I have about 20 Lifx bulbs in outdoor fixtures so I can do holiday color themes but I am getting frustrated with the flakiness of these things. I got Lifx over other bulbs because of the good color saturation, higher brightness, and ability to come on at the last set color. Wi-fi meant I could reach all bulbs without "building out" a mesh network so it was a simple upgrade. I don't really automate them, I just manually set a scene for each holiday in the Lifx app and let the Insteon switches that control them do the time of day on/off. Most of the year they are just set to white.
Lately it is a real pain to work with them because they are always going offline in the app, even though my Access Points show them with plenty of signal, I also go to set a color and the app says it worked just fine but in reality there is no change. The app seems to just assume the command worked without verifying the state of the bulb. After awhile it seems to catch up to reality and reflect the state but it can take several attempts to get the color set on a bulb. Also some days a few bulbs will come on and forget their last state and just default to white. Instead of correcting this the Lifx app just assumes that is what I wanted it to do and changes the color in the app to match the incorrect state.
So I think I am ready to switch to a lower stress alternative and am looking for the best option. I'm looking for any input regarding the options below that I am considering or really any alternative at all:
1 I thought of going to Inovelli Z-Wave bulbs but they have been unavailable forever with no sign of coming back in stock any time soon.
2 I see TP-Link has a local api and there is a plugin for it. Not sure if this is a good equivalent?
3 The new Philips Wiz Wi-Fi bulbs would be drop-in replacement but I haven't seen much feedback good or bad on these.
4 There is always Hue but I would need a second hub because my existing one is full. Reluctant to go that route until Philips finds a way to have multiple hubs on the same account and visible to Alexa. And there is the price factor.
5 I can do other Zigbee bulbs but would have to implement Conbee and go to a lot more effort. For this low use application I would prefer to find more of a drop-in replacement. Also a lot f Zigbee bulbs don't come on to their previous state so would not be drop in replacements for that reason as well.
I'm not looking to spend a lot of time and/or money messing with the existing Insteon switches which are working fine so I won't be re-wiring things to keep the bulbs powered all the time. What would you do if you were in this situation and wanted to replace the Lifx bulbs with something better?
Lately it is a real pain to work with them because they are always going offline in the app, even though my Access Points show them with plenty of signal, I also go to set a color and the app says it worked just fine but in reality there is no change. The app seems to just assume the command worked without verifying the state of the bulb. After awhile it seems to catch up to reality and reflect the state but it can take several attempts to get the color set on a bulb. Also some days a few bulbs will come on and forget their last state and just default to white. Instead of correcting this the Lifx app just assumes that is what I wanted it to do and changes the color in the app to match the incorrect state.
So I think I am ready to switch to a lower stress alternative and am looking for the best option. I'm looking for any input regarding the options below that I am considering or really any alternative at all:
1 I thought of going to Inovelli Z-Wave bulbs but they have been unavailable forever with no sign of coming back in stock any time soon.
2 I see TP-Link has a local api and there is a plugin for it. Not sure if this is a good equivalent?
3 The new Philips Wiz Wi-Fi bulbs would be drop-in replacement but I haven't seen much feedback good or bad on these.
4 There is always Hue but I would need a second hub because my existing one is full. Reluctant to go that route until Philips finds a way to have multiple hubs on the same account and visible to Alexa. And there is the price factor.
5 I can do other Zigbee bulbs but would have to implement Conbee and go to a lot more effort. For this low use application I would prefer to find more of a drop-in replacement. Also a lot f Zigbee bulbs don't come on to their previous state so would not be drop in replacements for that reason as well.
I'm not looking to spend a lot of time and/or money messing with the existing Insteon switches which are working fine so I won't be re-wiring things to keep the bulbs powered all the time. What would you do if you were in this situation and wanted to replace the Lifx bulbs with something better?