Lighting systems....so confused ...Please Help

[LuvAlexa]

so I should believe him or not? lol

You have my word on it.



(Now let's see who the older folks on this board are.)

Joe Isuzu!

[shelbydave]

If you haven't already made a decision, I can say I have been with Hue an awfully long time, and it is flat out the best system out there. From a bridge that is locally controlled when you are home (no internet needed), and remotely controlled when you are away; to a great local API with superb documentation; lots of cool third party apps; 100% reliability; better support, more frequent upgrades, and new features, SDKs, Frameworks, devices coming all the time.

IMHO, Philips is the poster child for how to do smart lighting and the IoT right. No one compares at this point, and tieing your lights to something like the Wink or SmartThings hubs is like greasing your wheels LocTite. Yeah, they're a little pricier than some other stuff but worth every penny!

Isn't Hue Zigbee?  This is where I'm suffering in the decision making process...  It seems like there are many more devices that use ZWave, and SmartThings supports both.

I like the fact that the Hue hub is local, while I'm slowly warming up the the cloud concept, I still have concerns there.

Maybe I'll start out with the Hue starter, and see how far I can get.  I suspect I'll have to go with something like a SmartThings or other eventually though.

[DParker]

Isn't Hue Zigbee?  This is where I'm suffering in the decision making process...  It seems like there are many more devices that use ZWave, and SmartThings supports both.

Yes, Hue bulbs use Zigbee, as do GE Link (which are compatible with the Hue bridge) and Cree...and possibly others that I'm not thinking of right now.  If you're only interested in automating/controlling lighting then the Hue bridge is in fact a good choice.  But if you want to do anything else then you'll need the flexibility of something like the SmartThings hub, as flawed as it is.

I like the fact that the Hue hub is local, while I'm slowly warming up the the cloud concept, I still have concerns there.

And those concerns are well-founded.  The good news is that as far as lighting and most motion sensors go, control of those devices and operation of the official lighting smart app (which supports motion sensors as well) are local to the ST hub as well.  Everything else is still cloud-based though.

[shelbydave]

Good info!   I was heavy into home automation / control with X 10 Waaaayy back in the '80s and '90s.  That setup died a painful death when we bought a home too large for the signals to reliably travel to the devices.  So one by one, as the devices stopped working, I just let the system die.  I was going to switch to insteon for a short time, then saw the Vera devices, and decided to wait a bit to see which would win out there.  Now with Zigbee in the picture, and I think Insteon is getting kind of "long in the tooth", it's time to start to rethink...  I guess I need to add WiFi in there too for consideration...  So many decisions!!!

[stusviews]

If you're really into HA, then Insteon and an ISY is probably the most advanced, flexible and sophisticated HA system on the market. The ISY accommodates Z-Wave, too. Even IR.

[DParker]

If you're really into HA, then Insteon and an ISY is probably the most advanced, flexible and sophisticated HA system on the market. The ISY accommodates Z-Wave, too. Even IR.

It depends on what (mostly) bypassing the cloud is worth to you.  Insteon + ISY is much more expensize than a single ST hub, and you still don't get Zigbee support, do it's actually less flexible in terms of 3rd party product compatibility.

If anything I'd say the selling points of such a system are simplicity and reliability, but at a cost.