He's probably addressing a largely American audience, and since we're sadly not part of Europe any more, he couldn't say "here in Europe". It's a bit quicker than saying "here in England, though also in Europe and selected other counties"
This was recommended for me. However, as an American, I don't have a Lidl. So now I'm jealous and typing this out while saying it with your accent in my head. Cheers.
I've been very happy with my Lidl bulbs recently! It's true that the colours aren't that bright, but it does the job just fine as an ambiance light source. When you actually need to see something, the bright white mode is perfect. Pairing them to a DIY ZigBee gateway also allows you to program fade times, timers etc, and escape any hub's limitations.
I bought the gu10 bulbs from lidl. It is compatible with home assistant with conbee ii and they paired up instantly. The only problem is lidl does not have enough of them on the shelves and lidl don't restock them very often or regularly.
I bought a few of the white spectrum ones and whilst they are good for the price, I think in the future I’d stick with the hue ones. I don’t care enough to swap them out right now, but when they need replacing I will stick with hue. The white spectrum is nowhere near as good as hue bulbs and they do fade in when turning on, but don’t fade out. The light strip and plugs are brilliant value compared to hue but hue bulbs can be bought for cheap enough to just get those instead for a much better light
I saw some of these at my local Lidl the other day and I nearly purchased but for some reason decided against it. I'm tempted to buy some of their bulbs now - cool video!
Very similar thing with the Calex bulbs from Tesco. Great performance on the white light ranges but poor performance on the colour. The Calex bulbs work with Tuya Smart/Smart Life and I don't think they can be paired with Hue as they do not support ZigBee. Great for your budget smart home.
TP Link Kasa H100 go defective real quick; the primary defect with the TPlink plug is when you power them on using your assistant or the button on the front of them you hear the CLICK, you visually see the LED change colour, but nothing else happens. When you google the symptoms you will see its a common issue, likely caused by some subpar relay inside or some shit.
Lidl do put empty boxes on the shelf to limit theft. As with the DIY tools u take the box to the checkout and they fetch the item. Maybe this is what happened with the hubs???
I saw these and bought some 2m light strips, smart plugs and coloured light bulbs. The light strip is a straight bargain for a coloured strip. Was only £19 I think. I agree with you about the smart plugs. They work well and much smaller than the IKEA or other versions. I wouldn’t recommend the coloured bulbs though as they are a bit dull and accuracy isn’t so great. Good for fill lights, but not the main ones.
I've been to 10 different Lidls all over Western scotland, over the last few months since these came out , I have only been able to find 1 light strip the entire time. Some stores had piles of hubs and NO bulbs, and out of all of them I have only ever seen the plugs once.
In the Netherlands we have a lidl webshop. I have tested the same thing and my Hue app saying " not reachable " at all my lidl gu10's. Most of the time when i switch on the light they are going into pairing mode. All 14 of them. So i'm going back to hue. It's a lot of money but in the end less stress
I think if ur just starting out with smart home tech, then the lidl gear is a good place to dip ur toes in. On a side note, could u tell me, if u know it, what's the bag at 10 : 28 please Alex? Travel bag has finally come apart have years of use and looking for a good sturdy replacement.
The other thing they probably don't do as well is dimming. When you want to sit down at night with a film on and chill. I returned a load of IKEA bulbs for that reason.
you should ditch the hue hub and build a home assistant low power server. conbee2 zigbee gateway and voila, all native connected. create automations even with the lidl gu10's. :)
Great video! Just what I've been after. Your note about the scheduling - If they're compatible with Google Home, can't you schedule through there for your outside lights etc?
I was worried you’re going to run with the clickbaity “Hue bad” opinion and I appreciate that you properly tested them and covered all its strengths and weaknesses (which many people like Paul Hibbert don’t). They actually support the fade-on feature but it’s off by default and you can’t turn it on without Home Assistant, so it’s like it wasn’t there.
Ask him which hub he was using for the tests? It's a bulb at the end of the day, how it's controlled and by what is more important in testing. Hue hobble non-hue bulbs that are connected to make their kit appear better....
Well this stuff is all tuya based. So in the absence of a hue hub or an Alexa Hub with ZigBee get the hub Lidl is selling use the smart life app and you're go go for connecting to Alexa. All mines are connected to Alexa and I don't even have an echo device. And WiFi stuff is is usually cheaper than the ZigBee stuff (usually) them TP Link stuff is horrendously overpriced just like hue stuff. Too bad it's almost impossible to find these Lidl smart items anywhere though. They're treating it like a when it's gone it's gone sort of product. Wonder if they actually realise what they are selling 🤔
Zigbee through Tuya doesn't work on home assistant. Also Tuya is IoT based, so you're relying on a random server in china, which could stop working at any moment. Hue and zigbee works on the local network.
Not natively no - But I believe you could use the Aldi bulbs with say the IKEA gateway (if they run the same Zigbee network?) Would love someone to confirm this for me though
Don't know what you're talking about saying these are cheaper because they're zigbee and not WiFi?? Almost all Zigbee devices are more expensive. Look at any zigbee plug vs a WiFi plug. All more expensive except Lidl.
No. The Hue Bridge doesn't show Homekit any lights that aren't official Philips Hue certified Homekit lights. You can use Homebridge to expose them though.
@@stevekemp2056 Yeah, asking I might have to try that at some point, as I'm pretty sure that the hive hub does use zigbee so I don't see why not if they work with Phillips hue bridge
I have two WiFi plugs from different companies that only cost me around a tenner each and no hub needed works with my many....alexa hubs. TP link are way to expensive as are Philips. My WiFi bulb is multi coloured works with alexa and changes light when music is played. .....cost 13 quid. Bog off buying main brands
