Everything is coming together and I’m finding less excuses to not write up the journey on finishing our house. We’ve come to a point that I’ve been looking forward to for years, lighting! I hadn’t realised that it is a bit of a minefield when it comes to lighting solutions. that Once invested in a system, it becomes more of a challenge adapting or changing to a new system. This post explains the Zigbee technology that smart homes use.
Future proofing for the smart home
What I’ve done can definitely be considered overengineered when there are so many cheaper all in one LED systems available. The problem I noticed was that, while these 5 metre long LED strips certainly do the job and are hassle free, once you start fitting out multiple rooms and have different light sources, you can have a fragmented setup. Multiple remotes and not knowing which one goes where, or even where to put them. Different apps for different LED controllers, but also the amount of personal data you have to give to register for the Chinese smart home apps is a joke.
Hue is good.
Because of this, I’ve ended up going back on my previous sentiment on Philips Hue and embraced the app to work up the most streamlined lighting in the house.
But not at the Hue cost! There are plenty of ways to adopt the best components of Hue at a fraction of the cost.
Zigbee
To explain this properly, I first need to cover the technology all these wireless interfaces communicate with. To put it quickly, “traditional” wireless comms doesn’t do the job needed for smart home lighting. Bluetooth lacks the distance and strength, wifi requires additional security, sharing connection for more important internet devices.
Zigbee is another wireless signal which is the agreed standard for smart home devices to communicate through. This standardisation is great because it enables innovation from all corners of the globe work and talk to one another without convoluted adaptations.
Philips Hue works on Zigbee and it’s own app will control everything in one central place. Because of Philips having the credibility and position in the market, you can safely assume that a Hue setup will work with Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple Homekit.
For all the Zigbee enabled devices to be controlled, you need a central hub for them all to connect to. This hub then connects to your wifi which ties it altogether. Having that connectivity allows you to control the lighting from outside the house as a deterrent if needed.
At the time, I hadn’t thought much about the hub as I thought I’d get one in an Amazon Echo due to the house being tied into Echo. But then I realised that the hub would then bring the software side to all of this hardware I was cobbling together.
Which Zigbee hub?
My natural inclination was to get the latest Amazon Echo with it’s built in Zigbee controller, or the Echo Show if I wanted my doorbell to show who was at the door. The problem was I really don’t need another Echo speaker in the house and the Echo show to be frank, is a rip off.
That’s when I looked into what the Hue did. The cheapest option out of the lot and the most compatible. The additional benefit was that I would then be able to access the Philips Hue lighting app so I knew I’d get a good user interface for daily use. It might seem picky but for something that would be used everyday, I wanted to ensure there was minimal frustration involved.
There are other options that I don’t know too much about. Samsung SmarterThings which I was under the impression was being phased out. The other notable one is is Hubitat which I could see myself upgrading to one day. It seems to offer the highest level of customisation but has a very steep learning curve. This option would be good for specific routines if you want to tie in several variables like time, temperature, sensor detection with different outputs.
Ikea Tradfi is Ikea’s own Zigbee interface which will definitely be worth watching how that develops over time.
Hub sorted, then what?
3 parts are left of the puzzle.
- The LED strips
- The LED controller
- The power supply
Independently, each of these things have hundreds of variations for options. All it takes is to google “5 metre LED strip” and then you’ll be inundated with specifications and codes. In this post I’ll just cover at a high level.
To prevent this being a wall of text I have split some of the parts into their own posts.
Where to source?
Do you have plenty of time to prepare and not left things last minute? Then the cheapest place to source them from is AliExpress. You can guarantee that UK based sellers are dropshipping these. By going to AliExpress you can save some money cutting out the middleman. It’s worth noting they accept PayPal so you get the same protection as you would buying here.
Strapped for time or just want the security of buying within the UK? Then eBay is the next best. It’ll be the same product but already made the journey into the UK and if you’re happy to pay a bit more then it is a great middle ground.