Sorry to ask, but I am on sort of a time crunch and my eyes are bleeding from a whole lot of reading on this stuff. I am hoping someone has done this and can easily point me that the right hardware.
I need to put up a colored LED bulb that works with OpenHab 3.3. My current setup has:
Z-Wave
Trafida gateway for my Ikea shades.
Wifi
I am happy to add on a zigbee dongle if the solution warrants it. I do have two Sengled Smart LED that say the can do alex, google, smartthings, and have a zigbee logo on it. I’ve found no great information that gives me hope on these.
I am happy to pick up a new bulb… these two free ones are not the hill I want to die on here.
I’ve found references to TP-LINK Kasa wifi bulbs here that seem like a good option. Assuming I can rig something up in my z-wave wall switches for Openhab to key them up / down (which I am pretty sure I can do)
Or is it worth just getting a Philips Hue hub and some bulbs? The price jumps A LOT
There is a ton of information out there, and as openhab has continued to evolve over the years, a lot of the older info is probably out of date. If anyone has this going on, please let me know what you have done… In broad strokes that worked - I can work out the programming etc
Thank you all!
EDIT: The time crunch is that everyone in the area is putting up colored light bulbs for a little girl who is getting treatment for a brain cancer. This is the third time they have done this for someone and the color keeps changing. I will go buy a purple bulb if I have too lol
Kasa devices are inexpensive and work well if you have reliable WiFi. The binding is very stable, and works locally (so you can deny them Internet access).
I would usually recommend against combining a smart bulb with a wall switch, because when you use the wall switch you lose connectivity with the bulb (since it has no power). However, I believe that Kasa bulbs will remember their last settings, so if a bulb was purple when it turned off, it should still be purple when power is restored. I’m not 100% sure about that, though.
If you want the bulb to always be purple, then you just need to add the bulb and then use the Z-Wave switch to turn it ON/OFF.
If you want the bulb to change behaviour based on time of day, then you’ll need a rule that triggers when the Z-Wave wall switch turns on. The rule can determine if the bulb should be purple or not, wait for a period of time (to allow the bulb to reconnect to wifi), and send a command to change the colour if necessary.
I hope that all goes well for her, and commend you and your community for showing support. It doesn’t seem like much, but something like this can really give people an emotional boost in times of need.
Everything went really well with the TP-Link devices - Thank you for the recommendation!
You were not sure on the settings being retained after a power on / power off - I can confirm that at least the KL130 bulbs do “remember” when switched off / on.
Unfortunately, I also got some mini bulbs from a different manufacturer, which have turned out to be Tuya… so the MQTT adventures await me today : )
Pretty much every generic device is a Tuya. Note that they started using non-ESP controllers in some devices in 2020, making any of those devices incompatible with Tasmota. So if you struggle to flash them, that might be why.
Personally, I’ve stopped buying Tuya devices. Since Tuya-Convert no longer works, I find them to be too much trouble.
