This weekend I installed one of the Zipato RGBW color Z-Wave bulbs. I wanted to provide some feedback to share with Alarm.com. The color bulb integration is promising but some limitations make it less useful in its current state.
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One of their example functions is “make the lights green when dad gets home”. This works in the literal sense, but is annoying because you either have to leave the light green indefinitely or have it turn the light off after a time period. So after I get home, someone needs to take an extra step to change the light back to “white” and/or turn the light back on. The current rule reads “Set color of selected devices for (1 minute) before turning OFF”. FEATURE REQUEST: Add options following the time period besides “OFF”, particularly, “return to original state” or even just changing to another color (white).
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Another example feature is that the bulbs can change color temperature throughout the day to maximize comfort, for example cool daylight color temp during the day and warm color temp in the evening. Again this technically works, I setup a rule for sunrise and sunset to change the color temperature. But, I don’t want it to also turn on the lamp at these times if it is off - I just want the color temp to change when the lamp is used normally. I was envisioning a function more like the new “night shift” in iOS, where the color temperature is adjusted automatically based on the time of day. FEATURE REQUEST: Night shift mode.
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One of the things I like to do with my Hue is have them go to night light mode (orange light, very dim) when I arm the alarm stay at night. With the ADC implementation, in a rule I can either dim OR change the color. Currently I have two rules (one to dim to 10%, one to change to orange) but I’m not sure if this will work as intended - will report back. FEATURE REQUEST: Allow changing brightness and color in a single rule.
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The color picker in the app does not show you a “swatch” of the color you are picking which makes it difficult to choose custom colors. FEATURE REQUEST: Color picker swatch.
Other thoughts: pairing with a 2GIG panel worked flawlessly, though “tapping the bulb” to pair it was weird. The bulb is not as bright as the Hue bulbs. When the bulb changes to different colors it pops directly to the next color, as opposed to the Hue which “fades” in between colors - seems like a small thing but makes the Hue seem more refined.
