Hello, I’m new here. I became fed up with proprietary clouds and apps, so I’ve decided to switch to openHAB. I found a binding for the WiZ bulb I have (which was unexpectedly expensive, so I kinda regret it), but I’ve also come to own a Roku branded smarthome lightbulb. I assumed that there would be a binding to control this as well, however, there may be one for a Roku television, but not for their smart lightbulbs…? How should I go about dealing with this, should I attempt to create my own binding? Wait for someone else who knows more to create one? Refund the bulb to get a Philips one? Since that clearly seems to be the one that openHAB likes the most lol
Some brief searching reveals:
- These are rebranded Wyze light bulbs.
- The reverse engineered Wyze API won’t work.
- Roku does not provide any public API I can find.
- Access to the bulbs requires a token obtained by authenticating to the Roku servers, so even if it works it’s only going to be pseudo local control. You’ll still need cloud access at least at first.
There is some work that has been done to reverse engineer this but unless reverse engineering and breaking encryption and the like is your thing, developing an add-on for this is going to be way more than you’ll want to take on.
If you get a Hue bulb though, be aware that that uses Zigbee, not WiFi so you’ll need a Zigbee coordinator or you’ll also need to get a Hue Hub in order to control it.
Just because it is controllable through an app or Alexa or Google Assistant does not mean OH, HA, or any other automation system is going to be able to support it. Every vendor has their own standard for the most part.
Before purchasing anything, look to see:
- Is there a binding that supports it?
- Does the binding support that specific device?
- Are there any other requirements (e.g. Zigbee requires a USB coordinator, Zwave requires a USB controller, etc.)?
3 Likes
I see :0 very useful information. For now (until I get my own place) my use case is similar to this post here in that I just need lights that change color depending on the hour. I don’t think I’m going to be bothering with any solution that needs a “hub” besides the computer I’m running openHAB on, so no Philips for me.
Now that I’ve messed around with it, a bit of an impromptu Roku bulb review: I think I see why no one has gone through the hassle, they’re kind of terrible. There’s a very long delay for it to turn on, especially on a timer, and all colors are washed out & grey-ish compared to the sharp & intense WiZ bulb. I definitely don’t recommend the Roku bulbs, they’re cheap for a reason. It’s just a shame that the WiZ bulbs are way too expensive to justify using.