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Looking to get some Z-Wave RGB Bulbs - recommendations?

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    Looking to get some Z-Wave RGB Bulbs - recommendations?

    I'm looking to get a couple of Z-Wave LED RGB Bulbs. I see Aeotec has the old ZW098 LED Bulb which has been mentioned in this forum. Aeotec also has the LED Bulb 6 Multi-Colour bulb, which I think is a newer version released last year and from the specs seems brighter? Has anyone tried this new bulb? Or anyone have any good recommendations for Z-Wave LED RGB bulbs, and how they work with HomeSeer Mobile and Alexa app/voice recognition (aside: I thought of Philips Hue/Zigbee, but I'm already heavily into Z-Wave, and I only need 2 or 3 RGB bulbs for now)?

    EDIT: I see that the new Aeotec LED Bulb 6 is about 1.5x the price of the ZW098. But other than price, I'm more interested in HomeSeer interoperability and difference in actual lighting functionality.

    #2
    I originally bought a bunch of LED color bulbs a little over a year ago. Only one of those is still working.

    Shortly afterwards I also bought the Phillips Hue starter kit. I liked those bulbs better than the MiLights, so bought additional ones. They are all still working.

    With the Hue plugin (or if you write code, its quite easy to write script to do it yourself), you get the same control with HS as you would with any ZWave bulb, color or otherwise.

    One other thing I like about Hue bulbs - if HS bellys up I can still control them through Alexa or the phone app.

    Hue bulbs are expensive, I admit, but I also think you get what you pay for. I was quite disappointed with those other ones.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by aa6vh View Post
      I originally bought a bunch of LED color bulbs a little over a year ago. Only one of those is still working.

      Shortly afterwards I also bought the Phillips Hue starter kit. I liked those bulbs better than the MiLights, so bought additional ones. They are all still working.

      With the Hue plugin (or if you write code, its quite easy to write script to do it yourself), you get the same control with HS as you would with any ZWave bulb, color or otherwise.

      One other thing I like about Hue bulbs - if HS bellys up I can still control them through Alexa or the phone app.

      Hue bulbs are expensive, I admit, but I also think you get what you pay for. I was quite disappointed with those other ones.
      Yeah, I thought about Hue, but I only need a couple of RGB bulbs so wasn’t sure I wanted to invest in time/$$$ to get Hue bridge/bulbs and the plugin for a couple of bulbs.

      Comment


        #4
        I hear you. But after you have a couple, you may find that you want more. And More.

        I bought my second 4 bulbs when Phillips was having one of their intermittent sales of the starter kit, which was far cheaper than buying 4 bulbs separately. And now I have a spare hub should I ever need one.

        And I love being able to say "Alexa, sound general quarters" and having the whole house go red.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by aa6vh View Post
          I hear you. But after you have a couple, you may find that you want more. And More.

          I bought my second 4 bulbs when Phillips was having one of their intermittent sales of the starter kit, which was far cheaper than buying 4 bulbs separately. And now I have a spare hub should I ever need one.

          And I love being able to say "Alexa, sound general quarters" and having the whole house go red.
          What's a good price for that starter kit?

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by NetworkGuy View Post
            What's a good price for that starter kit?
            I do not know what they are going for currently. They are often put on sale during their Black Friday or Amazon Shopping day sales. I see that Amazon is now selling a starter kit (with only three bulbs!) for $140. I seem to recall that Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond had them on sale recently, but I do not recall for how much.

            You could put the starter kit on your Amazon "Wish List", and you will be notified when it goes on sale.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by aa6vh View Post

              I do not know what they are going for currently. They are often put on sale during their Black Friday or Amazon Shopping day sales. I see that Amazon is now selling a starter kit (with only three bulbs!) for $140. I seem to recall that Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond had them on sale recently, but I do not recall for how much.

              You could put the starter kit on your Amazon "Wish List", and you will be notified when it goes on sale.
              Thanks! I started looking and realize there are many different kits. I'd like one with 4 bulbs, but I also notice that some come with some type of dimmer. I'll check out Amazon and the Philips Hue site too. Thanks for the reply!

              Comment


                #8
                Best Buy has the 3 pack starter kit on sale (better than online)...

                Comment


                  #9
                  I'd recommend the Phillips HUE in terms of versatility with HomeSeer as your controller. You would still need to get jowihue plug in. When you enter into the Philips eco system, you need the starter kit, or at lease get a HUE bridge, that can control your HUE BULBS and STRIP LIGHTING. I have strip lighting under and over my cabinets, in my bathroom, around my TV's and some HUE bulbs in lamps.

                  With homeseer I created unique events. Such as when my gate or garage door opens, it flashes all of my HUE bulbs orange letting me know the doors are opening. Then when they close, it flashes all of my hue bulbs green notifying me the doors are closed. Also for weather triggers. When it is about to rain, it can flash BLUE a couple of times for weather notifications.

                  Having white pallet variations is another feature of HUE. You can have different variations of white, for soft white or daylight. You can have automatic HUE colors changes with different times of the day, or overcast and sunny days. Compatible with ALEXA. You can speak commands for colors scenes you have created.

                  To me Phillips HUE is the most versatile echo system of lighting, and you unleash it's abilities with homeseer controls and events.

                  My 2 cents

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I obtained 4 Magiclight BR40 bulbs a year or so ago. All 4 failed with two different failure modes. Contacted Magiclight under one year warranty and they replaced them. Three then failed in a matter of months and they took all four back with refund as they discontinued production. Bad bulb design but good company support.

                    i am providing zigbee USB interface for $10 shipped to anyone that wants one. Software is free and runs with HS3 with mcsMQTT plugin that is also free. Phillips bulbs and many others will work and no need for their hub that comes in Phillips kit. Phillips is too speedy for me. I have used Sengled with it. There are many that used IKEA bulbs that are at a low price point, but I have no info for long term reliability.

                    HS is a little lacking for a color bulb UI as they provide device with color picker, slider or on/off button, but not a device that integrates them all. Depending on use case it is possible to use multiple HS devices or just use color picker to control brightness based upon the RGB color of the color picker.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by MattMan View Post
                      I'd recommend the Phillips HUE in terms of versatility with HomeSeer as your controller. You would still need to get jowihue plug in. When you enter into the Philips eco system, you need the starter kit, or at lease get a HUE bridge, that can control your HUE BULBS and STRIP LIGHTING. I have strip lighting under and over my cabinets, in my bathroom, around my TV's and some HUE bulbs in lamps.

                      With homeseer I created unique events. Such as when my gate or garage door opens, it flashes all of my HUE bulbs orange letting me know the doors are opening. Then when they close, it flashes all of my hue bulbs green notifying me the doors are closed. Also for weather triggers. When it is about to rain, it can flash BLUE a couple of times for weather notifications.

                      Having white pallet variations is another feature of HUE. You can have different variations of white, for soft white or daylight. You can have automatic HUE colors changes with different times of the day, or overcast and sunny days. Compatible with ALEXA. You can speak commands for colors scenes you have created.

                      To me Phillips HUE is the most versatile echo system of lighting, and you unleash it's abilities with homeseer controls and events.

                      My 2 cents
                      I have a dozen or so HomeSeer HSM200 devices, and, like you, I use their LEDs to show status of certain events (e.g. doors opening, doors unlocked etc.). I hope to do something similar with RGB bulbs, whose color changes would be more obvious than the little LEDs of the HSM200s. All the switches in my house are Z-Wave, so I have no plans/desire on replacing any of them or using RGB bulbs on any of the sockets that the Z-Wave switches control. I figured smart switch + smart bulb = not very smart combination. I don't want to deal with the "switch being off thereby powering off the RGB bulb issue". Also, the RGB bulbs can be expensive! For example, I have 3 chandeliers with a dozen bulbs each, and I can't imagine replacing their three Z-Wave switches with 3 dozen Hue bulbs! But, I would like to use RGB bulbs on lamps for aforementioned event notifications as well night light type functionality/scenery. I looked at the Aeon ZW098 bulb, and it has some issue (https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/li...nky-zw098-bulb) in reporting its status (not clear if it's HomeSeer or the Aeon bulb... I thought the Aeon would be safe to get given that HomeSeer used to sell it, but nope, it's got issues).

                      The silence is deafening with regards to Z-Wave RGB bulb recommendations! After doing more research, I decided to get a Hue starter kit. In addition to HomeSeer, I use Alexa and HomeKit (using homeseer-homebridge 2018 plug-in). So, it's nice to know I can use the Philips Hue with any of these 3 controllers. I'm afraid I'm going down another rabbit hole with Philips Hue, but I suppose that's part of the fun :-). Thanks for recommendations!!

                      Comment


                        #12
                        If any of you have a Bed Bath & Beyond close by, they have put all their [online] Philips Hue on clearance (50% off). But it seems it's no longer showing online tonight. I visited a couple of local stores yesterday and the day before. I was able to pickup the Gen3 starter kit with 4 color bulbs for $99.99 each. A great deal, and now I have something to play around with.

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                          #13
                          rgbw with z wave is a no go.
                          I had a z098 . And it was poor on color and temperature.

                          the philips rgbw totally worth the price and time. U’ll get used to it. And deconz ‘s gonna be your friend too .

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                            #14
                            Yeah, you guys were right. I’ve returned the one Aeon RGB light that I got. Colors not as good and status doesn’t show up correctly in HomeSeer when it is turned off or on via HomeSeer itself. I only intended to get two RGB lights. But now, since starting this post, I’m up to 10 Philips Hue lights! Only using them for lamps. No plans on replacing the use of all my Z-Wave light switches. Thanks, guys.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Just going to throw this out here.... LIFX! I tried the other lights and sent them back. Tried Hue and they were just not bright enough. Saw Ultra's plugin for LIFX and bought one to try out. They are BRIGHT! ...but they also dim VERY low. I am VERY pleased with them. Have 32 now of various shapes and sizes. Have 10 on 2 5-light track lights in our rec room and I can make it as bright as daylight in there in almost every color! Aside from Ultra's awesome plugin, the LIFX app has a ton of features and there are a few other apps out there that really take advantage of their versatility. If you have already invested in Hue, it is probably too expensive to switch, but if you haven't chosen yet, consider LIFX.
                              .

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