Was looking into getting a couple of switches for some smart bulbs I have around the house. All are Zigbee and most of them are Hue bulbs. My question is that I saw some switches support smart bulb mode which is great. Is it better to get Zigbee switches so that I can directly bind to the bulbs? Or do I get Zwave switches and further increase my mesh network?
I currently have 26 hardwired Zwave devices. Most of my zigbee devices are bulbs, a cat feeder, and a couple of sensors.
Any feedback would be appreciated!
Not sure why you would have smart switches and smart bulbs - assuming you mean the mains-powered switches that replace conventional ones.
Both could be controlled independently by automations etc, so you would have to go to some trouble to keep them in sync. As far as I know, the purpose of Zigbee binding is to allow devices to connect directly when the network is down - I don’t think it syncs them together, does it?
I have several battery powered Zigbee remotes - essentially buttons, so they don’t have a status of their own - and they work well with Zigbee bulbs (all mine are Hue). Binding works there.
I’ve read that some switches with “smart bulb mode” can cause problems because they don’t allow enough power through to the light to keep it available when they’re switched off.
Best option would be to have smart switches with dumb bulbs and use your existing bulbs slsewhere.
I’m just going to presume you’re in the US.
Whether Zigbee or Z-Wave is better is dependent on your tolerances. If you go Z-Wave, as you mentioned, you won’t be able to directly bind so you’ll lose control if Home Assistant is down.
If that’s acceptable, then Zooz’s switch lineup has a “smart bulb” mode along with “scene control” that allows you to use the switch as a button device. I have these from several of their models from over the years for every light switch in the house. For those feeding smart bulbs, I’ve enabled the bulb mode and scene control with automations built in HA that allows the switch to still be used as normal without killing power to the bulb (e.g., paddle press down calls light.turn_off to turn the bulb off).
If you want direct binding, you can’t go wrong with Inovelli Blue’s.