Hue vs. Other

[Dr. Venkman]

We have had Hue integrated into our system for years. It’s not much, and it’s not complicated, but we’ve mostly liked how it works.

We had our first bulb in years burn out this week, and I’ll need to replace it. I could just replace the bulb (I assume), but I thought I should consider whether a new setup would be a good idea. We’ve still got the first generation Hue hub, and with the improvements in C4’s handling of color (not to mention the competitors to Hue these days), I’m quite certain there is room for improvement in our setup.

Here’s our use case:

• First gen hub
• Four bulbs in each of the kids rooms (the main lights in the ceiling fan)
• Native driver from forever ago
• There’s a scene for lights (all on, all white) and a scene for nightlight (one bulb on very dim red).
• We have a switch on the wall acting as a two button keypad, and it turns the main scene on/off and dimms it. The nightlight scene is called from a keypad when appropriate (bedtime). 
• No scenes from Hue are called, each bulb is a “light” in C4, and they’re grouped into a hue scene.
• the color is set programmatically when the C4 scenes are called.

It works fine, but we really can’t easily do anything besides call those two scenes. I expect the kids would enjoy being able to play with the colors, and I wouldn’t mind the dimming working a little better or having more scene options that are easy to configure.

I would love any advice anyone has about choosing between these options (or something I haven’t thought of):

• Just replace the bulb, reconfigure with the new bulb and keep the same bridge and functionality.
• Keep Hue, but move up to the new bridge and build out more functionality (not sure exactly what’s available, but I think we could build the scenes in Hue, rather than have C4 control the bulbs individually and set colors programmatically).
• Ditch Hue for another solution (I understand TP Link bulbs with the Chowmain driver works pretty well).

Thanks for any insight. 

[Gary Leeds UK]

With Software 3.3 you can use the colour wheel 

So change the bulbs and bridge to colour 

get your dealer to insert the new driver and you have a colour wheel - Great Fun 

[zaphod]

You can often get a kit with the new bridge plus a few bulbs for a pretty decent price.  That might be the way to go.  All of these smart bulbs suffer from the same problems that they are at the mercy of a light switch that might be powered off, but it seems like that is not an issue for you.

The other thing to consider is whether you really need colour bulbs.  I have about 10 Hue bulbs as part of my house was hard to retrofit with C4 dimmers.  IMO colour is a gimmick as I find that I almost never change the colours.  But your mileage may vary.

[Dr. Venkman]

Thanks.

Oh, it’s totally a gimmick, and no, we don’t need it. But the kids are interested, and it’s been convenient.

The power isn’t a problem for us. When we installed C4, we had the switch on the wall that controlled the fan light kit wired through (always on) and replaced with a wireless keypad. The only control for those sockets is the chain on the fan.

With a new bridge and the new driver, I assume I would be starting essentially from scratch (which doesn’t bother me).

In a more current setup:

• Do individual bulbs come into C4 the way they do in the old native driver?
• Would I be creating scenes in Hue and calling those scenes from C4 (and can those scenes be connected to a keypad for on/off and dimming)? Currently, I don’t have any Hue scenes.
• If it’s C4 scenes, are the colors available in the scene, or would they be set programmatically as the scene is activated the way I do now?

Thanks again. 

[Matt Lowe]

52 minutes ago, zaphod said:

 

The other thing to consider is whether you really need colour bulbs.  I have about 10 Hue bulbs as part of my house was hard to retrofit with C4 dimmers.  IMO colour is a gimmick as I find that I almost never change the colours.  But your mileage may vary.

Need automation for the color mine changes on an hourly basis.

 

[Matt Lowe]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Venkman said:

• Do individual bulbs come into C4 the way they do in the old native driver?
• Would I be creating scenes in Hue and calling those scenes from C4 (and can those scenes be connected to a keypad for on/off and dimming)? Currently, I don’t have any Hue scenes.
• If it’s C4 scenes, are the colors available in the scene, or would they be set programmatically as the scene is activated the way I do now?

 

Totally new driver and will require any programming to be redone. The driver handles individual bulbs or scenes in the hue app.

The best way for hue scenes is do it do it the hue app. advanced light scenes can work, but can be inconsistent.

Scenes can control color and brightness, color only, or brightness only.

 

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[Dr. Venkman]

Can a dimmer/switch (as a two-button  keypad) be connected to a hue scene and control dimming?

Or would I need to do it as advanced lighting for that?

[Matt Lowe]

sure can it would act like a native control.

[Dr. Venkman]

Got my dealer to add a few Hue 3.3+ lights.

Just to clarify. When we talk about "scenes," we're talking about scenes set up in the Hue app? Not rooms or groups or zones, but scenes.

I've got four lights in a room:

• Scene 1 (in Hue) is all four lights on and white
• Scene 2 (in Hue) is one light on and red

I don't find that the Hue scenes are accessible from C4. The room is (along with individual lights, groups, and zones), and I can set one of the "lights" in C4 to control the whole room (which is cool), but I don't see that I can call the Hue scenes themselves. It's not a huge deal - I can mix and match the lights and get where I need to by some combination of Hue groups, C4 advanced lighting scenes, and/or programming. But I just wanted to confirm that I'm not missing something and that Hue scenes aren't callable from C4.

[Leighm0]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Venkman said:

Got my dealer to add a few Hue 3.3+ lights.

Just to clarify. When we talk about "scenes," we're talking about scenes set up in the Hue app? Not rooms or groups or zones, but scenes.

I've got four lights in a room:

• Scene 1 (in Hue) is all four lights on and white
• Scene 2 (in Hue) is one light on and red

I don't find that the Hue scenes are accessible from C4. The room is (along with individual lights, groups, and zones), and I can set one of the "lights" in C4 to control the whole room (which is cool), but I don't see that I can call the Hue scenes themselves. It's not a huge deal - I can mix and match the lights and get where I need to by some combination of Hue groups, C4 advanced lighting scenes, and/or programming. But I just wanted to confirm that I'm not missing something and that Hue scenes aren't callable from C4.

correct, the Hue App "Scenes" are not used by the current C4 Hue drivers, you will have to do what you mention in C4 by setting up your own ALS, etc.

[Dr. Venkman]

Thanks much. It's actually not going to be that hard with the new color handling in 3.3 - love the new color settings.

[Neo1738]

Color is less of a gimick when you program it to be different based on holiday's, birthdays, time of year etc. My family seems to like that touch. However it is totally extra. 

[Cyknight]

45 minutes ago, Neo1738 said:

Color is less of a gimick when you program it to be different based on holiday's, birthdays, time of year etc.

Still a gimmick - but gimmicks are fun!