LIDL smart home from Sunday

[George Miles]

Are these Lidl Zigbee smart home lights and sockets good or bad? On sale from Sunday.

[T i m]

Thanks for the heads up George.

I might need some confirmation from the likes of Theo as to what might make a good staring point, like if to go for the hub or roll my own using a RPi etc.

Are ES lamps becoming more common (here) these days or is it just because they are more common in Europe that the likes of Aldi / Lidl / Ikea seem to focus on them (here)?

How many people in the UK have say ES wall lights on main light fittings or do people just use the adaptors?

Cheers, T i m

[Theo]

They aren't on the list of products supported by the various middleware:

but then Lidl come out with new stuff every week, so probably nobody has tested them yet.

Some experiences here, although for different (non-UK) products:

and someone did a video review of them and the Lidl gateway: Apparently the app is based on the Tuya Smart Life app (makers of lots of other cheap Chinese smart home stuff).

Google 'Lidl Zigbee' and you'll see there's various forum posts.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

They were in Lidl Denmar a few weeks ago, someome tried them on a Hubitat, they needed to force a few different drivers from what was detected, but sounded "more standard" than various Philips/Ikea devices.

[T i m]

ATM I can't really think where I would make use of much of it (but still interested to see if I could make use of something).

Few of our main lights are ES (and most of these smart lamps seem to be ES) and would typically need something 'bright' or we would just use side lights that are already of an appropriate brightness.

We already have (self contained) dusk to dawn lights in the front and rear porches and a sidelight in the lounge on a generic timeswitch that has served us well for years (mostly for when the dogs were here and we weren't).

Door / movement sensors might be good on outbuildings, assuming the range was good enough, maybe sending me a SMS?

If somehow I could use such to extend the doorbell to my phone in case I'm down the workshop when the postman rings, that would *actually* be handy.

I'm not sure how long all this commercial level of stuff has been out there but I wonder if it's still a new and unless you actually have a need and can service it well with something available now, if it might be worth holding on to see if something 'takes over' as the best solution for most people?

It seems to me very much like when WiFi first came out and I was asked to 'sort it out' for many as it was rarely P&P. Trying to find the highest common denominator between different makes and models. Similar with Bluetooth (still now)?

On one hand I'd like to buy (into) something that 'just works' (for what I actually can make use of), and may well do so if it's cheap enough or go roll-it-yourself using an existing RPi and Zigbee, as it might be more flexible than a proprietary solution and at least I can use the RPi for something else if it doesn't work out? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Theo]

It seems to be that light *fittings* are generally ES these days, but pendant lights are still stubbornly BC. I tried to buy an ES pendant lampholder recently (to fit an Ikea bulb) and 'normal' white pedants are very hard to find. There's some dubious-looking Chinese ones on ebay that I wouldn't trust with a lampshade, but the only UK style lampholder I found was this one:

Theo

[PeterC]

Possibly

(others lower down on the page) then remove the cords and wire into the roses.