How hard would it be for an IT Professional to make bulbs smart?

[PrabhakaranKaruppaih]

If not from scratch atleast how to convert a normal to smart one... I know it's a very very big topic but sometimes things are easy if come from Top to Bottom. Like you are buying a car and slowly learn about it.

 

[kanewolf]

If not from scratch atleast how to convert a normal to smart one... I know it's a very very big topic but sometimes things are easy if come from Top to Bottom. Like you are buying a car and slowly learn about it.

What do you define as "smart"? Color changing? Or just On/Off?
Lets stay simple and talk "on/off". You would need a radio receiver of some kind, it could be WIFI, Z-Wave, or Zigbee (3 most common). You would then have to have a relay that can handle mains voltage. You would need a power supply from the mains voltage to power your radio and you would program it to operate the relay. ALL of these things are already being done by many companies commercially.

 

[PrabhakaranKaruppaih]

I have an Amazon echo plus

 

[USAFRet]

I have an Amazon echo plus

Options:

1. Buy a smart bulb

2. Screw your existing dumb bulb into a smart socket

Taking a regular dumb bulb and making it a self contained 'smart bulb' is far beyond a home DIY thing.

 

[PrabhakaranKaruppaih]

I thought it is as simple as soldering a chip... Not like that aa?

 

[kanewolf]

I have an Amazon echo plus

You need either a smart bulb or a smart outlet.
A smart outlet -- https://www.amazon.com/smart-outlets-Echo/s?k=smart+outlets+for+Echo is the simple way for on/off.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I thought it is as simple as soldering a chip... Not like that aa?

No, because chips don't come with the software to know how to interact with Alexa or anything. And no, you can't download a software package to make it work, because I'm pretty sure Amazon charges a license to have Alexa support.

As mentioned, get a smart light socket or a smart power strip if you want a "dumb" bulb be "smart".

 

[kanewolf]

I thought it is as simple as soldering a chip... Not like that aa?

Look at some of the smart bulb "teardown" pages -- https://www.edn.com/teardown-cutting-into-a-multicolor-led-light-bulb/

 

[PrabhakaranKaruppaih]

https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/devices/lighting-switches-plugs

 

[hotaru.hino]

Honestly if you're coming to a forum like this and asking the questions that you are, a project like making a regular light bulb into a smart one from more or less scratch is way over your head. I'm not even sure from your posts if you have any embedded systems experience that would be a requirement for this kind of project.

 

[Eximo]

If you are interested in that kind of stuff it isn't a huge hurdle to get into these days.

https://www.seeedstudio.com/Seeed-X...MI-rL15ITKhQMViUpHAR3UUQiaEAQYASABEgIvJvD_BwE

Standalone you can build this using simple single LEDs so you can test out your code and functionality.

Moving over to a light bulb would mean some sort of mains power relay or an off the shelf solid state dimmer circuit. Certainly more educational then just buying the working products and setting them up.

Zigbee is another good rabbit hole as mentioned earlier. Quite a few older and even more recent smart home setups that use that standard.