RE: Hue musings ...

["'Phil Harris' phil@xxxxxxxxxxx [ukha_d]" <ukha_d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At the moment I have the "3 white bulb and Hue Bridge"
starter set, the "3
Hue and White bulb and Hue Bridge" starter set, the Bloom and the
"Hue Whit=
e
and Wireless dimmer" set ... So, 1 x Bloom, 2 x Hue Bridges, 3 x Hue
and
Colour bulbs and 4 x Hue White bulbs. :-)

I keep looking at the SmartThings hub - mainly because the Hue Bridge seems
to have no possible support for anything other than lights (so no plug in
switches, power monitoring, logic, wired wall switches etc.) whereas in
theory the Hue bulbs can be used with the SmartThings Hub directly *OR* via
the Hue Bridge but what concerns me about the SmartThings is that it
appear=
s
to *NEED* the backend SmartThings server to perform its smart things (I
don't like the idea of tying my home to Samsungs continued goodwill at
keeping the service going) and I don't want to end up swapping out one
smartphone / tablet based control for another smartphone/tablet based
control ... I want to get to a position where the tablet is only needed for
occasional tweaking rather than actual day-to-day control.

Of course the other consideration has to be that I've already thrown
=A3300=
at
Hue in the last two weeks so another =A3200 on SmartThings (when I need to
=
now
also buy another 6Tb WD Red drive as one of the remaining 2Tb drives in my
=
8
bay Synology NAS has just failed) is getting expensive. :-D

At the moment I have the Official Phlips Hue app, "Hue Mate",
"Huemote",
"OnSwitch", "MagicHue" and "IF" installed ...
haven't had much of a play
with Siri control yet...

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx]=20
Sent: 30 December 2015 11:22
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Hue musings ...

Oh no! A big Faraday cage!

Have you looksed at any of the other alternative to the Hue app?

TBH, I use the SmartThings app to control the Hue lights now - and the
smarttiles webpage smartapp which is quite useful for basic control. Did
yo=
u
say you have that or just the Hue 'starter kit'? Can't remember. Although a
warning that the ST system is fun and shows potential, there are still a
fe=
w
issues!


Paul.


-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx]=20
Sent: 30 December 2015 11:08
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Hue musings ...


I thought the Bloom actually felt very solid when I unboxed it but the
ligh=
t
output is pretty crap ... If you're saying that your Iris do a good purple
(and therefore should do a good blue too) then maybe there's something
wron=
g
with this one ... Might see if I can get it replaced?

I did try running up my CBus wireless yesterday and although I got
everything working and paired up on my test wiring harnesses (makes all the
pairing of the switches with the wireless gateway much easier) when I
dropped the switches into the back boxes (the guy that wired this place
helpfully used really deep plasterboard boxes) I couldn't get reliable
comm=
s
and programming ... Turns out the whole place is done even internally with
foil backed insulated board which must be blocking RF back to the gateway
... :-(

Looks like the mesh (ZigBee based) networks will work fine here though so
I'm back to the Hue stuff for now ... I do like the Geofence function on
th=
e
Hue software but the rest of the Hue app is pretty clunky and rather
obstructive and difficult to navigate easily. If I'm going to stick with
Hu=
e
then I will need to order up a bunch more wireless remotes and thinking
about whether it would be possible to 3D print up some replacement switch
cover blanks with receptacles for the wireless dimmer switches in them to
make them more useable.

One thing I did find which is handy though ... All the light switch
locations in this place are wired with a neutral so I need to have a look
and see if I can find some nice wall ZigBee wall switches. :-)

Just need to find a ZigBee capable equivalent of HomeGate (Clipsal CBus) or
HomeVision ... :-)=20

Phil

Sent from another bloody fruit-based portable device...

> On 30 Dec 2015, at 10:20, Paul Gale groups2@xxxxxxx [ukha_d]
<ukha_d@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>=20
> I don't like the bloom much - too small and under powered. I do have 9
(!=
)
of the Iris lamps though and love them. They have cut manufacturing costs
significantly over the years and they're now very plasticy - used to be
muc=
h
more stylish. Still good for colouring a small wall though. Not tested CRI
etc but they do pretty well on purple which they're mostly used on.
>=20
> As for the White and Hue colour bulbs (which they were recently
rebranded
to I believe) - with the recent v2 hub and the re-brand, they were updated
slightly with a higher wattage LED and marginally higher light output. So
there are at least two versions out there.
>=20
>=20
> Paul.
>=20
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx]=20
> Sent: 28 December 2015 22:47
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] Hue musings ...
>=20
>=20
> I was a bad boy in John Lewis today while I was there with a mate
picking
up a Sage Oracle (for him, not me) ...
>=20
> Anyway, the sales are on so I ended up getting another starter kit
(the
Hue White and Colour) and a Hue Bloom (which of course aren't in any sales
but it makes me feel better) to give them a try ...=20
>=20
> Might have been spoiled in the past as I was using some DMX controlled
wall washers, floods and spots but they were all pretty old (at least four
years) and so hardly cutting edge. The colour mixing on the White and Hue
bulbs and the Bloom in comparison is quite poor in comparison - I'd
definitely query the '16 million colours' claim, they might have 256 levels
for each of RGB but by God they don't reproduce them ...
>=20
> The White and Hue bulbs do a really washed out Green and their Cyan is
basically a very-slightly-blue-tinged-white.
>=20
> The Bloom does a pretty good Green and decent Red but Purple is
basically
Light Pink and Blue is really poor too ... I'm actually wondering if it
could be faulty given that other reviews on the Bloom have been very
complimentary about its colour rendition.
>=20
> I wonder whether the GU10 White and Hue bulbs are any better ...=20
>=20
> Phil
>=20
> Sent from another bloody fruit-based portable device...
>=20
> ------------------------------------
> Posted by: Phil Harris <phil@xxxxxxx>
> ------------------------------------
>=20
>=20
>=20
> ------------------------------------
>=20
> Yahoo Groups Links
>=20


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Posted by: Phil Harris <phil@xxxxxxx>
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Posted by: Paul Gale <paul@xxxxxxx>
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Posted by: "Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxx>
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