Hi,
Soon I plan on looking to set up some (most likely) z-wave controlled lights in my home. My preference is to do this via control from the switch but am unsure whether that will give me the level of control I’m looking for. That is, I want to be able to tune the colour temperature of the white light in addition to dimming the lux levels.
Does this mean I need specific bulbs for that job? Will they need to be RGB and not just white? I’d prefer to avoid full spectrum bulbs for most of the lights I have in mind to avoid my son constantly messing with them and turning the place into a disco!
Someone the other day suggested that I might need to use smart bulbs rather than switch control in order to achieve this. So I thought I’d come here for clarification.
Yes you’ll need RGB bulbs (or RGB LED strips plus a controller). There is no such thing as a “switch to color temperature X” command and there’s no physics to implement that temperature switch (except to use a combination of separate R,G,B channels).
Don’t be afraid of the disco … it gets boring very quickly. Also, you can assign a fixed color (temp) to appear when a physical switch is pressed and allow for changing that color temp just in the web interface/app.
Ok so, to be clear, I should be focusing on smart bulbs rather than switch control?
I’m feeling here like I should be leaning towards Philips Hue or home kit/BLE devices to do this rather than z-wave. Would that be right? It doesn’t bother me per se if I don’t use z-wave. I was just hoping to avoid a proliferation of bridges/hubs/controllers…
Oh well, that’s a question without a simple answer.
If you don’t have anything in existence right now and if you have home automation plans beyond lighting, you’ll (likely) end up with some zwave stuff anyway, in that case you’re right, avoid the bridges and go for a zwave bulb like the ones from Zipato or Aeon.
OpenHAB allows for mixing tech, so you can still add Hues (if you add a Hue bridge, too) or WiFi based bulbs (such as LIFX) later.
