Smart lighbulbs

[Hitch]

Anyone use any of smart lightbulbs? Bluetooth/Wifi/Remote control

Thinking of getting a few, kids been on about them for cool effects for their rooms, i'm thinking about one in a lamp in our bedroom to use a bit like a wake up light through a timer...can they be turned on upto full brightness over a period of time through the app?

I'm looking at Easybulb for example, the Phillips Hue looks a bit on the spendy side for me...

 

[123hotchef]

no never but i must admit i have been tempted by the cheapo ones on ebay

 

[Shox Dr]

A wake up light would be good. I cant stand dark mornings

 

[tomsutton529]

If you have an Android phone you can use an app called tasker that can automate a lot of things, the app can be a bit of a pain to set up and get it doing what you want but once its done you just leave it. it would work by seeing that you have an alarm set for say 6am, then you would tell the app to increase the bulb by a certain percent every 5mins or so.

As for using the bulbs ive never got round to using them. A Nest Thermostat is next on my list.,

 

[skotl]

I just bought a ton of kit from the US and imported it (legally!) to the UK.

The market leader here seems to be Philips Hue but, boy do we pay for it.
That link, plus the phone app, gives you all you need to control the two supplied bulbs from your phone.

To do more sophisticated control then you'll need a bridge from the Hue to a generic controller, such as the Samsung SmartThings Hub.

Honestly, anything beyond this is definite hacker territory. I, and I am sure, many others, will be happy to offer advice but a basic understanding of DMZs, vLANs, programming environments, etc will be required - if someone tells you that home automation is easy then I'm afraid they are optimistic at best. This technology still requires a decent amount of network and programming level of skills.

 

[garethp]

It'll be easy in a year or less...

Someone will make a seamless easy to configure system that works perfectly - then apple will reverse engineer it, recode it to only work with other apple devices, claim they invented it and use it in an advertising campaign

And charge twice as much whilst the 'followers' rant on about nothing like it ever existed before the launch date

 

[GW8IZR]

But during the reverse engineering process at least they will re direct the 'marketing information' and other personal data such as bank account numbers and pin numbers from China to Apple inc....

 

[Hitch]

I'll definitely be using an android based setup.

 

[WorkshopChris]

then apple will reverse engineer it, recode it to only work with other apple devices, claim they invented it and use it in an advertising campaign

They will probably add a 3rd pin to the bulb and say you need to a have a genius electrician fit an apple bulb holder in your home.

On a serious note there is so much smart home kit coming to the market they need to come up with a common control protocol to ease integration.

I am looking at the lighting at the moment along with heating controls the hive thermostat looks interesting but so do the honeywell networked thermostatic valves, but each bit of kit needs a different interface.

If it was just me here i would just hard wire it all back to a PLC.

 

[MrFluffy]

Heh I've been tinkering with home automation ever since we got our first flat many moons ago
The closest to standard for years was the proprietory x10 protocol, but it was complete rubbish kit quality wise, I know I got my fingers burnt doing a house with it entirely, and doing away with normal light switches. House needs rewiring now as the kit is continually breaking down and 30 quid every two months is too much, and to be honest only I really understand how it all works. When we lived in it full time starting 15 years back, the odd reboot once a week didnt seem too bad for the sheer convienience of being able to control everything from anywhere, phone, wireless switches in strategic places, motion sensors hooked in, logs of when everything went on, what temperatures were in which rooms at which time of day etc. But as skotl says, it was definitely hacker tinkerer level tech, not ready for prime time. The control heating system was a complete one off, software wrote by me and hardware soldered together by me, but to be fair to it, its the one part thats not being replaced in the refresh as its been 100% reliable.
This house I'm going to do a variant of dmx and homebrew again and Ive put the data cable and wall patress boxes to house the modules in ready for when I do, no way I am getting tied into buying another proprietory system and we're converting the first house to dmx/plc based stuff so it can be sold with some chance of someone else understanding it if it ever needs attention.
The real problem with consumer smart anything right now besides the complete shocking lack of security in most designs is everyone wants to tie you into their protocol, their bespoke hardware, and their cloud so you send all your data to them, so they can sell it to 3rd parties, and nothing really plays well with other brands. Plus the likes of Nest has highlighted that your in someone elses control, google bought a home automation product called Revolv which was sold with lifetime support and cloud access, and obsoleted it to consolodate development under the Nest brand, all the hardware already sold just stopped working with "owners" having no say so. Your privates, their vice, your choice. And google have a history of shelving products and services with no consultation with the users. No way I'd choose to have a Nest in anything I expect the install to last more than a couple of years.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/4/11362928/google-nest-revolv-shutdown-smart-home-products

edit, went looking for a list of discontinued suddenly google services and found this on wikipedia. I have been bitten by at least two of these personally... :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_services

For a couple of lightbulbs, I'd just go with the off the shelf stuff though, but if you get hooked and want to go further, be prepared to give everything on the market a severe looking at to find the gotchas in it.