I’m considering getting a smart bulb or two to test out with a view to getting more if the experience goes well. I see that the Things Gateway currently supports a few different products via different add-ons:
EUFY
LIFX
MEROSS (or are only plugs supported?)
Philips Hue (via Zigbee)
Sengled
TP-Link
Wemo
Yeelight
Via Zigbee - Cree, Tradfri, Osram, Sylvania,
Via Z-Wave - GoControl
From the gateway’s point of view, what are the significant differences between these? Are all functions supported, or only a subset? Some of the above I’ve noted need an adapter for Zigbee or Z-Wave, do the others work directly on WiFi or do they need another adapter/bridge/hub?
It really just comes down to the feature set that you want. Some of those bulbs are dimmable, some are RGB, some let you change color temperature, etc. The adapters should expose all available functionality, so I would just go with whatever brand, price point, features, and protocol you prefer.
A couple notes, though:
Meross - yes, only plugs are supported
TP-Link - these will work locally with no cloud connection and no account
LIFX/Yeelight/Wemo - you have to attach these to an account, but control is done locally
Eufy/Sengled - you have to attach these to an account, control is done through the cloud
Philips Hue - you can control these either via Zigbee or through the Hue Hub
Hi @mstegeman,
Thanks for the comparison - so for me, since I don’t have any hubs, dongles or existing accounts, I think the TP-Link option is best.
Cheers
I agree that (without free as in freedom options) the TP-Link light bulbs are a good choice. At home I have one of their multi color bulbs, which I listed the pros and cons here: https://wiki.chrpaul.de/web_of_things:tp-link_lb130
If anyone bought different devices and could describe it like this, we could built a more detailed version of the Supported Hardware page (and a summary for easy consumption).
Thanks @jaller94 for the info and good work @mstegeman for that repo, I find that much more useful than the wiki page.
I’m also interested in a smart plug, again only for trial for now. @mstegeman is your summary above applicable also for the smart plugs from those brands which make them? I note that in the wiki and your list there are these additional brands:
Pretty much the same story with smart plugs. TP-Link tends to be a great option.
Comments on the other ones you mentioned:
Etekcity: you have to attach these to an account, control is done through the cloud
iDevices/Koogeek: these are both HomeKit devices which will work 100% locally with no account
Elgato: also HomeKit, 100% local, but this one is Bluetooth instead of wi-fi. There are currently some unfortunate Bluetooth issues in the HomeKit adapter which I’ve been unable to resolve yet, so this is probably not your best option.
The TP-Link bulbs are pretty pricey here so I might be it might be better value to get a Zigbee or Z-Wave dongle and a Philips Hue or other bulb that use one of those protocols.
Where do the Zigbee and Z-Wave smart bulbs and plugs sit with the needing an account or control via the cloud? Do these protocols negate the need for that or are they just another communication medium?
Cheers
EDIT: Also the TP-Link ones aren’t bright enough for what we need in our house, so I have to look at the other options anyway.
Zigbee and Z-Wave both work 100% locally, no need for an account at all. Since you’re going with bulbs, I’d probably stick with Zigbee. Bulbs are not supported well with Z-Wave right now (see this thread).
A friend has suggested the Mi-Light range to me, but these use a proprietary protocol over 2.4GHz so I would either need to write an adapter for their gateway or for the custom firmware I could use (for which I would also need to build a custom device).
I remember someone trying to make an adapter for the Mi bulbs a while back, but things didn’t work too well. Yeelight is also made by Xiaomi, but those are Wi-Fi.
If you added the devices by connecting them to TP-Link and want to de-link them. Simply removing them from your Kasa account and then re-adding them locally does not interrupt service from the gateway. When the devices are added locally, all of the information for the device is the same as far as the gateway is concerned.
I had a quick search of the forum and the online docs and didn’t see any notable changes in the smart bulb space, but have there been any major changes, new products worth knowing about?