Compatible light hardware

Hardware Home Automation
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I am hoping there is some suggestions for non cloud hardware especially lights and light strips. bk hobby’s mention about a light strip controller looks like it might fit the bill if the 6$ version of that board on amazon is compatible [some thing i will be digging in to tonight some.] The hallways and under/over cabinet lighting is likely to be covered by that how ever im always interested in other options since i dont know how well that will work for work lighting yet or if ill need to get a seperate type of light just for food prep.

The other thing i have had a hard time finding is automated color lights that can either replace standard bulbs on their own or work in conjunction with a new wall switch. hue look really nice but i cant justify 40$ a light bulb no matter how nice they look. are there any suggestions for something slimier in the us that do not require cloud access? if they have a bridge that works even w/o internet that would be great.

I unfortunately live in an area where its not unusual for internet and power to be down for 7 days if a nasty storm comes through. the last thing i want is to be parallelized because 1/2 the devices in my house cant call home. it would be nice if the docs can be updated so finding compatible hardware is easier both in what type of hardware is covered by a binding and if its us/uk/ger/etc specific.

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The main smart home technologies designed for local control are Zigbee and Z-Wave.

For Z-Wave in US & Canada, Zooz brand devices are a good choice. They help us support their devices in OH. Their web store is at thesmartesthouse.com. Products are also available on Amazon.

@5iver has some several things with LED lights.

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Welcome to the community!

I’m with Bruce on recommending Z-Wave for the best performance. If you’re looking for cheap and reliable, I’d suggest Tuya-based WiFI devices, which can easily be flashed with the open-source Tasmota firmware. Tasmota grants you local control of the Tuya devices, which can communicate with openHAB over MQTT. If you search Tuya and Tasmota in the community, you’ll find a lot of resources.

Many (most?) of the inexpensive WiFi devices on Amazon are rebrands of Tuya devices, and you’ll know for sure if they use the Smart Life app.

As for hardware, my personal opinion is that you should get smart lightbulbs if you want to regularly change the colours, and smart switches/dimmers if you just want your bulbs to be a specific colour all of the time. That’s mostly because I want to be able to control my lights even when my WiFi is down.

The Z-Wave database accomplishes this for Z-Wave by necessity, but there’s no really good way to catalog everything that works with OH. We’re talking switches, plugs, bulbs, air conditioners, fans, humidifiers, thermostats, AV equipment, sensors, home assistants, EV chargers…and the list goes on and on. It would be possible if someone was dedicated to the effort, but documentation is rarely a strong point of volunteer-driven, open-source software projects. :wink: That’s not a criticism of our developers, but an acknowledgement that they’re developers, not technical writers.

Good luck!

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The database has over 1300 entries currently. That is a lot for a community supported database.

1 Like
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Insteon is another option.

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IKEA Trådfri, now called Home Smart.

ZigBee based. Can be used with any ZigBee controller or with the IKEA gateway.

I like the normal and white spectrum lamps better than Hue, but Hue does full colour way better.

Their own gateway does not even offer an internet (cloud) connection, but can be used with openHAB and/or be coupled with Google Home / Amazon Alexa if you want.

All the text below is about direct control, so even if your gateway / openHAB is down.

The IKEA switches, dimmer and 5 button remote and motion detector, control the lights directly and keep working even if the gateway and/or openHAB is down. But I am sorry to bring it you, you’ll still need power.

Z-wave also has the option of direct control BTW.

On ZigBee it is possible as said, but for example Hue does not support it (out of the box, with their own products, but you can couple an IKEA remote to a Hue bulb directly, for example).

When using direct control (without gateway) with the 5 button remote, changing colour (temperature) only works when the IKEA gateway is used. With a hue bridge you can’t do anything about it, with zigbee2mqtt or Deconz you can use the left/right buttons, but the (non-IKEA) gateway needs to be up and running.

This is because the left/right buttons of the IKEA remote send a scene command and only the IKEA gateway programs those scenes in the lamp. No-one has figured out yet how it is done exactly and it is on my to-do list. When pairing the lamps with a different gateway a factory reset needs to be done first, which clears the scenes.

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I would say Z-Wave devices tend to adhere closer to the standard. The Zigbee standard permits too much vendor-specific functionality IMO. @chris is welcome to either give examples or correct me. Our developer is the expert on both these protocols & bindings.

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I think both are fine - they both allow manufacturer specific additions, and in most cases, for lights (as discussed here) there are few examples of manufacturer specific extensions.

ZigBee tends to have a better standard for lighting and its used extensively (as mentioned here already - Hue, Ikea, Osram - there are dozens of manufacturers) - ZWave lighting (ie light bulbs) is not so common, but they are available.

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I have 1 zwave light bulb and some switches I know of another user with an LED controller. Z-Wave is world region specific fir devices but zigbee has one worldwide frequency standard.

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@Phalen, my suggestion is you’ll need to do your research and evaluate the pro/cons of each type of device. There are at least 3 different options listed so far (Insteon, Zigbee, Z-Wave) and possibly others.

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Sure - I also have some. I didn’t say that they weren’t available - quite the opposite. I was just stating though that ZigBee Lighting is vastly more common that ZWave.

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thats good to hear i got sticker shock when i realized the stupid hue’s were 40$ a bulb
I will probably grab a batch of tuya’s and try the ota flashing.

its a shame they discontinued their lights. I would probably go with the nodemcu instead of the sensors but the switches and such look good. I haven’t looked in to how many sensors can be packed in to one node but suspect a water/temp/motion pack would be doable.

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Check out https://templates.blakadder.com/ before you buy any Tuya devices to see if there’s a template for the device. Once you’ve flashed Tasmota, you use the template to enable control.

I suggest these two threads for guidance on the flashing process.

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