Hi all,
I’ve been having some trouble getting some decent lightbulbs. Which brand do you guys recommend? I’ve bought some Livarno (Lidl) ones, not full RGB, but when I choose a warmer color they become a little red/pink.
Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions! I’ll check out Ikea or Philips if I can find a good deal on them.
Edit 2, 25 days later: Bought the Tradfri 1055 lumen lightbulbs, setup was easy, and the Zigbee range of these lightbulbs is far better than the Livarno ones. Adding them to zigbe2mqtt was easy: enable permit join and reset the lightbulbs by flipping the switch 6 times.
I have tried a lot of different ZigBee bulbs over the years so here is my two cents. All of these are referring to the white spectrum bulbs from these brands as that’s all I buy, no RGB.
The BEST are probably Phillips Hue. I only use white spectrum bulbs not RGB so they are not $50 each, but they are still by far the most expensive.
My favorite are the cheap white label ones I used to buy from Amazon and Home Depot under different brand names for $5 dollars and were clearly made by the same manufacturer. The ZigBee stick even saw them the same. But I can no longer find them. They have an amazing price to quality ratio.
I really like the IKEA Tradfri bulbs but they are by far the most finicky bulbs I have when using a ZigBee stick instead of their native hub. They are fine 95% of the time, but sometimes they get annoying and won’t turn off or respond too slowly, or they just stop responding and need to be powered off completely to reset them.
My least favorite is SengLED. They are cheap but do not act as repeaters so they will ruin your mesh network. I will never buy more of them.
I would also avoid the OSRAM Lightify brand, I think it’s a Sylvania brand. Those have had the highest failure rate for me and it’s clearly because they run insanely hot. They will burn your hands if you don’t shut them off before changing them.
I’ve been quite happy with my Tradfri Ikea bulks. Got some spread throughout the house. I did have one RGB bulk I got from AliExpress, but although it could do a whole range of colours it just didn’t have the brightness I was looking for. I haven’t tried the Phillips Hue ones though, so they might be better. I just happened to be in Ikea and spotted them, so went for it purely because of the fact I was needing some and walked past them. Had I walked past some Hue ones instead I’d probably have considered going for them instead.
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Happy with my IKEA bulbs. It’s bang for the buck and you can be pretty sure they won’t set your house on fire since Ikea in general follows good electric design principles (from what I’ve been watching from bigclive on YouTube)
In my experience there’s nothing above Hue. Philips makes the best led bulbs out there.
I’ve had decent results with ledvance as well in the sense that they’re robust and reliable but may take some tinkering to get the color/temp right.
The ikea ones are alright
Would you say they’re ‘lit’?
Badum tss
I like IKEA bulbs. I think they’re decently priced.
May I ask why smart bulbs and not smart switch in case you dont need rgb? What happens when you turn off wall switch? Smart bulbs stop working?
what happens when you turn off wall switch?
They’ll go off. But when you turn the switch on again, the light goes on again. You can set that within Home Assistant.
Wall switch needs to have wiring that allows it to be always on which isn’t guaranteed if your house want built in a time where construction code demands it. Also just less beginner/non-electrician friendly in general especially in north America where the electrical boxes for switches are typically smaller.
Oh thx, thats usefull. Im gonna do more research, but do you know what can I expect from appartment in new building in eu? Im about to move place in a month and im intersted in smart lights. Hopefully i can use smart switch like shelly 1. Its kinda confusing how to use smart bulbs with normal switch. I see myself spamming wall switch in a dark hehe. or maybe I just dont understand how it works yet
I’m not 100% on eu but for most wired in ZigBee devices you want 3 wires for it to be always on. 2 wire I think some people have made work anyways using a capacitor or something but that’s too sketchy for my liking. Sometimes the corresponding light recepticle has 3 wires instead, at least in one of my previous homes in Canada, and I was able to put the ZigBee switch in there instead. My current house is about half and half 2 and 3 wire and I’m just shit out of luck on those because the ceiling boxes are all 2.
Sorry 2 or 3 plus ground which is bare here. Edit: also I think the capacitor was to prevent the 2 wire versions of the switch, which are different, from flickering
Mate thank you a lot for detailed answer
