Philips Hue GU10 bulbs & Apple Homekit

p9ul

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I could do with a little advice...

Most of my house has GU10 downlights (LED, but not smart) - but finding smart GU10 bulbs compatible with Homekit at a reasonable price is easier siad than done. Some of the bulbs (such as LIFX) are priced at £50 each! (possibly due to being thread enabled?)

I've already bought a twin pack of hue GU10 smart bulbs, but I can only control them via the hue bluetooth app on my phone - it refuses to connect to my iPad, which doesnt leave the house generally - so I'm currently unable to use it as a smart bulb.

I'm thinking of purchasing a Hue Bridge v2 so that I can control the bulbs using a HomePod mini - but are the bridges about to be replaced/redundant as some places have them as sold out?

I also can't help thinking that I should go with thread enabled bulbs for convenience but the price just doesnt make sense.

Any advice welcome.
 
had the same problem nearly 50 gu10 type and i went shelly relays in the end for my home controlled by homebridge on a pi
 
We have lots of Hue GU10 smart bulbs and the HueBridge v2. The Hue Bridge 2 is necessary to link them to HomeKit. They work well, although I've read that beyond about 50 devices you start to get problems. We have about 48!

My plan is to not buy any more Hue bulbs, and to gradually transition to Thread. As far as I'm aware there are no GU10 Thread bulbs available to buy - but that's very likely to change over the next 12 months or so.

If you need it now, I've recommend getting Hue (it will all work together through HomeKit if you get Thread stuff in future). If you can wait then maybe wait for Thread GU10 bulbs - but they'll probably be no cheaper initially.

I made the decision to avoid wifi bulbs as I don't want to unnecessarily congest my wifi network. Zigbee/Hue is nice because each bulb relays the signal to each other bulb - similar to how thread will work.
 
I'd look into the homebridge route as above..
 
As there are still no thread enabled GU10 bulbs, I've looked into the Hue Bridge limit further and discovered something quite important. Whilst you can have multiple Hue Bridges to avoid going over the limit where you start getting problems - the Hue app apparently still only allows you to access one at a time. However the important thing I've now discovered is that HomeKit will work with two Hue Bridges seamlessly. So you can have a Hue Motion Sensor on one bridge using HomeKit automation to trigger Hue Lights connected to another Hue Bridge, or a Thread Light bulb for that matter. So, as GU10 thread bulbs seem to be taking a while to appear, adding a second Hue Bridge seems like a good medium term solution. No doubt as soon as I do down this route Nanoleaf will release a cheaper GU10 thread bulb (noting that Nanoleaf's thread light strip is cheaper than Hue's).
 
As there are still no thread enabled GU10 bulbs, I've looked into the Hue Bridge limit further and discovered something quite important. Whilst you can have multiple Hue Bridges to avoid going over the limit where you start getting problems - the Hue app apparently still only allows you to access one at a time. However the important thing I've now discovered is that HomeKit will work with two Hue Bridges seamlessly. So you can have a Hue Motion Sensor on one bridge using HomeKit automation to trigger Hue Lights connected to another Hue Bridge, or a Thread Light bulb for that matter. So, as GU10 thread bulbs seem to be taking a while to appear, adding a second Hue Bridge seems like a good medium term solution. No doubt as soon as I do down this route Nanoleaf will release a cheaper GU10 thread bulb (noting that Nanoleaf's thread light strip is cheaper than Hue's).
still going to be a costly affair.
 

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