Home Please explain to me this whole Smart Home thing (need help)

[The.316]

I want to start adding smart devices to my home, buts it’s a bit confusing. I have a few things in my home that are already smart. What I have so far, is this:

-4K Apple TV
-Alexa Dot latest generation
-LED strips around my TV, and some furniture, that I added smart WiFi controllers to.

So here are my questions:

1. If I add the Hues lights, I need the bridge for them too, in order to connect to the network, correct?

2. Do l need a bridge for LIFX lights as well?

3. Do I always need to keep the light switches on in order for the bulbs to work wirelessly? This is what is the most confusing to me. I’d like to use smart lights, but not all the time. Sometimes I want to, other times I just want to use the light switch.

4. In order to turn on my TV or PS4, I need to have a hub for that as well? Like a Logitech smart hub for example. TV is 4K Smart TV, but it’s a couple of years old.

5. I have this app called Magic Home, which works with my LED strips. It works great, and I set up Siri through it, to turn on the strips, off the strips, etc. Every time I use it though, Siri wants me to confirm the action I’m asking her to do. Is there a way to bypass that, so when I say “Siri, turn off all strips,” she will just turn them off, without confirmation?

6. Is there one hub that works with everything?


I want to set up some stuff around the place, but some of this stuff is confusing. I have a Koogeek door sensor I want to set up to turn the lights on when I’m near the house.

 

[Huntn]

Not a very helpful answer:
I’ve not looked into it, but my impression is that you need a hub/assistant to give commands to, which might be Siri or Alexa, and control devices that can facilitate the change, like wifi connected light switches. I imagine having one brand/system would be better if possible. Automation of such things is were I get vague in my knowledge.

There might be a setting in Siri to avoid confirmation, but for some things confirmation maybe a good idea.

Your Apple TV remote will turn on your smart TV when you click on it. I imagine this can be done though your phone. Apple TV does have some voice capability that I know of when searching. But to control the entire TV you might need something like: Cavo?

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/technology/how-to-make-a-smart-home

 

[Gutwrench]

I want to start adding smart devices to my home, buts it’s a bit confusing. I have a few things in my home that are already smart. What I have so far, is this:

-4K Apple TV
-Alexa Dot latest generation
-LED strips around my TV, and some furniture, that I added smart WiFi controllers to.

So here are my questions:

1. If I add the Hues lights, I need the bridge for them too, in order to connect to the network, correct?

2. Do l need a bridge for LIFX lights as well?

3. Do I always need to keep the light switches on in order for the bulbs to work wirelessly? This is what is the most confusing to me. I’d like to use smart lights, but not all the time. Sometimes I want to, other times I just want to use the light switch.

4. In order to turn on my TV or PS4, I need to have a hub for that as well? Like a Logitech smart hub for example. TV is 4K Smart TV, but it’s a couple of years old.

5. I have this app called Magic Home, which works with my LED strips. It works great, and I set up Siri through it, to turn on the strips, off the strips, etc. Every time I use it though, Siri wants me to confirm the action I’m asking her to do. Is there a way to bypass that, so when I say “Siri, turn off all strips,” she will just turn them off, without confirmation?

6. Is there one hub that works with everything?


I want to set up some stuff around the place, but some of this stuff is confusing. I have a Koogeek door sensor I want to set up to turn the lights on when I’m near the house.

I’m headed to the airport but will give you some details from my experience as soon as I can. Unless someone beats me to it.

Yes, you need a Philips hub that wirelessly connects to your Hue lights. (I have many.) Siri and Alexa wirelessly communicates to your hub to control them.

 

[dotme]

Echoing what others have said, I'd suggest you decide on your smart hub platform. You already have a 4K Apple TV, and if you're invested in Apple's ecosystem, then you already own a hub platform.

From personal experience, I try to limit the brands I deploy in my home. First, if I can't manage it with Homekit, I don't deploy it. Second, I stick to one brand for bulbs (Hue), one brand for switches (Lutron), one brand for Outlets (iHome) and one brand for IR remotes (Logitech). If/When I add a new device, I use one of my chosen brands unless the application is something they don't make a solution for (Insignia for garage door and Ecobee for thermostat are good examples of that).

100% of my automation is performed through Homekit. I don't use the Lutron App, Hue App etc at all. Once you catch the automation bug, things can get complicated very quickly so simplifying from the outset is often helpful.

1. If I add the Hues lights, I need the bridge for them too, in order to connect to the network, correct?
You can use Bluetooth LE with the latest bulbs, up to ten, but I don't recommend it. Get the hub.

2. Do l need a bridge for LIFX lights as well?
Can't answer this - I don't use LIFX

3. Do I always need to keep the light switches on in order for the bulbs to work wirelessly? This is what is the most confusing to me. I’d like to use smart lights, but not all the time. Sometimes I want to, other times I just want to use the light switch.
Hue bulbs always need power or they'll show as unreachable. Lutron Caseta is a solid solution for switched lighting. With Hue you get color and temperature control. With Caseta you can dim, but that's about it.

4. In order to turn on my TV or PS4, I need to have a hub for that as well? Like a Logitech smart hub for example. TV is 4K Smart TV, but it’s a couple of years old.
Huntn's answer is correct. But for more control of more components, you can use Logitech Harmony. They don't integrate with Homekit out of the box, but if you run Homebridge or have a Mac in the house that's on 24/7, there's a $7 app in the Mac store that bridges between Homekit and Harmony.

5. I have this app called Magic Home, which works with my LED strips. It works great, and I set up Siri through it, to turn on the strips, off the strips, etc. Every time I use it though, Siri wants me to confirm the action I’m asking her to do. Is there a way to bypass that, so when I say “Siri, turn off all strips,” she will just turn them off, without confirmation?
I would check with the app maker on that. But if you get Homekit-compatible lighting, you're not going to have that issue.

6. Is there one hub that works with everything?
AppleTV is a good hub, which communicates with "Bridges" that manage devices (Like Lutron or Hue) and directly via Bluetooth LE and WiFi with other devices. I've never had much luck with Bluetooth LE - Slow and often unresponsive for me. AppleTV as a Homekit hub will allow you to manage your home while you're not home, create automations that fire at times of day, sunrise/sunset or (with sensors) light level/motion/temperature.

 

[The.316]

Echoing what others have said, I'd suggest you decide on your smart hub platform. You already have a 4K Apple TV, and if you're invested in Apple's ecosystem, then you already own a hub platform.

From personal experience, I try to limit the brands I deploy in my home. First, if I can't manage it with Homekit, I don't deploy it. Second, I stick to one brand for bulbs (Hue), one brand for switches (Lutron), one brand for Outlets (iHome) and one brand for IR remotes (Logitech). If/When I add a new device, I use one of my chosen brands unless the application is something they don't make a solution for (Insignia for garage door and Ecobee for thermostat are good examples of that).

100% of my automation is performed through Homekit. I don't use the Lutron App, Hue App etc at all. Once you catch the automation bug, things can get complicated very quickly so simplifying from the outset is often helpful.

1. If I add the Hues lights, I need the bridge for them too, in order to connect to the network, correct?
You can use Bluetooth LE with the latest bulbs, up to ten, but I don't recommend it. Get the hub.

2. Do l need a bridge for LIFX lights as well?
Can't answer this - I don't use LIFX

3. Do I always need to keep the light switches on in order for the bulbs to work wirelessly? This is what is the most confusing to me. I’d like to use smart lights, but not all the time. Sometimes I want to, other times I just want to use the light switch.
Hue bulbs always need power or they'll show as unreachable. Lutron Caseta is a solid solution for switched lighting. With Hue you get color and temperature control. With Caseta you can dim, but that's about it.

4. In order to turn on my TV or PS4, I need to have a hub for that as well? Like a Logitech smart hub for example. TV is 4K Smart TV, but it’s a couple of years old.
Huntn's answer is correct. But for more control of more components, you can use Logitech Harmony. They don't integrate with Homekit out of the box, but if you run Homebridge or have a Mac in the house that's on 24/7, there's a $7 app in the Mac store that bridges between Homekit and Harmony.

5. I have this app called Magic Home, which works with my LED strips. It works great, and I set up Siri through it, to turn on the strips, off the strips, etc. Every time I use it though, Siri wants me to confirm the action I’m asking her to do. Is there a way to bypass that, so when I say “Siri, turn off all strips,” she will just turn them off, without confirmation?
I would check with the app maker on that. But if you get Homekit-compatible lighting, you're not going to have that issue.

6. Is there one hub that works with everything?
AppleTV is a good hub, which communicates with "Bridges" that manage devices (Like Lutron or Hue) and directly via Bluetooth LE and WiFi with other devices. I've never had much luck with Bluetooth LE - Slow and often unresponsive for me. AppleTV as a Homekit hub will allow you to manage your home while you're not home, create automations that fire at times of day, sunrise/sunset or (with sensors) light level/motion/temperature.

1 and 2. So the Apple TV is a hub, but I still need a the Philips hub for the bulbs, correct?

3. With a Philips dimmer switch, can I turn off the lights with the switch if need be, or do I still have to turn them off via the app or Siri? What Im trying to do is have them turn on when I pull up to my house, but also turn them off if need be by switching them off.

4. Can I do that? Meaning can I set up a geofence around my home, so the lights turn on when Im nearby?

 

[Gutwrench]

1 and 2. So the Apple TV is a hub, but I still need a the Philips hub for the bulbs, correct?

3. With a Philips dimmer switch, can I turn off the lights with the switch if need be, or do I still have to turn them off via the app or Siri? What Im trying to do is have them turn on when I pull up to my house, but also turn them off if need be by switching them off.

4. Can I do that? Meaning can I set up a geofence around my home, so the lights turn on when Im nearby?

1 & 2: As far as I know the Hue is controlled through the Phillips hub. There’s no bypassing that. I don’t have my tv or AppleTV hooked up to use as a smart device.

3. Yes. But the lamp’s switch must be on in order to use the voice control. I found using one or the other works best for me. If I manually turn the light off at the wall or on the lamp then next try to turn it on by voice it won’t work. For obvious reasons the electricity has been switched off at the lamp or wall.

(I’ve found it works best to set up the Hue lights (naming and assigning to rooms) in the Phillips App first works best. Then associate those devices into the groups you created within Alexa.)

4. Phillips allows you to set up a geofence to turn lights on and off. I’ve had mixed results with it, but a few friends say it works flawlessly.

I control my home with Alexa and never use Siri in the house. I set up routines within Alexa.

Each morning as I start making coffee I say, “Alexa good morning.” She greets me, turns on the living room lights and plays Cities97 on Sonos, gives a random piece of history for that date, announces the weather, reads my Apple and Outlook calendar schedule, then gives a traffic report and drive time to my office.

She has a routine for when I leave, return, go to bed, and even when shaving/showering haha. It’s very convenient and useful for me.

 

[waw74]

it's a bit confusing the use of home hub, and hue hub,
They have different uses.

a home hub will forward requests from outside the house to inside the house.
if your phone is at home, the aTV does nothing, once you leave, the aTV lets you connect to your lights like your are home.
(it can also act to connect bluetooth devices if your phone is not close enough to the device you're talking to)

The Hue hub is translator.
Hue Bulbs speak a wireless protocol, called zig-bee. The hue hub has a zig-bee radio, and an ethernet jack, and converts between the 2.
The same way you have to have a wi-fi router if you want to use the wireless card in your laptop.

LiFx bulbs connect via wi-fi so as long as you have wifi you're good to go. no hub needed, since you have a wifi router.

you will need to leave the switches on, if you want to be able to turn the lights on from your phone.

hue makes "switches" you which are just a battery powered remote, you can stick near the regular wall switch. You leave the regular switch on, and assign bulbs or scenes to the button presses on the remote.
There are also a few homekit buttons, that will let you assign actions for pressing it. The come in a few different versions.

There are smart switches, that can replace your old wall switches, but you must use them with "dumb" bulbs.
If you don't care about changing color these can work for you. When buying these, pay attention to "switch" or "dimmer." One only turns the light on or off, the other will let you dim. Depening on your lights (like some LED or compact fluorescent) you may need to get a switch, as some bulbs react very badly to being dimmed.
If you've swapped out a toggle switch for a dimmer, it's the same electrical knowledge required, it's pretty basic, but please don't attempt if you're not sure, not to be scary, but the potential is there for burning down your house or electrocution/death. (if you're not handy, you could probably bribe a friend who is with the promise of frosty beverages to come help you out, it's about a 10-15 minute project per switch)


It sounds like you're might be using Siri shortcuts to control the strip? and not HomeKit. (do they show up in the home app?)
you might be able to re-write the shortcut to avoid the confirmation. check the shortcuts app, and edit the shortcut as needed.


In homekit you can assign automations to entering or leaving an area. So as long as you have a home hub (aTV, iPad, HomePod) you can have the lights turn on when you get near your house. Or If you have a homekit door sensor, you can assign an action to when that door opens or closes. Or the same for motion sensors when the trigger.
You could also make the all lights at home turn off when you arrive at work.

 

[The.316]

1 & 2: As far as I know the Hue is controlled through the Phillips hub. There’s no bypassing that. I don’t have my tv or AppleTV hooked up to use as a smart device.

3. Yes. But the lamp’s switch must be on in order to use the voice control. I found using one or the other works best for me. If I manually turn the light off at the wall or on the lamp then next try to turn it on by voice it won’t work. For obvious reasons the electricity has been switched off at the lamp or wall.

(I’ve found it works best to set up the Hue lights (naming and assigning to rooms) in the Phillips App first works best. Then associate those devices into the groups you created within Alexa.)

4. Phillips allows you to set up a geofence to turn lights on and off. I’ve had mixed results with it, but a few friends say it works flawlessly.

I control my home with Alexa and never use Siri in the house. I set up routines within Alexa.

Each morning as I start making coffee I say, “Alexa good morning.” She greets me, turns on the living room lights and plays Cities97 on Sonos, gives a random piece of history for that date, announces the weather, reads my Apple and Outlook calendar schedule, then gives a traffic report and drive time to my office.

She has a routine for when I leave, return, go to bed, and even when shaving/showering haha. It’s very convenient and useful for me.

You know, I asked for help, and all you are doing is confusing me more lol.

3. I understand that the switch has to be on in order to give power to the bulbs, I was just thinking if there was something that manipulated the bulb, where it was off with the switch, but the bulb would still receive power. So if I leave the light switch on, I can essentially use the Philips dimmer switch as the light switch then, right? It does has an on/off option. If that is the case, then Ill look in to going that route.

All those things you mentioned Alexa does, is it easily programmable? Maybe Ill just go that route for the time being, and continue to do my research on the lighting.
[doublepost=1567287821][/doublepost]

it's a bit confusing the use of home hub, and hue hub,
They have different uses.

a home hub will forward requests from outside the house to inside the house.
if your phone is at home, the aTV does nothing, once you leave, the aTV lets you connect to your lights like your are home.
(it can also act to connect bluetooth devices if your phone is not close enough to the device you're talking to)

The Hue hub is translator.
Hue Bulbs speak a wireless protocol, called zig-bee. The hue hub has a zig-bee radio, and an ethernet jack, and converts between the 2.
The same way you have to have a wi-fi router if you want to use the wireless card in your laptop.

LiFx bulbs connect via wi-fi so as long as you have wifi you're good to go. no hub needed, since you have a wifi router.

you will need to leave the switches on, if you want to be able to turn the lights on from your phone.

hue makes "switches" you which are just a battery powered remote, you can stick near the regular wall switch. You leave the regular switch on, and assign bulbs or scenes to the button presses on the remote.
There are also a few homekit buttons, that will let you assign actions for pressing it. The come in a few different versions.

There are smart switches, that can replace your old wall switches, but you must use them with "dumb" bulbs.
If you don't care about changing color these can work for you. When buying these, pay attention to "switch" or "dimmer." One only turns the light on or off, the other will let you dim. Depening on your lights (like some LED or compact fluorescent) you may need to get a switch, as some bulbs react very badly to being dimmed.
If you've swapped out a toggle switch for a dimmer, it's the same electrical knowledge required, it's pretty basic, but please don't attempt if you're not sure, not to be scary, but the potential is there for burning down your house or electrocution/death. (if you're not handy, you could probably bribe a friend who is with the promise of frosty beverages to come help you out, it's about a 10-15 minute project per switch)


It sounds like you're might be using Siri shortcuts to control the strip? and not HomeKit. (do they show up in the home app?)
you might be able to re-write the shortcut to avoid the confirmation. check the shortcuts app, and edit the shortcut as needed.


In homekit you can assign automations to entering or leaving an area. So as long as you have a home hub (aTV, iPad, HomePod) you can have the lights turn on when you get near your house. Or If you have a homekit door sensor, you can assign an action to when that door opens or closes. Or the same for motion sensors when the trigger.
You could also make the all lights at home turn off when you arrive at work.

The led strip can't be added to Homekit. I can add it with homebridge, but I don't really know how that works.

 

[Gutwrench]

You know, I asked for help, and all you are doing is confusing me more lol.

3. I understand that the switch has to be on in order to give power to the bulbs, I was just thinking if there was something that manipulated the bulb, where it was off with the switch, but the bulb would still receive power. So if I leave the light switch on, I can essentially use the Philips dimmer switch as the light switch then, right? It does has an on/off option. If that is the case, then Ill look in to going that route.

All those things you mentioned Alexa does, is it easily programmable? Maybe Ill just go that route for the time being, and continue to do my research on the lighting.

Sorry about being confusing. Lol. Yep, you got it. Leave the switches on that deliver power to the lights and you can control the lights with the Phillips dimmer switch, Phillips app, (Siri, but I don’t use her), or Alexa. All my smart home lights are Hue so I haven’t any experience outside of them.

Yes, all the routines are easily set up in Alexa. Im sold on Alexa, but some people here disagree and prefer Siri.

Here’s an example of a routine I set up with Alexa. Very simple:

 

[LonderJan]

1. If I add the Hues lights, I need the bridge for them too, in order to connect to the network, correct?

• Yes if you want to use Homekit.
• Yes if you want to use the Hue app and have advanced controls/automations
• No if you buy Bluetooth enabled Hue lightbulbs and are not interested in Homekit or automation features (link with other accessories such as door switches or motion sensors). You then just use the Philips Hue Bluetooth app and it will allow you to switch lights as long as you are within Bluetooth range of that bulb.

2. Do l need a bridge for LIFX lights as well?

• No, LIFX bulbs are connected to your wifi network. I considered LIFX and HUE and in the end decided the go for Philips simply because the Hue ecosystem is much older than LIFX, it has additional things such as dimmer switches, power switches, motion sensors, etc.

3. Do I always need to keep the light switches on in order for the bulbs to work wirelessly? This is what is the most confusing to me. I’d like to use smart lights, but not all the time. Sometimes I want to, other times I just want to use the light switch.

• In order to turn a Hue light bulb on via the Hue app or Homekit or a dimmer switch, that light bulb will need to have power. So your wall or cord switch needs to be in the ON position.
• You are not stuck to the app. You can still use your regular wall switch. If you turned the bulb off with the app, the wall switch will be on the ON position. In order to turn the light on without the app, flip the wall switch off and back on again and the light bulb will turn to full power.
• But remember, when you flip the wall switch back off to turn the light bulb off, you will not be able to turn it back on again with the app. If you have difficulty to remember the ON position of physical switches and don't want to constantly flip switches to test and make sure switches are in the on position, use https://www.amazon.com/Map-Dot-Stickers-Assorted-Diameter/dp/B003M6PFS6 or something else to mark your wall switches.

I want to set up some stuff around the place, but some of this stuff is confusing. I have a Koogeek door sensor I want to set up to turn the lights on when I’m near the house.

• It's not really clear what you want to do but if you want to turn on a light whenever a door openes, you can do that in the HomeKit app (check the Automation tab and tap add, it explains itself really).

In general, think about what you need and want to do with the system. Don't overthink it and keep things simple. I switched from another brand automation system (that looked amazing and could do EVERYTHING) to Philips Hue, simply because it was too labor intensive to maintain and very buggy. I am using Hue lightbulbs and Hue Smart Plugs for lights that I cannot fit with a Hue lightbulb. I found being able to use Siri very useful.

Tip: when buying light bulbs, think twice if you really need the ones with millions of colors. It's something a lot of people seem to want but I honestly have no need for blue, green, orange, or whatever lighting in my house or garden. The regular white ones cost half as much and also do the trick.

 

[BlankStar]

Just to make sure there isn't too much confusion;

Hub = Apple TV, HomePod or always-stay-home-iPad: makes sure you can command your smart devices via the internet.
Bridge = device that links smart devices from a certain brand to HomeKit.