<story><title>Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health</title><url>https://www.bramadams.dev/projects/invest-in-lights</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elabajaba</author><text>As someone who had Lifx due to them not needing a controller, don&amp;#x27;t buy them their software sucks. It worked fine for months at a time, but would then decide it no longer wanted to obey commands and you&amp;#x27;d have to re-pair it, which usually took 30 minutes and 5 failed attempts where it would fail during the setup process after resetting the bulb.&lt;p&gt;Their bulbs also sometimes just ignored commands, so you&amp;#x27;d have to just spam power off or the color you were trying to choose until it finally worked (this was in a room with the bulb and a hard wired wifi AP). The app was also slow and took awhile to start (on flagship Android phone at the time).&lt;p&gt;Eventually my bulbs died and I haven&amp;#x27;t gone back to smart lighting yet (though I&amp;#x27;m considering ordering some hue or Ikea bulbs).&lt;p&gt;If you check &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;lifx on Reddit it&amp;#x27;s basically filled with people complaining about lifx&amp;#x27;s awful software.</text></item><item><author>sampo</author><text>Philips Hue: You can use the phone app to control individual bulbs directly with bluetooth, but for more control you need also the Hue brigde, which talks to the bulbs over Zigbee (a wireless protocol), and to your phone app over your wifi. For initial setup, the bridge needs an internet connection, but otherwise it will work as long as your home wifi is up, even if there is no connection to outside internet. The features (timed schedules, scenes) live in the Hue brigde, so everything works also without outside internet.&lt;p&gt;LIFX: No Zigbee, no bridge. These bulbs connect to your 2.4GHz home wifi. More advanced features (schedules, scenes) live in the LIFX company server, so won&amp;#x27;t work without internet connection. But without outside internet connection, you can still use the phone app via your wifi router to control the color and brightness of individual bulbs. If you&amp;#x27;re a home automation hobbyist, you can give color and brightness commands to LIFX bulbs over your 2.4Ghz wifi, so you can program your own timed schedules that would work without outside internet connection.&lt;p&gt;Other smart bulbs: Cheaper. Philips Hue and LIFX are the two most expensive.&lt;p&gt;I understand LIFX is best for bright colors. But Philips Hue bulbs don&amp;#x27;t contain just RGB leds, but also leds for white and warn white, so the bulb may have 5 different types of leds. So Philips might produce better near-white &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; light than same colors produced by combining only red,green,blue leds. Not sure if this matters to everyone or only to some lighting connoisseurs.</text></item><item><author>bubblethink</author><text>Is there any friendly alternative to these home automation things ? I would like to try some stuff but I don&amp;#x27;t want to spend a weekend creating vlans or fighting google play services, alexa etc.</text></item><item><author>lawkwok</author><text>Phillips Hue lights are something you think is a luxury until you get them.&lt;p&gt;The ability to have light change colour temperature or dim depending on the time is so calming.&lt;p&gt;Whenever I revert back to the non—colour-temperature-adjusted light, I feel like I’m in an operating room.&lt;p&gt;The only thing I would note is that they are dimmer than regular lights. Having dim lights in the middle of the day really makes me sleepy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kmos17</author><text>In my experience the ikea bulbs are also awful, constant unpairing requiring multiple attempts to re-pair with the remote, especially if you have multiple bulbs in close proximity. In the end I gave up and just use them as normal bulbs. It would be a nice setup if it worked though, having a dedicated remote control is much more convenient than using a phone imo.</text></comment>
<story><title>Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health</title><url>https://www.bramadams.dev/projects/invest-in-lights</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elabajaba</author><text>As someone who had Lifx due to them not needing a controller, don&amp;#x27;t buy them their software sucks. It worked fine for months at a time, but would then decide it no longer wanted to obey commands and you&amp;#x27;d have to re-pair it, which usually took 30 minutes and 5 failed attempts where it would fail during the setup process after resetting the bulb.&lt;p&gt;Their bulbs also sometimes just ignored commands, so you&amp;#x27;d have to just spam power off or the color you were trying to choose until it finally worked (this was in a room with the bulb and a hard wired wifi AP). The app was also slow and took awhile to start (on flagship Android phone at the time).&lt;p&gt;Eventually my bulbs died and I haven&amp;#x27;t gone back to smart lighting yet (though I&amp;#x27;m considering ordering some hue or Ikea bulbs).&lt;p&gt;If you check &amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;lifx on Reddit it&amp;#x27;s basically filled with people complaining about lifx&amp;#x27;s awful software.</text></item><item><author>sampo</author><text>Philips Hue: You can use the phone app to control individual bulbs directly with bluetooth, but for more control you need also the Hue brigde, which talks to the bulbs over Zigbee (a wireless protocol), and to your phone app over your wifi. For initial setup, the bridge needs an internet connection, but otherwise it will work as long as your home wifi is up, even if there is no connection to outside internet. The features (timed schedules, scenes) live in the Hue brigde, so everything works also without outside internet.&lt;p&gt;LIFX: No Zigbee, no bridge. These bulbs connect to your 2.4GHz home wifi. More advanced features (schedules, scenes) live in the LIFX company server, so won&amp;#x27;t work without internet connection. But without outside internet connection, you can still use the phone app via your wifi router to control the color and brightness of individual bulbs. If you&amp;#x27;re a home automation hobbyist, you can give color and brightness commands to LIFX bulbs over your 2.4Ghz wifi, so you can program your own timed schedules that would work without outside internet connection.&lt;p&gt;Other smart bulbs: Cheaper. Philips Hue and LIFX are the two most expensive.&lt;p&gt;I understand LIFX is best for bright colors. But Philips Hue bulbs don&amp;#x27;t contain just RGB leds, but also leds for white and warn white, so the bulb may have 5 different types of leds. So Philips might produce better near-white &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; light than same colors produced by combining only red,green,blue leds. Not sure if this matters to everyone or only to some lighting connoisseurs.</text></item><item><author>bubblethink</author><text>Is there any friendly alternative to these home automation things ? I would like to try some stuff but I don&amp;#x27;t want to spend a weekend creating vlans or fighting google play services, alexa etc.</text></item><item><author>lawkwok</author><text>Phillips Hue lights are something you think is a luxury until you get them.&lt;p&gt;The ability to have light change colour temperature or dim depending on the time is so calming.&lt;p&gt;Whenever I revert back to the non—colour-temperature-adjusted light, I feel like I’m in an operating room.&lt;p&gt;The only thing I would note is that they are dimmer than regular lights. Having dim lights in the middle of the day really makes me sleepy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dbttdft</author><text>&amp;gt; Their bulbs also sometimes just ignored commands, so you&amp;#x27;d have to just spam power off or the color you were trying to choose until it finally worked (this was in a room with the bulb and a hard wired wifi AP). The app was also slow and took awhile to start (on flagship Android phone at the time).&lt;p&gt;Sounds about right.</text></comment>