Hi!
Is there any support for PoE lighting? I feel like I have looked everywhere.
David
You can get PoE adapters for Philips Hue Light Strips
Hi!
Thanks!
I was thinking of a system where all lights in my house (primarily spotlights in ceilings) have their own IP and are individually controllable.
David
Can you provide a link to a couple of brands providing that?
Have been looking on their site for something of the protocols, APIs or interfaces but could not find on the website. Do you have links to technical documentation?
Couldn’t find the mobile App from my Android mobile.
Is it new? It looks for me a Shop without a Cart…
Is it a standard for communication / interfacing or just this brand?
I found the app, ,
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.poewit.poewit&hl=en&gl=US
Are you one of the 10+ Android Installs? 
Edit:
Guess it says enough, you need to create an App for that.
Ok. 
Sorry. Controlling each light seems like an awesome idea. This PoE Residential Lighting Platform Reviews - Residential PoE Lighting is a ‘review’ of 4 suppliers - many have support for Crestron. Which feels very US-focused; when/if residential PoE lighting becomes a thing here in Europe as well I imagine a good API will be made available. Hurry up & wait, it seems.
David
Philips Hue Spots, indeed any of their lights are individually controllable. Any reason you want IP addresses?
Good question.
What is attractive to me is a) the low power in my walls and b) the “always on” aspect of it and c) the dynamic nature of deciding what zone “is” what light.
I want all buttons/dimmers to be a part of the system. Not a setup where some buttons simply power off zones. I can imagine some technical solutions, but not without pulling electricity in a very non-standard way.
So no, IP is not in itself what I want. Basically I want HUE where the power is always on. All in one zone. Powered by non-scary cables I am allowed to do myself.
David
You could remove your wall switches and hot wire everything 
This is the way 
The way I have it now is that I removed the old light switches and closed off the holes, light switches replaced by remote control battery operated switches at the moment. Pending a full redo of electrical system in the future, where all lights will be replaced by dumb lights and connected directly to zwave din rail mounted relais, controlled by switches which toggle the relais as well.
I guess Sweden?
I know it is not everywhere as in the Netherlands where we can do changes up to the home installation fuse box our selves.
Hi!
Yeah, this is what I want. But I am too much of a coward. Besides I will likely move within 10 years, and I guess that the value might be affected negatively by a “hot” house.
D
Hi!
I might be mistaken - but the way I understand PoE lighting is that the lights are basically connected to a PoE switch. I do not think I am allowed in the fuse box (here in Sweden). Not that I would dare either.
D
Hello.
Here’s my understanding of what you want to do:
You want to be able to control each light individually, so that your dimmers and buttons can be used for whatever you decide, and it’s not one switch will only control this and that stuff.
With Homey, you’re already there. POE sounds like a very convoluted way to achieve what you want. If we’re talking only fixed installation lights, you’d have to pull all the wires from your walls, which an electrician would have to do, then pull cat cable. I guess it comes down to the max wattage the switch can give per port if you can put lights in series… and… I mean. It’s just such a mess.
You likely don’t have space in your current setup to pull endless cat cables, and you’ll switch to rely on a POE-standard that might change. A 48 port Cisco UPOE switch is expensive. The lights are lock-in, since there aren’t many that support it. I could go on.
So, if you’d like to give us more of a scenario of what you’re wanting to achieve, we’ll help you get there. Homey likely has all you need.
My house has a lot of downlights, and they’re built into zones, which means it’s fine for me to turn on and off a zone together. However, you can still make any button or any wall-mounted z-wave or zigbee dimmer to do exactly what you want by the push of the button. It’s just a bit down to the specifics of each scenario.
If individual addressability is a must, then just ensure all light fixtures have non integrated light, like downlights that are Gu10 or similar, and then use Trådfri bulbs from IKEA if you want to save money, or Philips Hue, LIFX or many other brands for even WiFi-enabled bulbs (though I think Z-wave is an amazing standard worth aiming for).
There are many ways you can replace a standard light switch. Fibaro Switch 2 and Fibaro Dimmer 2 are two great ways. HeatIt Z-Dimmer even has a dimmer wheel. There’s even little wrong with replacing all light switches with wireless ones that can be put in standard wall boxes that aren’t connected to the light they used to control. Hotwiring really isn’t an issue. You could pay an electrician 1,000$, if even that, to come around and replace all the new switches with bog-standard switches if you decide to move, to make it simple, which won’t be a big cost if you’re selling.
Hi!
Several great points. I feel like you understand me perfectly.
When I think of my “smart” lighting I test myself against these scenarios:
1: When lighting up my living room at night (through a motion detector) I want to turn on only a portion of the living room lights (not stuff like the wall art illumination or kitchen island base (my kitchen & living room are together)) and preferably another color (red).
2: My hallway is together with my kitchen & living room. I want to be able to change which lights are ‘included’ in ‘hallway’.
- If the fire alarms detect something I want a red row of lights to exits. (In bedrooms, hallways & living room.)
As I am writing this I realize that your suggestion would cover everything. I have 2 challenges:
-
Being a design-nerd I want to select switches myself (porcelain). Do you know of any wireleff controllers I can add behind own switches? And than can handle rotary dimmers?
-
I live in a house with very unforgiving ceilings height-wise. A GU10 with its ‘can’ is more than double my max height. I need something like this: Nordtronic low profile 28mm LED inbyggnadsspot DOB 5W, 3000/4000 kelvin, matt vit | 33111013 | VVSochBAD.se (sorry Swedish)
I think you are right - Homey can handle all this. If my dreams crash it won’t be Homey’s fault.
David
So, a Fibaro Switch 2 or a Fibaro Dimmer 2 will be hidden behind existing switches, meaning you can use whatever switch you want to. There are certain modes of operations. I’m using my dimmers with standard wall switches. They have an impulse spring, so that they can never be set to the “on”/“up” position, but rather act as a momentary switch where flipping the switch up sends an impulse to the Fibaro behind. Custom rotary dimmers on some z-wave device is something I’m having a hard time picturing, though.
So, given your current setup, are there any light switches that you feel turn on too many things? If you consider each switch to be a ‘zone’, are any of those zones too big? Maybe you could use individual bulbs there. And is RGB a must? It’s expensive, and in a home, I’d say that ‘red light leading out’ will be… superfluous? Seems that good training with what to do will outweigh any need for red lights during an alarm situation. Though, I am not a fan of RGB light, so I might not be the right person for that type of idea.
I have the same idea of LED downlights, I don’t know their minimum height, but anyway. With them, it means that they can remain “dumb”, while the wall switch is smart. I can turn on and dim the lights connected to one light switch together, and control it as I want via Homey.
So this is how my “God morning”-scene looks:
As you see, there’s a lot of “zones”. The lamps are z-grouped IKEA Trådfri bulbs, where three bulbs in one lamp is tied together as a simple “lamp”.
I absolutely love the idea of PoE lighting. I was interested from the begining when Ubiquiti started demos with PoE led panels. Recently they released a video about their new office IoT System, hangs on bt, PoE, WiFi… even e-car charger will come seemengly.
Thanks for these links above in this thread, I learnt a lot. Sadly all vendors are US based and relatively small looking. I hope led industry will embrace the idea.
Hi!
I am very likely misunderstanding: but a Fibaro switch has to be hooked up, right? I was thinking that I would have a button and a wireless switch and the actual light be “always on”. That way I can let any button do anything with any light - which is what I’m trying to do.
My superfluous ideas are superfluous. However I am a mute quadriplegic so if something happens I need all the help I can get - I am constantly surrounded by new people.
In my current setup I have dumb bulbs and smart switches. Adding “zones” is never a problem - yesterday I added the living room to the hallway/entry switch, for example. It is the other way that is the problem. Like my porch uplights - I want half of them to stay off during the summer. Or when my daughter goes to the bathroom at night I just want to turn on a fraction of the lights in the living room to light her way. Or when the TV is on and somebody enters the kitchen I don’t want all lights.
As I said, I have probably misunderstood. And forgotten half of your questions! Sorry! 
D
Hi!
I agree. It seems like a natural progression. I mean, nowadays we make a decision where to have buttons controlling what lights before the house is even fully built and we must live with that decision forever. Seems kind of dumb, I think.
The suppliers are all far from Sweden. But I expect this or some other “lighting 2.0” to be widely available soon.
D
As an old network admin, I have to say I don’t like the idea of POE-lighting. To me, the kind of light a bulb can deliver is very important. The electricians that wired this house have to replace ever single downlight for us, since there’s an error with the LED-driver in the ones we currently have. We’ve auditioned three different types that match my initial criteria to find one that is good enough. Even if the current suppliers become ten times as large, you’d still have probably 1/100 of the choices you can with traditional lighting.
POE-switches are expensive, and even UPoE would have issues powering certain devices. A 48p UPoE switch from Cisco is at least 4,000$. I don’t remember how many PSEs they have, but given that I have 60 downlights in my house, and each draw 8W, I’d need 500W power. That’s like ten PSEs. And that’s just my downlights. Also, it seems like an inefficient way to handle power. Although, with LEDs being the norm, and not knowing the the rectifiers in them work, I might be wrong about that one. It just feels inefficient to have a 400W PSU on a switch running in a closet delivering power to lighting around the house.
Just some thoughts. I do like DC power, though. Maybe that’s the solution we’re all secretly wanting.
In addition, since each port can deliver, what, 40W? One cable could supply 5 downlights with power. I’d need 12 individual Cat5+ cables run in my walls. I don’t know if my current tubing would allow that. And it’s non standard, there aren’t safety requirements, derating is handled by the switch… it makes about as much sense as a KNX residential smart home. You’d need a completely custom installation.
POE lighting makes a lot more sense in commercial spacing, where cables are handled differently.
I am very likely misunderstanding: but a Fibaro switch has to be hooked up, right?
Exactly right. It sits behind currently installed light switches and make existing switches both “stupid” and smart. That means you can control the lights behind the light switch both by the switch on the wall, and via Homey. It’s awesome for people like me who want to control everything automatically, but also have a mom that comes around and is allergic to having to do anything besides pushing a switch on the wall.
I was thinking that I would have a button and a wireless switch and the actual light be “always on”. That way I can let any button do anything with any light - which is what I’m trying to do.
Right. My suggestion was more in a way of smart-enabling existing lighting, but a Fibaro wouldn’t be able to do RGB, so you’d need individual bulb control anyway. And of course, when you have individual bulbs, you can do exactly what you want with exactly any button, so that’s a big plus. You could put normally grouped lights in a z-group (an app to group lighting in Homey), and then use the underlying light when you want more specific control, so that part could work really well, come to think of it.
My superfluous ideas are superfluous. However I am a mute quadriplegic so if something happens I need all the help I can get - I am constantly surrounded by new people.
Well, of course, that’s a whole different use case than what I had in mind. I didn’t mean to step on any ideas! Maybe for that exact case, it’d be better with a LED strip along the floor, or perhaps along the floor where the floor meets the wall? In case of fire, there might be smoke, and that might make lights high up impossible to see, or hard to make sense of.
It is the other way that is the problem. Like my porch uplights - I want half of them to stay off during the summer. Or when my daughter goes to the bathroom at night I just want to turn on a fraction of the lights in the living room to light her way. Or when the TV is on and somebody enters the kitchen I don’t want all lights.
Right, I get that. I just installed some new lighting outside, and I made them make two more circuits out there to have better control. Currently, it’s one breaker in the fuse box controlling all the outdoor lighting, and that’s a silly way to do things.
I do get the idea of being able to select specific bulbs for night time lighting. I guess I just assume that spill light from a lamp or something would be enough to get around. I’m not arguing the use case, though!
