![]() Hue’s lightstrips run at 24V, hence you need to ensure that any third party controller also runs at this.In theory, yes you can buy a third party Zigbee controller and use this with Philips Hue Lightstrip off-cuts. Can you use a third party controller with Hue’s Lightstrips? However as mentioned above, this requires a brand new base kit to be purchased – you can’t just buy a Hue controller and re-use an off-cut that way.Īs a result, if you’re unwilling to buy a new base-kit, you may want to explore using third party controllers. This allows you to take two Hue Lightstrips and join them together – meaning that you can re-use a Hue off-cut. The hippo connector style reuse block with the V4 Philips Hue extension kit The easiest way of doing this would be to go out and buy a Hue controller, and hook the lightstrip up to this – right? Why being able to buy just the Hue controller would be awesomeĪs I’ve touched on so far, if you have a bunch of Hue Lightstrip off-cuts, you’ll probably want to re-use them. The other difference you’ll notice is when changing between colors: the transitions are often a lot smoother with Hue’s own lightstrip and controller. You will notice a difference in the colors produced from both. A Hue Lightstrip attached to the official Hue controller.A Hue Lightstrip off-cut, attached to a third party Zigbee controller.The color matching is very high quality, meaning that if you had two lightstrips in a room: By this I mean – if you have an off-cut of Hue’s lightstrips (or another third party light strip), should you go out and try and get the official Hue controller to use with it?Īs it happens, the Philips Hue controller is pretty darn good. So clearly the controller in a smart LED lightstrip is really important, which brings me onto my next point: whether it’s worth caring about Philips Hue’s controller. The Hue controller is at the top, and the Hue lightstrip begins at the bottom. The controller is responsible for receiving commands over these protocols, understanding them, and then changing the color (or brightness) accordingly. Some smart lightstrips work over WiFi, whereas some (including Philips Hue’s lightstrips) work over Zigbee. Whereas the pin(s) responsible for the white LEDs will receive more power and come on brightly. If you chose a white color, the RGB (red, green, blue) pins may receive no power – and hence not come on. When you chose a light orange color, the pins responsible for red and white will receive more power than some of the other pins. Smart lightstrips are RGB, meaning they can be set to loads of different colors. Regulate how much power is sent to each ‘pin’ for color changes.When you dim your LED lightstrips, this will alter the amount of electricity consumed – and your controller is what drives this. Dial down the voltage further to support dimming (i.e.Hence an LED controller’s first – and arguably most important – function is often to act as a transformer, taking mains voltage and dialing it down to an acceptable voltage for the lightstrip.īut with smart lightstrips, the controller must do more than just be a transformer: However mains power is much higher than this: anything from 120-240V depending on where you live in the world. Many LED lightstrips are fairly low power: Philips Hue’s runs at 24V and 0.83A, for example, meaning they run at just under 20W. A Zigbee controller (not from Philips Hue)
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