There are new RGBW/WW/CW MR16 bulbs and new GU10 bulbs too. I did a bit of a comparison for you.
RGBW/WW/CW RGBW Cool White RGBW Warm White
Available in 2017 YES LOTS YES (Limited) YES (Limited)
More Apps Coming 2017 YES LOTS YES (Limited) YES (Limited)
Warm White YES NO YES
Cool White YES YES NO
Cool White / Warm White adjustable YES NO NO
Full RGB Colours YES YES YES
RGB + White Saturation adjustable YES NO NO
Wifi Bridge Available V6 V5/V6 V5/V6
Handheld Remote Control YES RGBW RGBW
36,000 colors YES NO NO
Adjustable Brightness YES YES YES
Full White Mode YES YES YES
Press and Hold Night Mode YES YES YES
Disco Mode YES YES YES
I would also like some help in making the v6 work in a little application iām making.
Rex, i canāt find Hamish. Would you be kind enough to pass info of the api to me?
Thanks!
+1 from me as wellā¦ I thought about getting an older bridge for the short term, but the current V6/iBox2 seems rock solid so am reluctant to changeā¦
Well, under the āhow hard could it beā I did some investigation and initially it appeared that all you have to do is edit I_MiLightRGBW.xml (vera/apps/develop apps/luup files) to get the thing to work. I then checked out the API for V6 and started to look at the difference between it and V5. Thatās when I stopped. They appear to be significantly different beasts. There are possible work arounds - for example someone has written a plugin for domoticz so āallā you need to do is setup a domoticz controller (eg using a raspberry pi) then you can setup ha-bridge to send commands to the MiLight bridge via that (eg http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=73&topicid=113569&page_no=51). You could in theory then use Vera to send a command via ha-bridge that would in turn use domoticz to relay the command to the MiLight bridge. Very ugly though.
I might for now give up on hoping that V6 will be supported in the near future, and instead hunt around for an older bridge. Sigh.
@ninkasi, Iām just as frustrated about this as you!
One of the biggest issues for me is that Iāve spent a huge amount of money on RGBW/WW/CW bulbs that, if I understand correctly, arenāt fully supported on earlier bridge versions.
So Iām stuck with the new and improved bulbs - on a v6 controller that canāt be fully controlled by Vera.
Iād really like to see LimitlessLED:
be more proactive in driving the Vera plugin updates (obviously the open source community is saying itās too hard or too much effort)
offer their own iOS app in an iPad version (so I can use it in landscape format on my iPad control pad on the wallā¦ thatās what home automation is all about)
RexBecket was good enough to develop the original plugin but has not been able to get the update through so far (and heās under no obligation to do soā¦ itās in his own time and I really appreciate his past efforts)
I think this is where LimitlessLED need to recognise that Philips Hue is leaving them for dead in so far as actively encouraging easy integration into the major Home Controllers on the market.
Is it possible to downgrade the firmware version to make the new controllers Ibox working with the API available in Veraā¦ and were we could find the firmware Software VersionV1.0.04a-JCY-1ā¦ if it is possibleā¦?
I just hope we can get a new API one dayā¦ so we can continue with MILIGHT or LimitlessLedā¦ because now we canāt get anything else then Ibox1 & 2ā¦
Figured I should post about what Iām working on at the moment. Iāve been able to dig up some LUA code from other HA controller communities for working with MiLight/LimitlessLED. Thus far, I have working LUA code which allows me to command zones on and off. Iāll post what Iāve been able to assemble as my ātest.luaā script, in the hope that it may help anyone else interested.
I would like to point out, while the new API is a significant change, it is a pretty ānormalā API structure (based on my work experience anyway). The trickiest piece has been dealing with the need for fetching the WifiBridgeSessionID values and then generating a checksum byte. Much of the difficulty for me is likely due to my lack of LUA experience, as this is the first time Iāve ever touched LUA. I wonāt take all of the credit on getting this together because Iāve basically been modifying and cobbling together example from other communities.
Please let me know what you think. Iām currently working to modify the plugin created by RexBeckett to work with the new API. In an ideal world, Iāll be able to get a modified version to him, which he can cleanup/adjust, etc. and make available.
*Minor edit/typo correction - CS/Checksum should have been āSNā and āSequence Numberā
I am making some progress but Iāve run into an issue where Iām able to send control commands successfully from my Gentoo box but Iām getting a bad response from the wifi bridge when sending from the Vera. I think this might be a hex-to-char conversion issue. My next step is to direct the commands to a machine on my network where I can record the udp packets and determine whatās actually being sent.
I am able to successfully request the session IDs from the bridge and the response is correctly formatted, so I know that part works correctly! Iām including a code snippet of what I have so far. The pieces not quite working yet are the āsetOnOffā and āsetLevelā functions.
I should be getting a response like: 880000000300SN00 (SN == Sequence Number byte)
However, when running from the Vera Iām getting a response like: 880000000300SN01
Anyone familiar with looking at hex will see that the difference is the last byte, where a success is ā00ā and where a failed commandās last byte is ā01ā.
Iāll continue to hack on this but any input from others more familiar with Vera plugins will be incredibly appreciated.
I want to point out that Iām building on the plugin written by RexBeckett, this is not all my code, etc.
I have been able to achieve control of 2 groups via the modified plugin. I have on/off and brightness control but have not yet updated other parts of the plugin for color, kelvin, and saturation control. The amount of time I have available for work on the modifications is pretty limited, so if thereās anyone who wants to help Iād certainly be happy for the assistance. This is my first experience with Vera plugins so my code is probably not what you might call elegant :o
Iām attaching the current snippet chunk for what I have working. Please feel free to comment and/or make suggestions.
Tonight, Iāll try post the current version of the modified plugin with how Iāve been getting it on my Vera. What Iāve been doing thus far is backup the original pluginās implementation file and replace it with the modified file. This method will require you to SSH into your Vera.
Iām thinking the modified plugin should wind up being a new plugin, with its iwn name. This would help ensure we donāt mess up communication with older bridges. Iām hoping RexBeckett will be interested in taking my updates as a patch for a new version but if not Iāll refactor code as necessary and try get it taken in as a new plugin.
Apologies for the delay in posting thisā¦ Iāve had a pretty crazy week :o
Iām attaching the modified āI_MiLightRGBW.xmlā file. How Iām updating the file on my Vera is included below. Please note, it is possible to mess up your Vera if you do something wrong, etcā¦
SCP the attached āI_MiLightRGBW.xmlā file to your Vera, my preference is to put in into the ā/root/ā folder, since thereās generally not much if anything there. I like to use WinSCP if Iām on a windows box to do the copy.
Connect to your Vera via SSH and verify youāre in the right directory (āpwdā works perfectly for this).
Once you have the file on your Vera, youāll need to make a backup of the original pluginās āI_MiLightRGBW.xmlā file. The easiest option is to copy it to a new filename.
From the Vera interface, youāll need to browse to āSettingsā > āZ-Wave Settingsā > āAdvancedā. Here youāll need to click the GO button for the āReload Engineā option. This will restart LUUP and load the new plugin file.
If you want to look at the live log info while sending control commands, you can tail the uPNP log file
tail -f /tmp/log/cmh/LuaUPnP.log
At this point, you should be able to control your Mi-Light/Limitless LED lights via the new bridge. Please note, the modified file will NOT work with the older bridges.
Iām happy to receive feedback, etc. on this but do keep in mind it is a work in progress and I donāt have every feature updated and working in this version of the plugin fileā¦
I now have color control and I have corrected the error with the brightness control in the code I posted yesterday. At this point, I need to get Saturation control working and figure out how to implement Kelvin (white color temp) control. The control for Kelvin will need to be implemented in more than just the XML implementation file, so I figure that piece will come last.
I donāt really have a desire for the disco modes but I plan to get those working for the sake of replicating the same functionality from the original plugin.
See the attached implementation file if you want to try the modifications out on your own setup.
