Philips Hue: first hand reliability?

[IVB]

Generally speaking, i'm underimpressed with the tap. I separated the bridge from my router by 6 feet, switched channels, still not reliable. Not enough data to give you solid #s so guessing but:
1) Pressing a button turns off more than the associated lights 35% of the time. It feels like its triggering buttons on several taps (4 taps, button 3 & 4 each turn off local lights, but pressing button 4 in one location also triggers the button 4 off command in a different location).
 
2) 20% of the time it'll take 1 button press to turn a light on. 60% of the time it takes 3-4 times. 20% of the time it takes 6.
 
Hue is definitely being relegated to my 3 table lamps, in my house anything less than 95% = everyone says dad is screwing up. I have 10 Hue or Link bulbs in 4 ceiling locations on switches that don't currently have enough space for a single gang, but I'm calling an electrician out to run new wire to 6 other locations, I'm 99% sure I open up the walls in 3 of the locations and put in a single gang. The 4th location is sandwiched between 2 studs, but i'll bet I could cut 1/8" on either side and rubber mallet it in. Then I can go to zWave (or RadioRA or whatever) for those.

 

[jkmonroe]

it sucks that Hue is unreliable for you - i think it's a better solution, but i haven't had your issues.
 
to not dissuade anyone, my system is rock stable and (near) 100% reliable.  it does operate on 2.4G ISM band, so keep that in mind.  but ... my RF isn't clean, either:
 

 

[IVB]

Given that I'm $500 in, i'd love it to be better too. Its going to cost me at least $600 to address the situation with those 4 switch locations, very easily $1K if history is any indicator and the walls reveal more 100 year old house idiosyncrasies. 
 
oh i should mention: I have plaster/lathe walls, and i'm sure there must be asbestos or lead based paint in the house. 100 year old house = paint layers from decades ago. In one room I started to peel away paint chips, got to 6 layers then realized that was a dumb move without face/skin protection. The zWave mesh seems to cut through that, looks like Hue can't. (Although one location is damn near line-of-sight to the bridge)

 

[IVB]

Interesting discovery about the taps:  The one thats particularly awful (average of 4 presses, occasionally 7) is sitting behind what used to be an exterior wall. I removed the tap from the wall and put it 4 feet away in the doorway and it looks to work much better.
 
Looks like the 2.x GHz for zigbee just can't penetrate that, whereas the 900 MHz for zWave can. My house has been extended twice, two walls used to be exterior walls. Unless I put multiple bridges in, this would insinuate this is a blocker for me. Not sure I want multiple bridges since the automation control would be a PITA. I'd have to remember what lights were on what bridge.

 

[IVB]

good gawd; just when I was thinking I might get a 2nd bridge so I could have a wireless button to execute CQC commands with, one of the previously working taps just stopped working. I just pressed every button 20 times, nothing. I looked at the Hue app, it doesn't even register that a button was pressed.
 
I may have just surpassed zWave-level frustrations with the taps. If I cannot turn a light on or off reliably, then the bulbs are useless. I'm not about to use my phone (or ask wife/kids to use a phone) just to turn on a light.
 
Right now there's a 90% chance that I'll expand the scope of work for an electrician to figure out if we can notch out wood and fit in a real single gang box for my switch-oriented lights that use lux. Then I can use zWave switches. I'd be left with 3 table lamps that all seem to be left on far too much, so I need to find some automated control to turn them off.
 
If I can find a path there, i'll sell 4 taps, a bridge, and 11 bulbs. If anyone is interested, let me know, you can have them cheap...

 

[zenix]

Taps work reliably here. But I have 80s construction (wood and drywall). One thing which was a bit of a disappointment is how slow bridge is to report bulb status. There is a 1-2 second delay between tapping on a Tap and seeing light state correctly reflected in Hue API. Sigh...

 

[IVB]

Ran a WiFi analyzer last night as I was setting up my ubiquiti stuff, this might explain why Hue sucks for me. There are 19 2.4 GHz networks within range anywhere in my house. Hue will *never* work well for me. zWave runs on 900MHz so not remotely the same problem.

I'm still learning but I think this means it's time for me to abandon 2.4 even for home networking and put in a few more ubiquiti APs.

 

[pete_c]

I'm still learning but I think this means it's time for me to abandon 2.4 even for home networking and put in a few more ubiquiti APs.

 
So are you saying you are abandoning Hue relating to automated light bulbs?
 
Do you think that the Hue wireless bulb is a good intro to lighting automation?
 
Do you think its sort of gimmicky?  (note just asking questions here; not really with any direction).
 
So is your preference to utilize Z-Wave lighting switches over Insteon, UPB, X10, RA-2 or ZIgbee?  Curious why?
 
Did you ever check how many stripes your tie had?
 
I like Ubiquiti; here utilized one POE Ubiquiti AP on the second floor of the home which covered wireless down two floors to the basement.
 
Also just configured another AP in the basement to cover the Amazon Echo wireless stuff above it.  I did put a virtual switch on the Amazon Echo using its MAC address stuff on the AP such that I can turn it on or off.
 
It would be nice to have a live networking tool which showed all of the networked devices; wireless and wired plus went in to the realm of automation hardware. (well like a live Visio for Automation kind of tool)....well kind of like an SNMP MIB walker for automation thing..

 

[IVB]

 
So are you saying you r abandoning Hue as automation lighting stuff?
 
So is your preference to utilize Z-Wave lighting switches over Insteon, UPB, X10 or ZIgbee?

Caveat; I'm still learning.

Yes, abandoning Hue. I still have to press my taps 2-5x to turn lights on and off. I have no confidence that the state as per the app or api is accurate. Actually last night I saw that it was definitely wrong in the app. The only way to truly adopt hue is to remove the light switches so you can't remove power from the bulb but I've had several instances in the last 3 days alone where the tap didn't respond after 4 clicks, I just wanted the damn lights to go on(or off) so I flicked the switch.

zWave works perfectly as long as I stay within the Leviton Vizia RF+ umbrella. I believe that's because it's on the comparatively unpopulated 900MHz spectrum. I'm not thrilled about only using Vizia but I need reliability first if I'm going to expect wife and kids to use it.

 

[IVB]

 
Do you think that the Hue wireless bulb is a good intro to lighting automation?
 
Do you think its sort of gimmicky?  (note just asking questions here; not really with any direction).
 

I think hue is an incredibly risky way to get into automated lighting. If you're out in the boonies with no neighbors and competing networks sure. But if you're in an urban or semi urban environment, this could turn you off automated lighting in its entirety.

Btw for other protocols such as RA2, I'd definitely consider if they were non 2.4 GHz if I didn't have a huge investment in zwave. I also want consistent light switches, so you don't have to determine how to make the light go. (vizia is a toggle on the bottom, intermatic was a rocker style dimmer with top being dim on, bottom being dim off. Having both pissed off the wife.

 

[pete_c]

zWave works perfectly as long as I stay within the Leviton Vizia RF+ umbrella.

 
Here playing a bit with a Z-Wave Plus GPIO card mounted inside of an RPI2 powered POE in the attic noticed I lost one Z-Wave device 10 feet from about 10 neighbors.  Only test Z-Wave modules (not for use) installing them in the basement, main floor, garage and attic. The one I lost was in the furthest part of the attached garage.  Over the weekend moved the RPi2/Z-Wave POE device from one side to the middle of the attic / house.  I did see that they sell a spider looking ground plane antenna for the GPIO card.  It is sort of large but would be a non issue to mount in the attic. 
 
Well geez the external antenna product is no longer sold (as of the end of July, 2015)
 
We removed the antenna from our store since it really didn't help much and even made things worse by making signal propagation directional.
 
The antenna looked omnidirectional to me though.
 
I do also have a Leviton Z-Wave PIM connected to the OPII panel in the basement but do not really play with it or the devices on it.  They do just work and the serial PIM is buried next to the OPII panel between conduit.
 
Here initially didn't think that wife would get used to the multipaddle UPB switches.  A couple of years back and before I installed mine helped a friend's widow (well he passed away) with the automation that he installed in the house and noticed his wife had learned very well that whole multipaddle / double tap stuff so decided to try it here and wife knows it better than me today.

 

[IVB]

In my experience, zwave as a manufacturer blind protocol is a joke. You have to stay within a single vendor implementation to make it work.

Regarding spouse usage, the wife can learn anything, but having multiple things to learn which requires looking at the switch or being forced to remember which switch type is where only leads to frustration. Which leads to her knowing the number of stripes on my tie as she'll be using it to strangle me until I'm dead and buried.

 

[pete_c]

Honestly just kidding about the tie stuff. 
 
Many years ago a topic of conversation which started with the art of tying a double Windsor knot did go to the lines in a tie.  Well to see the lines you have to sort of destroy the tie as the lines are in the inner lining.  This was many years ago. 
 
Yeah relating to the programmed paddles it works a bit better than auto automation of the lighting in the kitchen here (which whatever I try or do to automate the lighting in the kitchen is always wrong).  Thinking she prefers the almost manual control of the light switch (automated by double taps) versus preset lighting scheduling stuff.
 
Really though Z-Wave is just another means of automation transport alternatives.  120VAC electricity is still not wireless though.  None is perfect as RF is magical in a way.  It is hard to predict where that radio wave will be going.  Still recall here putting in network manual routes (and it was only four numbers connected by the dots) line by line in a router of yesteryear or doing NAT mapping via a text file; what a PITA that was to do. Quick automated bean counting metrics do help; but if the base is messed up then everything can be messed up.
 
Really you should give UPB a try.  It is just setting and forget about it plug n play methodology.  Really, it just works. 

 

[ChrisCicc]

Caveat; I'm still learning.

Yes, abandoning Hue. I still have to press my taps 2-5x to turn lights on and off. I have no confidence that the state as per the app or api is accurate. Actually last night I saw that it was definitely wrong in the app. The only way to truly adopt hue is to remove the light switches so you can't remove power from the bulb but I've had several instances in the last 3 days alone where the tap didn't respond after 4 clicks, I just wanted the damn lights to go on(or off) so I flicked the switch.

 
This is probably because of the power cycling. The bulbs aren't designed for being turned off at the switch. They work just fine in my experience when left always powered.
 
There's an easy way to do this with smart switches: disconnect the load from the switch, and connect it to the line. Use the switch as a trigger for turning whichever bulbs you like on or off in CastleOS or CQC. Voila.. 

 

[jkmonroe]

My Hue lights have all had their switches removed.  Trying not to dissuade anyone from Hue because I have nothing but good experiences, but at the same realize that IVB's Hue experience is nearly identical to my Z-Wave experience.  So ... yeah.