Currently running VeraPlus, all Z wave, with pretty bland lighting setup. EG, Kitchen is 6 warm white BR30s on a z wave dimmer, Living room is 9 warm white BR30s on a z wave dimmer, etc.
I am investigating changing the Kitchen to the Sylvania Osram Zigbee BR30s as I would love to add some color and cool white for kitchen use. My spouse prefers warm white, as do I, but occasional change is necessary and it would be fantastic to have some mood lighting.
I do not believe I would have any problems adding the bulbs (!).
My questions come in on the control. Kitchen is simple, I guess - one z wave dimmer replaced with standard switch, always on? Lights grouped? Can I get them (6 lights) to act as “one”?
Spoiled by having a physical switch as I am assuming the new lights must now be controlled either by voice or by virtual switch?
Being in a spiky electrical area, I had an issue using Enbrighten z wave bulbs in pendants over a counter. When we got an electrical spike, and the bulbs lost power even for a second, I was forced to remove each bulb and re-add to Vera - that got old very quickly and led to a z wave dimmer and 3 led edison bulbs. With those bulbs, even turning the power on/off by the switch was not enough to get the pairing process restarted - each bulb had to be unscrewed and screwed back in!
Now I am wondering what happens with the Sylvania bulbs in cans - as in will I need to re-pair each time I lose power? Cause that’s an 8" ladder and a lot of swearing. Are the Zigbees more stable than an Enbrighten z wave?
Gladly accept any better ideas or disaster stories!
Personally two things I will never do, use white smart bulbs in ceilings or use colour smart bulbs in ceilings.
“Mood Lighting” in my opinion should be hidden and diffused.
You’d be far better sticking to regular bulbs in the ceiling and a Z-Wave wall switch.
And for colour mood lights use RGBW LED strips and Zigbee ZLL controllers connected to a Philips Hue Bridge.
I’ve hidden my colour LED strips behind TVs, under or behind furniture, under cupboards and even under beds etc.
I do however have two Philips Hue colour bulbs in my table lamps in my lounge room.
But never smart bulbs in ceilings can’t think of anything worse. They become dumb as soon as someone turns off the wall light switch.
They become dumb as soon as someone turns off the wall light switch.
This can be easily fixed and prevented by replacing the wall switch by a wall socket.
The light will be “always on” and you have an extra socket for appliances. That’s a win-win in my book.
I agree - have you had any experiences with the Z wave memory/device defaulting after losing power? The Enbrighten bulbs would lose their z wave information and drop off Vera. You plan is excellent, but if I need to “re-include” 6 devices after a power loss, even installing a socket does not help!
Thanks for the tip - I do use a few LED strips but wanted to use some of my main lighting as well. Have you had any experiences with the Z wave memory/device defaulting after losing power? The Enbrighten bulbs would lose their z wave information and drop off Vera. Blocking the switch from turning on/off is easy - more worried about the power loss and z wave drops.
I don’t have any Z-Wave light bulbs sorry so cannot say. I only have Fibaro Dimmer 2 modules behind my light switches.
No sorry, no experience with z-wave bulbs at all.
My bulbs are all Hue bulbs and connected to an openLuup with the altHue plugin.
Trying to keep my VeraPlus for z-wave devices only.
I do however have some rather old everspring plugs that sometimes lose there pairing when I pull them from there socket. Never found a reason why this started after I switched from UI5 to UI7. Could be a device problem though and my solution is to never pull them.
This won’t be helpful to your situation I’m afraid. But it’s another reason to put your bulbs on permanent power, I think.