Lidl Zigbee Smart Home Devices: Unboxing & First Impressions
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Lidl, yes that Lidl have their own range of smart home products. Released in Ireland last Thursday just following the UK these Zigbee plugs, bulbs and all the rest are a cheap and interesting addition to the market. while not bringing anything new they are positioned to the masses with their price point and availability in the high street.
I take a look at the hub they offer as well as some if the smart plugs and power strips and how their app bares a strong resemblence to the Tuya Smart Life app.
Music: www.bensound.com
#lidlhome #zigbee #smartlife #smarthome
Thanks very much for this detailed info 👍Great video. I can confirm that the lidl bulbs do indeed work well with the Philip Hue hub, just a note that I have been able also to directly control the bulbs via the Echo plus built in zigbee however the Alexa App reports the RGB bulbs as just white so currently I can not find a way to set colour changing via Alexa, if anyone manages this please let me know 👍😁
Thanks for the update! I'll let you if anyone reports working with colour through Alexa :)
Hi Andy! I bought some Livarno Lux smart lights at Lidl which I installed easily on Echo 4th generation. I can switch on-off, control temperature, but I can't control the colours. Do you have any tips? Nice video mate 😀
Seems like the devices aren't reporting properly to the echo hub. The same seems to happen with the power strips where you can only control 1 socket instead of all 3. Not sure yet if this is an issue with the firmware on the devices themselves or the software with the Alexa devices. Will keep digging and let you know, but it looks like you're not the only one with that issue.
Did they ever resolve the issue of Echo only controlling one of the sockets?
I had a bad time trying to set these things up with an IKEA gateway.
The plugs were the easiest to set up, plugged them in near the gateway, they start pairing and connect by themselves in about 10 seconds.
The bulb was a different story. It's brighter than the IKEA tradfri bulbs and cheaper too, but so much more of a hassle. Controlling the bulb with google assistant kneecaps the max brightness to s shocking extent, pairing them to the gateway is more complex too, needing a lidl remote that 80% of the time won't pair with them.
The extension lead was the most disappointing though. All the lidl plugs show as a question mark in the IKEA app and as a single plug in Hue Essentials, but they all work more or less. The extension lead only works on a single socket, no way I could find to get all 3 in as individual sockets. Looking like I need to buy the lidl bridge as well, meaning it will have cost 50 for a single extension lead
Wow the IKEA hub is really not having a good time lately. Really disappointing to hear that its that bad though with these devices :( You're not the first person to let me know about issues with the IKEA stuff recently so I may have to buy one of their hubs just to see how bad it is.
I wonder if you can reset the IKEA gateway and try pick it up in the SmartLife app and see if this makes any difference?
Not sure it'll work but might be worth a shot.
@@AndysTechLife Hue Essentials seems to be a good stopgap for now, can properly control everything except the extension lead's multiple sockets. I'll give SmartLife a go but I'll probably resort to setting up Home Assistant.
Perfect quality low cost hood LIDL ✅
Lidl belongs to the streetzzzz with this price
Beb I definitely do not recommend why! Because you can only connect 1 phone, we live with 2 people, why can't we connect two phones to this device. Why!?
This is common with a lot of zigbee hubs. What you can do though is sign in on 2 different devices with the same username and password. The phone is actually connecting to the cloud service once everything is setup.
Here in the UK at then end of last week (Feb 2021) Lidl had their smart sockets for £7.99. They also had a four way smart mains extender with four built-in USB sockets built in for £19.99. They also had some nice caramel peanut brittle! Bought some of all ietms!
Most important is the caramel peanut brittle! Good to see they're back in stores again. I've seen them in my local one again in the last week so it looks like they're around for a while. :)
Hello Hello Andy, I started on the Google home system speakers and wifi switches Sonoff etc. I changed internet providers and all my items needed to be repaired to the new WiFi. My new router is a dual router 2.4 and 5G. As you know all these products I have can only be paired by 2.4. My question is can I use this ZigBee device with my system and run everything rather through ZigBee or not? Thanks Leon
The zigbee box itself from lidl as far as I remember I had it wired via lan cable to my ISPs modem, but unfortunately unless the devices are explicitly zigbee compatible they won't connect to the bridge so will still need to connect to the 2.4ghz output of your router. I've also found that even though zigbee is supposed to be an open standard, I've come across some that seem to only play nice with their own products :( TBH I've moved most of my devices away from Zigbee in favour of a second WiFi router dedicated to smart home devices which is then connected to my ISPs. I'm not sure about the long term future of zigbee as many of the devices I have now still need their own bridge and use either Bluetooth LE or similar.
@@AndysTechLife Thanks Andy so I will stay away from ZigBee for now and try to disable my 5G on my router and connect my devices and re-enable the 5G again
Very good explanation. Tnx
Hi. I really enjoy your content.
after seen this i went and bough some plugs and it connected with my Alexa beautifully.
after that, i went back and bought some light stripes... the problem is that it didn't change colours, so i went back and bought the gateway, but it can't find the light strips... Any advice?
Hey there, if you've already connected the lightstrip to your Alexa you'll need to reset it before the hub will find it. Some of the lights this is done by powering off and on 3 times quickly, but double check the manual and it should say how to reset it which puts it back in pairing mode. With the hub just be careful that when you setup the app you choose the correct region as this has caused some people issues. Hope this helps.
@@AndysTechLife I finally figured out, it was a bit far. =P
other question would be, how do I link the gateway with the Alexa?
Thanks a Million
If you're using the lidl app, there's a skill that you can add in the Alexa app which will pick the devices connected to the gateway. Just be careful with region selection as if it doesn't match what you chose in the Lidl app Alexa won't pick up your devices.
Brilliant thanks Andy
Yes it smart life app, mainly because these Lidl items are Tuya products.
Yup, like a lot of the stuff on the market at the moment, they're all using the same underlying hardware and chipsets.
@@AndysTechLife is this gateway works without internet? Ty!
Hey I'm trying to connect to my Amazon Alexa echo 3rd gen to my Lidl silvercrest Zigbee hub where my smart light bulb is already connected but I'm having trouble with this. I can control the light bulb through the Lidl Home app perfectly however i want to connect the Alexa to the hub so I can enable voice control. Can you please help?
So for this you need to add the skill for Lidl in the Alexa app and sign in, once you've done this the Alexa should pick up the devices. You can't add the Alexa to the silvercrest hub as it is already a hub itself. A few people have reported that when adding the Lidl skill in the Alexa app, if you don't match the location settings when signing in it won't work. In other words check in the Lidl app the location of the server its connected to in the settings and make sure you connect to the same one when activating the Alexa skill. Hope this helps
I think it's worth pointing out that the hub is not compatible with Amazon Alexa. Even if you use the Tuya smartlife app.
I know this is disappointing 😕 at one point I thought I had it working but it turned out I had the power strip in pairing mode and my echo plus picked it up. In the plus column of you have a new echo or echo plus you can use the devices directly with them and bipass the hub altogether. Controls are limited but it works :)
They work very nicely - and natively - with Home Assistant too, as mentioned they are generic zigbee 3.0 devices so no surprises really.
Haven't had a chance to try them with home assistant yet, but high on my list. Not gonna lie, kinda impressed with the product range. Less impressed with the availability though. Still great though that high street stores are branching into smart home tech 👌
I need the app please
Here's the link for Google Play store directly to the Lidl app: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lidlhome.smart
Do you have any experience with the remote control that comes with the lighting starter kit? I bought a starter kit but can't get the remote to work (even after removing the battery dissconnection plastic!)
Didn't get the lighting starter kit myself, but ive seen similar issues with the IKEA kits where people couldn't connect the remotes. They're very similar so I think the solution was to reset and start from scratch, pair 1 bulb, then the remote and then the rest of the bulbs. I don't remember the details so sorry I can't help more here.
Whta do you think to the TP Link Tapo P100, I have 13 now as there on offer at £8.99 and usually 12:99?
Will give them a look. I have used some of the TP link plugs before and they've been good!
you can use the smart-life app,yes..but there are some options, that you can only use in lidl home app ..but on the other side, you can not add any tuya zigbee device in the lidl home app.. so, absolutely fail from lidl ...and the zigbee gateway ist not alexa compatible..
When I use the SmartLife app the Alexa app picks everything up okay and seems to work fine. I haven't had time to mess around with it all too much but I agree there's going to be some limitations, but I'll stick with the SmartLife app for now to consolodate my devices. Must spend a bit of time playing with their app as its strange if you can't pick up other devices since its just a skinned version of SmartLife
Does the smart plug have a power monitoring option?
I found the Blitzwolf® smart plugs on Banggood and those cost about half and do have power monitoring built-in, also the smart lights from Blitzwolf® are much cheaper than the Lidl ones, the main difference between the two is that Blitzwolf® is using wifi instead of ZigBee, it has its pros and cons of course but I don't want to install any app or have to use and buy the extra hub to control everything because I already have Google Assistant and just don't want to add anything smart that doesn't work straight away with the Google Assistant.
I know that Google Assistant does work with ZigBee but I don't know if that is through the ZigBee hub or directly communicating with ZigBee devices, do you know anything about that?
So I'm not familiar with the Blitzwolf devices, but I found an EU plug that says it does power monitoring so I'll check it out, whats interesting though is the description says it needs a lithium battery which I haven't seen before I a smart plug.
In terms of zigbee with Google nest / home devices, most of the Google products don't have zigbee built in, so if depends on the device you have. If it does there's a couple of options: you can skip an additional bridge or app and control the zigbee device directly, but there are limitations to this and often I've found, for example when I do this with my Alexa devices I don't have the full range of controls for the zigbee device, ie timers, routines etc.
If you have a zigbee bridge and the app that it uses is Google compatible, you can set up everything in that app, then control from the Google app / device. Example being the Tuya Smart Life app, which can control and setup WiFi and zigbee devices but then let's Google and Alexa control everything.
Without knowing too much about the Blitzwolf though I couldn't say for certain. If they are using the Tuya app as their control app you're probably okay, but if they use their own app you'd probably need their bridge too.
Lot of info above so hope it all makes sense.
First thing though is to check if your Google device has a built in zigbee hub. If not you're going to have to buy the bridge etc regardless.
@@AndysTechLife thanks for the very detailed information about the ZigBee devices.
BlitzWolf by the way have their own software or app also called BlitzWolf, but from what I have seen so far it is really good and works great, I haven't seen that part of the battery though, I can't imagine where the battery would fit into the small smart plug housing, there's no room for any battery
@@AndysTechLife None of the Google Assistant devices support ZigBee directly, I looked it up. That's why I want to go for BlitzWolf, that's controlled via wifi
I understand that the 4th gen Echo Dots have a zigbee hub in them, will the plugs work with that?
The 4th Gen echos do, I don't think the dots have the built in hub. Think its just the larger echo devices, not the smaller ones. But yes once you have an echo with a zigbee hub built in you can control them without needing to but the separate hub. The only catch is you don't have as much control of timers etc as it bypasses the Lidl app and they only show in the Alexa app. But definitely an option.
@@AndysTechLife I may have to acquire an Echo, that means the Echo Dot can go to my daughter upstairs. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I can't seem to connect the smart sensor with our Philips Hue, can't be done I read via Google. Bummer
Didn't even see that Lidl were doing a smart sensor. There might be a work around though. You could replace the Lidl app with the Tuya SmartLife app and connect Hue and the devices via IFTTT. A bit messy but night work.
I have the lidl sensors working perfectly with the lidl gateway, but now the lidl gateway won't connect any new devices, reset did not work, need to find a real factory reset...
Seems like the firmware on the lidl devices is a bit buggy and their app is definitely not the best. I've managed to reset everything and moved all my lidl devices to the smartlife app. Took a few attempts but not I have everything in one app.
Andy, do you know of any other bulbs that compatible with the lidl gateway?
Most zigbee bulbs should be, but I've had issues with the app they use so I've started using the Tuya Smart Life app instead of the LIDL own brand app as its much better, plus you can mix and match zigbee and WiFi products in this app. Its much more versatileand works with the Lidl gateway and products. I'd look at zemismart or Benexmart bulbs as a good option.
@@AndysTechLife thank you so much.
How many devices can you connect to each bridge and what kind of coverage does it give? Would you need one upstairs and one downstairs?
You should only need 1 hub even with upstairs and downstairs as it should reach. Each hub can *theoretically * support thousands of devices so you shouldn't need to worry about needing more than 1
Thanks @@AndysTechLife,
This is good to know, now I just need to get to store that carries them. Do you think this will be a regular line of products for Lidl or is it just a seasonal set of stocking stuffers?
Will these work on philips hue?
Hopefully so, going to try today. I suspect they will, but the shop only had screw cap bulbs and I need bayonet so I didn't get them, but its my plan to buy some to test today. Will keep you posted.
@@AndysTechLife i might pop up and try some myself. Thanks.
Check out Paul Hibberts video just out m.ua-cam.com/video/cVtGpdykGUM/v-deo.html
The bulbs and smart plugs work great with Philips Hue, which of course then allows them to be controlled via Alexa voice. The Smart Extension Socket with USB however is not seen by the Hue app at all.
Yeah these worked seamlessly. Strip lights,bulbs and smart plugs. No issues connecting them.
I pick up some but someone stole the zigbee out of the box
Like stole the hub? Thats awful, hopefully Lidl can refund you
@@AndysTechLife nope, stole the zigbee controllers from the box.
Managed to reassemble 1 complete box kit from 2 open box's.
These are only available for a week unfortunately
Thats a pity. Hopefully the popularity will bring them back, but it seems to be the way Lidl do all their home / garden/ etc stuff :(
Can you connect the lidl devices through a Sengled home hub or do you have to have the lidl hub too?
Haven't tried this myself but according to their website its not possible at the moment: 'No. Currently the Sengled Smart Hub only supports Sengled Smart LED bulbs and Accessories.' - From their FAQ section.
@@AndysTechLifecheers, I came across that information after I had posted, I'm new to this so don't know very much about the brands, is there no hub that will do all brands?
Not really. Zigbee hubs will do most zigbee devices, but some like philips hue bridge and others use their own settings and software that, while using Zigbee as a protocol wont play nice with everything. Its a bit of a mine field. A good option is to look at Tuya/SmartLife, or even wifi only devices that don't need hubs.
@@AndysTechLife cheers.
Thanks as always for your updates, I was in LIDL the other day, was not sure about buying them, so I decided to wair and see,
They're not bad. A good start but there are some hiccups as you can see from some of the other comments. Gonna spend more time this week going in depth if I can. :)
@@AndysTechLife Good luck
Ikea TRÅDFRI have dropped there prices at the moment but as cheap as
Lidi ,I brought 4 plugs and 2 bulbs connected to Phillips Hue Hub ok .
Thanks for the heads up, might try and pick some up!
I have bought a smart double outdoor socket. But didn't realise that I needed a gateway.
I have a IKEA bridge. Will it connect with the Lidl socket?
@@muchomalo100 Yes that will connect to that hub, I think you just add a socket in the app.