I’m completely out of the smart lights loop and I’m looking for light bulbs that allow me to set brightness, color temperature and possibly the color in general using HA.

I see a lot of people recommending zigbee bulbs, which is fine, I just need to buy a dongle, but I already have an isolated wifi network with no internet access that I use to control smart stuff from my home server, so something with wifi would be ideal. I want something that I can just screw in and control from my server with no proprietary apps needed for the initial configuration.

Can you give me some recommendations?

Thanks

  • James R Kirk@startrek.websiteEnglish
    2·
    16 hours ago

    I found that Phillips Hue bulbs works great with the Zigbee2Mqtt addon (and poorly/not at all with ZHA integration) and the $25 Sonoff dongle. Home Assistant sells their own dongle which I would imagine works even better too.

    Hue bulbs are more expensive than most, but people seem to say they have the best color consistency.

    If you want to stick with Wifi you could probably just hook up Tasmota plugs to your existing lamps.

      • James R Kirk@startrek.websiteEnglish
        3·
        10 hours ago

        This only applies if you use their bridge and the bridge is connected to the internet. If you do what I said in my comment (zigbee2mqtt addon with dongle) then there is no path for them to collect. The Zigbee2Mqtt addon allows for firmware updates.

      • sandro@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        13 hours ago

        Does this only apply when using the Hue integration in Home Assistant, or does it also apply when the devices are connected via Zigbee? Do they require you to use the Hue mobile app for the initial pairing?

        • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          10 hours ago

          I don’t have any Hue devices so I don’t follow that too closely, but there’s quite a bit of info on the changes at The Verge which is linked on top of that previous blog post on my comment. Apparently you’ll need an account to get firmware updates and enabling functionality, but not continous connectivity.

          But maybe more important point here is that they have changed their policy and there’s nothing stopping them from changing it again, potentially even removing functionality unless you use their app.