Smart Bulb Rant: Avoid Bluetooth + Alexa Bulbs
Having worked with a number of smart Internet of Things devices (IoT), mostly light bulbs and hubs, I’ve come to learn what works and what doesn’t. Let’s explore.
Smart Hubs
Overall, the smartest value for your money is the purchase of a smart hub with light bulbs, such as the Philips Hue system. Why? These smart hubs use a mesh network that is separate from your WiFi network. These systems also have their own custom iOS apps that allow for extreme customization of colors, scenes and grouping. These hub-based devices also don’t require or consume IP addresses, like WiFi bulbs, but there are drawbacks to using a smart hub based system.
The biggest drawback is that smart hubs require an active Internet connection be available 24×7. When the Internet goes down, the smart devices, including light bulbs, don’t work well or at all. This is where WiFi bulbs typically shine, though not always. Controlling WiFi bulbs almost always works even with the Internet down when the mobile app is written properly. However, some mobile apps must check in with the mothership before enabling remote control features. Which means… the lack of Internet connectivity makes it difficult to control your devices other than manually. The good news is that most of these light bulbs work correctly by using the light switch on the lamp. This means you can still turn lamps on and off the “old fashioned way” … assuming you have electric power, of course.
The second drawback is that these systems are subject to interference by certain types of wireless systems such as some Bluetooth devices, wireless routers and cordless phone systems.
However, to be able to utilize voice control, such as with Google Home, Alexa or Apple’s Siri, this requires the Internet. The same for most smart apps. Though, I have found that Hue’s iOS or Android app can sometimes control lighting even with the Internet offline. However, without the Internet, the hub may perform poorly, work intermittently or fail to take commands until the Internet is restored.
While the Internet is online and functional, however, control of lighting and devices is easy and seamless. Not always so with…
Bluetooth and Alexa
Recently, some IoT LED bulb manufacturers have begun designing and using smart LED light bulbs based strictly on Bluetooth combined with Alexa. These Bluetooth based lights also don’t require or consume IP addresses, unlike WiFi bulbs. After all, Echo devices do support Bluetooth to allow for connecting to and controlling remote Bluetooth devices. The problem is, the Echo’s Bluetooth can be spotty, at best. Mostly the reason that Bluetooth is spotty is that it uses the same frequency as many home cordless phone systems (as well as WiFi routers and other Bluetooth devices). Not cell phones, mind you, but those old 2.4Ghz cordless handsets that sit in a charging base. Because these phone systems burst data periodically to keep the remote handsets up-to-date, these bursts can interfere with Bluetooth devices. Note that this can be major a problem if you live in a condo or apartment where adjacent neighbors could have such cordless phone systems or routers. Unfortunately, these bulbs can end up being problematic not only because of cordless phones.
Likewise, if you live in a large house with a number of different Echo devices on multiple floors (and you also have these cordless phone handsets), the bulb randomly chooses an Echo device to connect to as its Bluetooth ‘hub’. Whenever a command is issued from any Echo to control that light bulb, these devices must contact this elected Echo ‘hub’ device to perform the action. This could mean that the light bulb has hubbed itself to the farthest device from the bulb with the worst connection. I’ve seen these bulbs connect to not the closest Echo device to the bulb, but the farthest. As an example, I have a small Echo dot in the basement and this is the unit that tends to be elected by these bulbs when upstairs. This is also likely to have the most spotty connection and the worst Bluetooth reception because of being in the basement. There’s no way to ensure that one of these bulbs chooses the best and closest device without first turning off every Echo device except the one you want it connected to… a major hassle.
In the end, because the bulb chooses randomly and poorly, you’ll end up seeing ‘Device Malfunction’ or ‘Device Not Responding’ frequently inside of the Alexa app. If you click the gear icon with the device selected, you can see which Echo device the bulb has chosen. Unfortunately, while you can see the elected device, you cannot change it. The ‘Device Malfunction’ or ‘Device Not Responding’ messages inside of the Alexa app mean that the Alexa device is having trouble contacting the remote device, which is likely because of interference from something else using that same frequency (i.e., cordless handsets or routers).
This makes the purchase of any Bluetooth only LED light bulbs an exceedingly poor choice for Alexa remote control. Amazon can make this better by letting the user change the hub to a closer unit. As of now, the Alexa app doesn’t allow this.
Hub based Systems
Why don’t hub based systems suffer from this problem? Hub based systems setup and use a mesh network. What means is that the devices can all talk to one another. This means that instead of each device relying on directly connecting to the hub, the devices link to one another to determine which device in the mesh has the best connection to the hub. When the hub issues commands, it goes the other way. The command is sent down the mesh chain to a better connected device to issue the command to the destination bulb. This smart mesh network makes controlling lights via a hub + mesh system much more reliable than it would otherwise be without this mesh. The Philips Hue does use 2.4Ghz also to support the ZigBee protocol, but the smart mesh system prevents many connectivity problems, unlike these Sengled Bluetooth LED bulbs.
This is exactly why purchasing a Bluetooth-based light is a poor choice. Because these BT light bulbs don’t have enough intelligence to discover which Echo device is closest and has best connectivity and because it cannot talk to just any Echo device, this leaves the light bulb prone to problems and failure.
Sure, these BT bulbs may be less costly than a Hue bulb, but you get the quality you pay for. Alexa’s Bluetooth was not designed or intended for this type of remote control purpose. It’s being sledgehammered into this situation by these Chinese bulb manufacturers. Sure, it can work. For the most part, it fails to work frequently and often. It also depends on the bulb itself. Not all bulb electronics are manufactured equally, particularly when made in China.
If you find a specific bulb isn’t working as expected, the bulb is probably cheaply made of garbage parts and crappy electronics. You’ll want to return the bulb for replacement… or better, for a Hue system / bulb.
Color Rendition
These cheap bulb brands include such manufacturers as Sengled (shown in the photo) … a brand commonly found on Amazon. Because these bulbs are made cheaply all around, but separate from the BT issues already mentioned, you’ll also find the color rendition on these LED bulbs to be problematic. For example, asking for a Daylight color might yield something that ends up too blue. Asking for Soft White might end up with something too yellow (or a sorry shade of yellow). These are cheap bulbs made of exceedingly cheap parts through and through, including cheap LEDs that aren’t properly calibrated.
Asking for Yellow, for example, usually yields something more closely resembling orange or green. That would be fine if Alexa would allow you to create custom colors and name them. Unfortunately, the Alexa app doesn’t allow this.
Whatever colors are preset in Alexa are all the colors you can use. There are no such thing as custom colors inside of Alexa. If you don’t like the color rendition that the bulb produces, then you’re stuck. Or, you’ll need to replace the bulb with one that allows for custom color choices.
Bulbs purchased for a hub based system, like the Philips Hue bulbs, typically offer a custom iOS or Android app that allows for building not only custom colors and presets, but also custom scenes that allow for setting individual bulbs separately, but as a group. The Alexa app wasn’t designed for this granular lighting control purpose and is extremely lean of options. Everything that the Alexa app offers is set in stone and extremely rudimentary for lighting control. The Alexa app is designed as a can-opener, not as a specific tool. It does many things somewhat fine, but it doesn’t do any one thing particularly well.
Purchasing these BT Alexa-controlled LED lights is a poor choice overall. If you want the flexibility of color choices and color temperatures, you buy a bulb system like Philips Hue, which also offers a custom app. If you’re looking for something on-the-cheap but which allows quick control, then a Sengled or Cree or GE smart bulb might fit the bill. Don’t be surprised when the bulb fails to control at all or produces a color that is not what you were expecting. Worse, don’t be surprised when the bulb’s LED driver fails and begins to flash uncontrollably after a month’s use.
Updated Dec 7th after Amazon Outage
Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) had a severe outage that impacted many different services including Ring and, yes, Amazon’s Smart Home features, including Alexa + Sengled bulbs. In fact, the only system that seems to have remain unaffected (at least in my home) was the Philips Hue system. Alexa was able to properly control all of my Philips Hue lights all throughout the day.
However, Alexa failed to control Kasa, Wemo, Wyze and even its own Bluetooth bulbs like Sengled. Indeed, pretty much most of my lights were unable to be controlled by Alexa throughout the duration of the outage, which was pretty much all day.
Amazon was able to isolate the failure root cause, but it still took them hours to recover all of the equipment needed to regain those services. This failure meant that it was impossible to control smart lights or, indeed, even my Ring alarm system.
Smart lights are controllable by switch. Shutting the switch off and back on will illuminate the light. You can then switch it off like normal. However, that also means that if the switch is off, Alexa can’t control the light. You must leave all lamp fixtures in the on position for the lights to turn on, off and dim by Alexa. If you turn the light switch off, then the smart features are no longer available and the lamp will display “Device is Unresponsive” in the Alexa app.
Failures
In fact, this “Device is Unresponsive” error is the exact failure response I saw throughout the day in the Alexa app during the failure. How does this all work? Alexa is powered by Amazon Web Services servers. These servers store data about your lamps, about your routines, about your Alexa usage and, indeed, about how to control your devices. Almost nothing is really stored on any given Echo device itself. Some small amounts of settings and a small amount of cache are utilized, but only to keep track of limited things for short periods of time. For example, if you’re playing music and pause, Alexa will keep track of that pause pointer for maybe 10-20 minutes max. After that time, it purges that resume information so that the stream can no longer resume.
All information about Alexa’s Smart Home devices is stored in the cloud on AWS. It also seems that state information about the lights (on, off, not responding) is also stored in AWS. When the connectivity stopped earlier on the 7th, that prevented connectivity from Alexa to those servers to determine the state of the information. It also prevented Alexa from controlling those specific devices handled strictly by Alexa. Because Alexa skills seemed to be handled by those servers, Alexa skills were unavailable also.
However, some services, like Ring, are also hosted on AWS. These servers seemed to have been impacted not only affecting Alexa’s interface to those services, but also preventing the use of Ring’s very own app to control its own services. Yes, it was a big outage.
This outage also affected many other servers and services unrelated to Alexa’s Smart Home systems. So, yes, it was a wide ranging, long lasting outage. In fact, as I type in this update, the outage may still be affecting some services. However, it seems that the Smart Home services may now be back online as of this writing. If you’re reading this days later, it’s likely all working again.
Smart Home Devices and Local Management
Using a hub Smart Home system like the Philips Hue hub system can allow for local management of equipment without the need for continuous internet. This means that if the Internet is offline for a period of time, you can still control your lighting with the Philips Hue app using local control. While you can control your lights with your switch, it’s just as important to be able to control your lighting even if your Internet goes down temporarily.
What this all means is that investing into a system like a Philips Hue hub and Philips Hue lights allows your smart lighting system to remain functional even if your Internet services goes down. In this case, Philips Hue didn’t go down and neither did my Internet. Instead, what went down was part of Amazon’s infrastructure and systems. This had an impact on much of Alexa and Alexa’s control over Smart Home devices. However, even though this was true of Alexa skills and Alexa controlled devices, Philips Hue remained functional all throughout.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that investing in a Philips Hue system is the best choice, but clearly in this instance it was a better choice than investing in the cheaper Alexa-only bulbs, which remained nonfunctional throughout the outage.
If there’s any caveat here, it’s that Smart Home systems are still subject to outages when services like AWS go belly up for a time. If you’re really wanting to maintain the ability to control your lights during such outages, then investing in a system like Philips Hue, which seems to be able to weather such outage storms, is the best of all worlds. Unfortunately, the Alexa only Sengled Bluetooth bulbs were the absolute worst choice for this type of AWS outage.
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Wink to shut down free services, requires subscription
If you own a Wink home automation system, including a Wink hub, you’ll want to pay attention to Wink’s upcoming changes on May 13th 20th, 2020 (deadline extended). Let’s explore.
Shutting Down Free Service
Wink is clearly in some kind of financial trouble and they’re trying one last ditch effort to save their (f)ailing company. In that effort, on May 20th, 2020, Wink intends to shut down all free services and move to a $5 a month subscription pay model.
While this reeks of ransom and extortion, it’s also got some other issues that are even more serious.
On May 20th, all Wink hubs without a subscription will be summarily cut off from use. This means no more app access, no more API access, no more controlling your smart lights, smart plugs or anything else you presently own that is operated by Wink. Here’s the seriousness. During the Pandemic, some people may be relying on smartplugs to operate home medical devices. Cutting off these devices could cause serious complications to some people.
Effectively, they’re going to brick your Wink hub unless you fork over their extortionary $5 a month.
Bad Service
Wink’s troubles have been brewing for a while. Over the last 6 months, I have regularly seen my Wink hub go offline for hours at time. The most recent was on May 7th, 2020 from early in the morning until after midday. Yes, the hub was completely non-functional for at least 6 hours. If this were a one time problem, I might forgive Wink its outage. Unfortunately, this has been a regular occurrence about every other day for the last 3 months. Literally, there are times where the lights cannot be used because the Wink hub cannot connect to Wink’s service.
Premium Service
This is where I look at Wink and think, “What the hell?” You’re seriously thinking that anyone will pony up $5 a month to continue to have daily outages? No no no. Think again Wink. Your service attached to the hub is already trash. There’s no way I have an intention of paying you $5 a month to reward you for such bad service.
Too Little, Too Late
Unfortunately, by cutting off millions of smart hubs, this will be Wink’s undoing. Forcing people to pay up won’t lead to anything good. If Wink had attempted to roll out a for-pay subscription service 3-6 months ago by offering something better than what we’re presently getting, like dedicated support services or unique discounts on devices, I might think twice.
But, to pay for a service (a very crappy service at that) that we were getting for free without anything premium about it? Uh, not gonna do it.
I know a lot of people have sunk money into devices for their Wink hubs. Thankfully, I didn’t do that. I only have two lamps controlled by my Wink. After I realized just how crappy Wink’s service and hub actually was, I decided not to invest any further money into devices for the Wink. Instead, when I invest money in a smart home system, I’m doing it with Philips Hue, which so far is still a free service and offering a near rock solid uptime track record. However, Philips may not continue its Hue service for free forever, either.
The Wrong Way
Unfortunately, Wink has chosen the absolutely most wrong way to handle this roll out of a new subscription service. Not only did Wink offer a pittance 7 day notice for this drastic change, they didn’t even bother to attempt to widely notify users of this change. Consider that there are are probably 1.5 million of these devices in service, yet very limited notifications have been sent. Instead, they have relied on a Tweet, a Blog article and for some, an email.
There are correct ways and incorrect ways of handling such a service change, but it is clear that Wink is almost assuredly inches from going out of business. Some users have attempted to call Wink’s support line only to find that the number has been disconnected. Yeah, disconnected numbers are not hallmarks of a successful company. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Do you own a Wink?
If you own a Wink hub, you will need to understand what this means for you. You think, “I’ll still be able to control my lights”. Uh, no you won’t. After the deadline, the ability to use the app, the API (Alexa) or any other means (i.e., automation) will be shut off. In fact, I’d expect Wink to roll out a new app update to all smart phone devices that will force you onto a signup page to subscribe to their new for-pay service.
Don’t roll out of bed on the deadline and expect your lights or smart switches to work as they always have… at least, not unless you fork over that $5 a month.
Still, even if you do pay for that service, they’re likely to raise it to $10 a month, the $15 a month and keep raising up to some incredibly expensive amount in probably 4 months. The $5 a month is simply a ruse… a ruse to rope you in, then once they’ve got you hooked, raise that price to completely gouge you in the near future.
It’s up to you if you want to pay for service. You don’t really need to, though, when you can buy other smart hubs, like Samsung’s SmartThings that doesn’t require a subscription fee. Apparently, Samsung’s SmartThings hub is also fully compatible with most or all of Wink’s devices. So, there’s that. Unfortunately, Philips Hue’s hub isn’t that compatible. Hue will work with some non-Philips devices, but it clearly works best with Philips’s devices.
Critical News
Because this is pretty much timely news that needs to arrive in your inbox today, I’m publishing this without too much proofreading. If there are errors in this article, I will fix them in time. I just want to get this article pushed out quickly because of the clock ticking towards that deadline.
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Home Automation: The good, bad and ugly
You’ve just picked up an Amazon Echo with a Hue Starter Kit and you have decided to take plunge into controlling small devices in your home via Alexa. Well, here is what I’ve learned so far about this process. Take note, it’s not always easy to set this up. Keep in mind that I haven’t explored every system or every device. This article documents only my experiences with those devices I’ve tried. Let’s explore.
Smart Home Hubs
The first thing you need to understand is that many home automation systems still require a centralized hub to control the accessories (i.e., lights, switches, dimmers, and plugs). Systems like Wink and Hue are good in that a hub aggregates all of the accessories under a single logical device, these devices also have their own pitfalls. Some lights and plugs are WiFi only and do not require a hub, leading to even more consumer confusion, more apps and more logins and passwords.
As an example, Hue’s bridge (hub) comes in several versions (I’ll explain the reasons for this shortly). If the you stay within the Philips universe of devices, then you’ll be good. However, the moment you step outside of the Philips universe, just like with Apple’s products, compatibility takes a significant dive. It’s the same situation for Wink. As long as you wholly subscribe to the devices that are compatible with a Wink hub, you’ll be perfectly fine. If you choose to add in a bulb that isn’t compatible, your days will become far less happy. Worse, if you want to intermix devices from the Philips universe with the Wink universe, you’re asking for a world of hurt.
Intermixing Devices
So you’re probably asking, “why would I want to intermix devices?” It’s very simple. Cost. While the Hue color bulbs are spectacular for producing vivid colors, they aren’t so great for their brightness levels and they are substantially pricey. If you want to get a bulb that supplies higher than 50-60 watts of effective illumination, you have to jump out of the Philips universe. I don’t know why Philips is dragging their feet on 75 and 100 watt Hue bulbs, but they are and its frustrating. That means you might end up over at GE or Cree or even looking at LIFX bulb.
Costs, Value and Brightness
Hue bulbs are also incredibly pricey. At around $60 per color bulb, changing every bulb in your home is likely going to cost hundreds or perhaps thousands of dollars. Even the ambient white colored Hue bulbs at $30 are still quite pricey because they can range their colors between cold and warm white. If you simply want a bulb you can turn on and off and dim, there are far cheaper options… like the Cree Connected (~$15) and the GE Link (~$20). These are quite a bit less costly than the Hue white ambience bulbs. However, Hue also makes a 4 pack of white dimmable bulbs that cost around $13 per bulb (note that this may be holiday pricing). However, these bulbs are simple on, off and dim only. They do not vary the color hue of the bulb. The color they are is basic warm white… same for the Cree and GE Link. You also have to buy these Hue white bulbs in a 4-pack to get this lower pricing. Otherwise, each Hue bulb will cost around $17 separately. This 4-pack is your best deal for low cost hue bulbs. However, they are also not that bright.
At the time when I purchased into the Cree and GE Link, Philips still didn’t make these less costly bulbs. These are relatively new additions to Hue’s line and likely came about because of the Cree and GE Link bulbs.
What that means is that I’m not about to abandon the two bulbs I bought just to go buy four replacement Hue bulbs. The GE Link bulb is also quite bright, brighter than the Hue bulbs even though it is supposedly a 60 watt equivalent. Clearly, some bulbs are brighter than others even when rated similarly. This is why it’s important to look at the bulb illuminated to see if you like the color temperature and the brightness.
Clearly, we want good quality long lasting and bright lights. Specifically, lights that are bright enough for the given fixture and room. You may only need a 40 watt bulb in some instances, but in others you might want a 150 watt bulb. Sad to say, there aren’t many 150 watt LED equivalent bulbs on the market. Even of you find one, it’s not likely to be a connected bulb (see WiFi plugs below). The brightest bulbs seem incompatible with being connected. I don’t know why that is, but few lighting manufacturers want to produce both a connected bulb and a bulb that’s brighter than 60 watts. 60 watts is incredibly dim by itself. You’d need at least 4-7 of them in a fixture to sufficiently illuminate a living room.
Why there aren’t any 100 watt bulbs to date? I have no idea. Philips, GE and Sylvania need to get right onto solving that problem.. and soon.
Compatibility
If you’re willing to stay within a single manufacturer’s universe of apps, plugs, switches and bulbs, then you won’t run into many compatibility issues. If you want to actually do something useful, like use the Amazon Echo or IFTTT or Google Home or any other third party product, that’s when you run into problems.
Amazon’s Echo is probably the single most compatible home automation platform out there. However, that said, I’d consider Amazon’s Echo to only be about 80% compatible with most products. There are still a lot of products that cannot be controlled by Alexa, even though they have apps. IFTTT fares far worse at about 50% compatible. Apple’s Homekit is about 30% compatible with most systems. Though, if you’re willing to stay in the Philips universe, Apple’s Homekit jumps up into the high 90% range for compatibility. On the other hand, Apple’s Homekit has very little compatibility with Wink. Supposedly the Wink hub 2 is compatible with Homekit, but apparently that hub barely even works.
To get a fully functional Wink system, you have to use the Wink hub version 1 which isn’t compatible with Homekit. You’re probably asking, what is Apple Homekit? Homekit is Apple’s built-in small device automation system which is compatible with Siri. If you want task Siri to turn on, off or dim your lights, that assistant uses Homekit to get the work done. If Homekit can’t see your lights or accessories, it can’t control them.
There are many devices that Alexa can see and manage that Apple’s Homekit can’t. Apple has just floundered around doing nothing to improve compatibility to other home automation and lighting systems. This means that clicking the home icon to control your lights may or may not work on iOS… and more likely not to work than work.
Multiple Hub Versions
Hue’s system comes in several different hub versions. So does Wink. So does Zigbee and WeMo and many other device makers. These upgraded hubs add new features, such as compatibility with Apple’s Homekit or Google’s system. Keep in mind that even if a hub says it’s Homekit compatible, that doesn’t mean it’s fully compatible. It may only offer iOS the most bare bones minimums such as lights on and off, dimming and possibly color changing. Hue, for example, still prefers you to singly control all of their lights through the Hue app rather than through Apple’s Homekit compatible controls. Hue adds such extra features as light scheduling, vacation randomization and proximity fencing. Proximity fencing allows you to program the hub to turn lights on when near or off when out of range. These types of services are not visible through Homekit.
Fractured System
So what have I learned then?
- Philips Hue system is great so long as you don’t stray outside of it. Philips own bulbs work perfectly. Philips Hue can also see and control Hue compatible, but primarily Wink bulbs. Hue will not update firmware on any devices other than Hue devices. This is not optimal or in any way secure especially since you can only pair a device to one hub at a time.
- Wink will update fully Wink compatible bulbs, but won’t update firmware on Hue bulbs. Upgrades for Hue happens through Hue’s system.
- It is possible to run two hubs controlling different devices, but Wink’s hub won’t talk to Hue and Hue’s hub won’t talk to Wink.
- To bridge these two systems, you’ll need something like Alexa that can aggregate unlike device networks into a homogeneous whole.
- Alexa can’t aggregate bulbs and devices that aren’t Alexa compatible. So, you always have to read the box to make sure. Even then, you’ll likely need a skill to make it Alexa compatible.
- With Alexa’s skills, you can have Alexa log in to manage any device that offers a skill. You can then aggregate these devices under Alexa groups to control unlike systems.
- Homekit is the least compatible home control system out there. Don’t rely on Siri to control your devices unless you are meticulous in ensuring all of your devices are 100% Homekit compatible. This is likely to be costly because Apple is only willing to integrate with companies willing to pay money for this. That automatically means that only those companies making significant bank will be willing to pay off Apple to that end.
- Hue’s motion control sensor triples as a light and temperature sensor. Oddly enough, the only way to see the light and temperature pieces is through Homekit. Philips Hue app won’t show these sensors. This means you have to try and piecemeal together a system from pieces here, there and everywhere.
- Alexa still cannot directly set the color of Hue’s color bulbs. This must be done via a predefined IFTTT applet.
- Homekit can set the color of Hue’s color bulbs directly via Siri, but is limited in many other ways… specifically in the exact wording of how to get Siri to control the devices.
- Updating firmware on devices requires the correct app or hub. For example, Hue will update Hue devices, but not third party devices. If you want to update your third party devices, you need the right app or hub. Leading to….
- A device can only participate in any one hub system at any one time. Because I wanted the latest firmware on my GE and Cree bulbs, I had to buy a Wink hub and pair them with that. That also means I can’t use my Hue motion sensor to turn off one of the lights in a bedroom any longer. Now I have to buy a D-Link sensor and use that… adding to the cost and more hassles.
I find these systems fractured and annoying. There is no standard at all. Philips does what they do. Wink does similar, but is not compatible with Philips unless you buy into the Hub 2 (which is apparently junk). Sylvania is doing their own thing. Many bulb manufactures are now choosing WiFi for their bulbs to avoid even needing a hub. This means many competing standards in the lighting control area.
Until Philips or other lighting manufacturers put together a consortium to better the home automation world, home consumers will suffer with many competing and incompatible standards.
Electric Outlets
Recently I have gotten into controlling some devices using small connected outlets. Obviously, the devices to be controlled are dumb devices like plain old lamps or holiday lighting. They can’t be dimmed or change their colors, but they can be turned on or off. Once setup for control, I can enable scheduling to turn them individually on or off at specific times. However, what I’ve found here is just as fractured and confusing as the lighting systems. These plugs don’t require hubs. They are straight up WiFi devices.
I’ve so far bought the following:
- A WeMo branded outlet
- Three Conico / Jinvoo controlled outlets
- One TP-Link controlled outlet
Each of these devices has their own app and requires its own username and password. WeMo’s outlet uses the WeMo app, Conico uses the Jinvoo Smart app and TP-Link uses the Kasa app. Three apps and three logins for similar kinds of smart plugs. Yet more garbage on my phone and more passwords to remember.
However, because each of these apps have Alexa skills, I can set Alexa up to control all of them via a single device group. I have two of them controlling my Holiday lighting strands. I have a third as a bathroom night light and fourth and fifth not yet allocated, but likely will control more holiday lighting. I can put individual schedules on each of these plugs and I can voice control them via Alexa individually.
Unfortunately, to set up schedules, I have to do this in the phone app. This setup cannot be done in any single place. This is why this fracturing of devices is so bad.
IFTTT
What is this? This acronym stands for ‘IF This Then That’. It’s a small simple type of programming language. For example, if I say, “Alexa, trigger blue bedroom”, Alexa will send the command to IFTTT.com that will then interpret the command and perform the programmed action. The action could be turn off a light, send an email, send me a text or any of a wide array of actions. It’s a 1 to 1 action. Something happens, something is triggered.
How is this a problem here? I talked about the motion sensor above. This Hue sensor is captive to the Hue world. IFTTT has no way to capture any of the Hue sensor data and act upon it. Hue’s developers have not exposed any of this data to IFTTT for triggering alternative actions. For example, I’d like to turn on some lights if the motion sensor is tripped. While I can do that from within the Hue universe of devices, I can’t turn on both Hue and Wink lights from that motion sensor. Worse, the only thing I can do with the Hue motion sensor is turn on a device. I can’t send an SMS or email or anything else like that. Even though IFTTT can control both my Wink and Hue bridge devices, there is no action to read from the Hue motion sensor.
Instead, I had to opt into buying a D-Link WiFi motion sensor that is IFTTT compatible. This means I can then capture the motion event, send it to IFTTT to trigger an action of turning on a Wink and Hue bulb. It is not possible to do this with the Hue motion sensor. At least, that’s the theory. I haven’t yet received the D-Link sensor, but based on its description, it should be possible.
Overall, the world of home automation of small devices is fractured and confusing. There are many competing standards that don’t help the consumer in any way. In fact, this situation is made worse because device manufacturers intentionally hobble their own systems to prevent use of third party devices. This leaves home consumers to fend for themselves while trying to find a way to get their home system working. While I can understand the profit motivation in creating a captive ecosystem, it doesn’t in any way make it easier for a consumer. Until there’s a standard that all manufacturers agree to follow, we’re going to continue to see device after device using its own standard and supplying its own app to control that device.
If you’re going to invest in a smart home system, I’d suggest staying within a specific manufacturer’s ecosystem if at all possible. However, smart outlets may not be available under all systems. I don’t believe that Philips yet ships any smart plugs that are compatible with Hue. Wanting to add controls for plugs or other devices might mean the need for outside devices. However, even then I’d suggest sticking with a single manufacturer. Even if you use Hue and WeMo, that’s better than buying plugs from all over the place and trying to integrate 5 or more systems together. You may have to pay a premium to keep the number of systems down, but it will help keep the confusion to a minimum.
Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
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