Red series bulb questions

I’m in the market for some new smart bulbs but with the blue series dimmers just around the corner I’m not sure if I should instead get ZigBee bulbs so the dimmer can directly control the bulbs.

The brightness is a slight concern though lumens doesn’t always relate to real world results. How does the brightness compare to something like a hue 1100 lumen bulb?

The bulbs are for a bathroom (I’m aware it’s far from ideal with humidity) so will mostly be white. From what I’ve found it seems like the white has quite a high cri.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Looks like the store page for the bulb has a slight mistake, under compatible hubs it shows two integration methods for Home Assistant both of which are ZigBee, since this is a zwave bulb neither integration would work.

Since the Inovelli bulbs are around 800 lm, they’d be a close match to the 800-lm Hue bulbs, as you probably know (the standard for many Hue generations, except the first), at least on paper. In my experience, I can’t tell much of a difference between the two at regular color temperatures in most rooms. Honestly, I often can’t tell much of a difference between the 800- and 1100-lm Hue bulbs in the same room, either, so much so that I went with the cheaper option in many cases because it looked just as bright to me. :slight_smile: So, I wouldn’t let that stop you unless you need something really bright. But different rooms, fixtures, and preferences may make things different for you than me.

Most of my bulbs are Zigbee, in part because Z-Wave bulbs seem to generate a lot of traffic with commands, and Z-Wave networks seem particularly sensitive to this (especially if you use S0, the default security mode on early firmware of Inovelli bulbs, and even moreso if you have a early-firmware 700-series radio that was prone to lockups under certain conditions; both of these have been addressed to some extent now and also is affected by what controller/hub you’re using). But I do still have a few.

I use both with a few different methods of control for these bulbs (mostly Zigbee but also some Inovelli Z-Wave), but right now my #1 method is Red Series dimmers. This is true regardless of bulb protocol. I use my hub in the middle (rather than, say, Z-Wave Association) and don’t have any problems, and I enjoy the extra flexibility this gives me. I plan on doing the same when more are replaced with the Blue Series, rather than any direct Zigbee-to-Zigbee control – in part because most of my bulbs are Hue whereas the Blue switch will be on my “main” hub, and I’m not sure there’s a way to make that work in the first place, but also because I trust my hub enough that using it in the middle has never been a problem for me. If something does happen, it’s easy to disable “smart bulb mode” or re-enable local control with the config button on the device. Not quite the same, but it will work if nothing else does.

That being said, I do understand your need. Whether that’s worth waiting for the Blue Series probably depends on how bad you want things and when. :slight_smile: (If I had to pick a protocol for bulbs, it would probably be Zigbee, FWIW. Though note that many, especially older bulbs, do not play well when mixed with non-bulb devices on the same Zigbee network. This is one reason I have mine separated on a Hue Bridge network, besides how easy they are to set up there and how reliable that whole system is – none of which I’d do if it weren’t easily integrated with “real” hubs.)

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