You virtually can control anything with it. :raised_hands:

I guess there isn’t a lot of devices which give you as much freedom as esphome based devices do. :star2:

It is even possible to have the different actions depending on HA or WIFI is connected or not. :twisted_rightwards_arrows:

My setup often includes a long press for a light group and a single press for the hard wired light. You can also use double, tripple click an other stuff like dimming (remote) lights :bulb:

Well, actually I didn’t bought them from Athom but the “white label” solution which comes with some crap firmware and then I just flashed esphome myself on it via wires :man_factory_worker:

I used tasmota many many years ago but esphome does things so much better in many ways for me. Be it not needing to fiddle with mqtt but using the native api instead or being able to update all my (~100) esphome devices with one click :point_up_2: The central management for everything esphome related (instead of some things in the web ui, some things in the console and others via custom self brewed versions like in tasmota) is another thing you don’t want to loose again :wink:

I have the web server component enabled on all of my devices (via packages :package:) an no problem at all. But actually I kind of never use them as I ether control them via HA or with my finger tips :control_knobs:

Yes, full freedom. If the device has an ESP you have full control & ownership and change to espurna, espeasy, tasmota, esphome, … the way you want :muscle:

Well, esphome supports that already with the web server component :wink:

10

@orange-assistant

thX a lot to you, too :slight_smile: