fleon

I just yanked out a JAP 5x15 system and replaced it with Binary. JAP was the worst tech decision I have made in the last 10 years. Expensive, can't do what they promised, just miserable. Save a good bit of money and look at alternative MIOPs.....

Where do you live?

You might want to check with Control4/Yale directly. They both told me they have halted Yale C4 locks. Not that they can't get the modules. I hope I'm wrong here.

Audio - I'd go Triad over Episode. Have had 2 episode amps both with known programming issues. They lose power and you have to beat them up to get them back to being responsive to C4. Has something to do with the authentication. Locks - No, you can't use Yale. They don't make C4 locks anymore. You can probably still find a few, but since they are no longer made, that's just asking for trouble.

In case anyone is curious or has this problem, the Lutron LEAP driver does work with these new blinds. Sad - this is the only time I've received a fairly intentionally unhelpful message "I could help you, but I won't". (paraphrased.)

Well, yes. Not "run out of spectrum" but at least get conflict. In practice, I've never seen it happen with something like Hue. With certain other applications which are more data hungry, maybe.

USA.

Which brand? I just got a govee lamp that I'm going to try.

Not really signal, although at this point it would be a problem at my place. 1) The Hue hubs start getting a little glitchy post 55 lights. Sometimes you can add more lights, sometimes not. Hue labs formulas take up memory, so fewer lights. Adding extra apps to the hub (Hue Sync, Hue Disco, etc) takes up memory. Also, if you need to add "just one new lamp" etc, it's nice to have the added space. Given that you can often get a starter kit at a lower price than buying individual bulbs, I ended up with extra hubs anyway. 2) Signal would be an issue for me now. I have outdoor hue lights in the front and back, so signal is a good reason. Fewer mesh hops = better reliability. 3) When you make a C4 light group, most of the time it ends up deleting all the rooms on the hub. This is a nice way to not have to redo your whole house. 4) I also have 350+ hue lights. So that's a lot of it.

The driver developer is C4. It's a very well documented problem that has been true for years.

Yeah that will be true for any ZigBee devices, true. I have not used the dresden products. How pricy are they? Is it worth it?

That's ... Not really a bad idea at all. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to put this on my list of things to try.

No. I don't use the lighting scenes agent. I've found it to be very unreliable with IP lights.

The Aqara FP1 seems different than other presence sensors. Does anyone have experience with this company? Does anyone know if anyone is working on a driver?

That's true. However, I've replaced a lot of cheap lightstrips. So far I haven't had to replace a Hue one yet. The hue extensions are completely ridiculous in cost, however, I do agree. The other benefit to the hue hub + lightstrip is zigbee. It's not wifi. The range and reliability are much better.

My issue with my pool lights (Jandy) is that they list 10 colors I can choose from, and that's it. I can't adjust to a specific colour and I can't dim them.

Why not? You can usually get the hue hubs bundled with lights. The hub adds a lot of functionality. I have both Hue hubs and a Caseta hub. There's no conflict between the two. I would recommend the hue lightstrips - they work very well. I have some that I've had for 3 years now.

@South Africa C4 user that is an interesting idea. I apologize to both of you - but I should have mentioned that I'd like color capable lights. I have a set of Jandy pool lights which are color controllable, but they don't have a very good range... but pool lights...... interesting. Thanks!

I have two drivers that control my lights. I have the native C4 "brightness" driver. I use it with my Alexa integration to turn on/turn off/dim the lights. Works well. I also have the Unilogic driver which I use with most of my physical buttons. The unilogic driver doesn't do individual lights. It does groups and scenes, however. It doesn't integrate with alexa, however. The nice thing about C4, Alexa, and multiple hubs is that - since Alexa is telling C4 what do to, and C4 is controlling my hubs - there isn't the problem with controlling multiple lights on different hubs with voice. If you start doing much more hue, make sure you don't fill up one hub. Leave yourself a few slots. Hue officially supports about 55 lights per hub, but you can do 65. However, for reliability and scaling, when you get to 40 lights, just get another hub.

@cdcllcAs long as the Hue system doesn't end up with a bug again (which, with any updating smart devices, is always a concern), Hue is a very good solution. It's very responsive, very quick, has a lot of driver support (particularly if you use the C4 native drivers and the unilogiq driver together). The two-way communication is very lacking. I have mine turned off, in fact because of some of the delays with it on. But I haven't needed it. Generally, with very very few failures, it just works. You hit a light switch and the lights come on. You have C4 change to a different scene, it just comes on. For the cost, it's an excellent solution. I have Hue lights from 5 years ago that are still supported and work just fine. There is a good bit of programming to get it to do what you want, depending on how complicated you need it, but a home user can set up their own scenes and your dealer can just link to those. The nice thing about doing them as scenes (requires Unilogic driver) is that you can change the scene yourself without paying a dealer. The Hue line has a lot of options - lamp bulbs, overhead bulbs, outdoor lights, motion sensors, TV bias lights, lightstrips. As far as options, it's probably your best bet. There is a TV-sync box like you mentioned. It's terrible. The light sync is fantastic. The degradation in picture quality is noticable. You can fix that with a splitter, but that has its own issues. Wifi vs zigbee for this really won't matter. You need a Hue zigbee hub to integrate with C4, which is around $20 if you get it bundled. You may need multiple hubs, depending on the number of lights. I have 350 hue lights. I have to have 11 hubs. There are a lot of other color lighting options out there, but you either have much higher added costs, sometimes including rewiring, or you have a cheaper, younger product line that doesn't have as much of a track record. Hope that answers most of your questions.

Has anyone done much pond/fountain lighting with C4? Is there a good product you'd recommend?

Interestingly enough, Hue released a new update yesterday that fixed the issues. And @C4 User, it's not the mesh. I have 11 hubs, all pretty close to the lights they control. Worked fine for 3 years - it was definitely a software bug. I'd been talking with Hue tech support about it since February.

I am also having the same problem. This is nuts.

Don't get Philips Hue right now. Huge bug that started with a January update. You'll get a lot of popcorn lights (lights coming on at different times). If they fix this, I am a huge fan of the Hue lights.... until they do, I have 11 Hue hubs that are totally screwed up.

And yes, I know I can do this with a set of variables that get set in the scheduler, it just seems like the extra steps are dumb.