Proposed Echo setup questions?

[Puck]

Hello all,

Looking to get into adding Smart Home gadgets and my initial plan is to start with an Echo, some Hue lights, and a smart thermostat just to begin with. Just a simple basic setup to wet my feet so to speak.

My question(s) are about setup options with the new Echo Plus. I like that it can connect and control things like to Hue lights without the additional Hub, but does that mean ANY Echo device on my network will be able to control ALL the lights in the home or ONLY the ones in range of the Echo Plus?

My Proposed setup was an Echo Plus centrally located in my living room to connect to the majority of the Hue lights and Tstat, then having a Dot in other rooms of the house to extend my voice control away from the Echo Plus. This saves me on having to even purchase a Hue Hub at all, and satisfies my goal of "Whole House" range.

Alternately, could I go with a standard Echo Gen2 in the living room(since if the Plus can't be used through a Dot I might as well save the $50), along with a Smart Things or Wink2 Hub, and then place the Dot's in the other rooms to control all lighting groups throughout the house? I really hope every dot won't need its own Hue Hub to control lights, since that would be an additional $150!

I know the Plus isn't out yet, but hopefully someone knows if its device networking abilities can transfer to Dot's on the same network? Any better ideas for whole home voice control then Echo Plus or Echo w/third party hub? I do not care about colors/ambient settings/etc - just want on, off, and dim capabilities of the standard A19 bulbs.

[renegade600]

if you plan to turn on/off your lights remotely you may need a separate hub.  If this is the case, you may not want the plus.  amazon really had not said yet. 

you may also want to go with wall switches instead of lights bulbs.  when you have guest or family over, they may use the light switch which disables light bulbs.  the switch must stay on when you use bulbs and they may turn them off on you. 

not sure what you mean by transferring network capabilities but as long as they are on the same network, there should be no problems.  everything will work together, a hue bulb setup on the alexa hub will work using the dot.

any hub you get whether it be alexa plus, wink, hue or whatever, does not have to be centrally located.  it all works over wifi.  as long as your router is centrally located then no problems. 

[Puck]

if you plan to turn on/off your lights remotely you may need a separate hub.  If this is the case, you may not want the plus.  amazon really had not said yet. 

you may also want to go with wall switches instead of lights bulbs.  when you have guest or family over, they may use the light switch which disables light bulbs.  the switch must stay on when you use bulbs and they may turn them off on you. 

not sure what you mean by transferring network capabilities but as long as they are on the same network, there should be no problems.  everything will work together, a hue bulb setup on the alexa hub will work using the dot.

any hub you get whether it be alexa plus, wink, hue or whatever, does not have to be centrally located.  it all works over wifi.  as long as your router is centrally located then no problems.

Awesome, thanks. I think I will just get the one Dot w/Hue Hub for now, and once the Plus is out I will decide between the Plus by itself, or Standard Echo+additional hub.

[scottrods]

Amazon is advertising the Echo Plus with a Hue light bulb to prove it works with Hue... So you will only need the Echo plus to control the bulbs with the Echo plus... If you add other Dots, they will work also, as the single hub is all that is needed until you reach some ungodly number of bulbs (Supposedly 50 bulb max, but some have run even more simple bulbs) Along with those Bulbs, you can also run several other "Accessories" such as motion sensors and Tap Switches and Dimmer switches. I think up to 12 or 13 of those, depending on the amount of recipes you involve in their set up. Motion sensors are cool so you can walk hands free into a room and say nothing and the light comes on... I have one in my closet and LOVE IT. Open the door, Light comes on (Dim at night, and bright during the day)

I currently have a Hue bridge, so I won't be buying an Echo Plus, but if I knew all this and knew the single device would do what i want, I'd just buy the Echo Plus and a few bulbs to start. The only thing we don't know about the Plus, is what kind of functionality it's internal bridge will offer to other branded bulbs (HUE) and such. I don't think (but I could be wrong) the new plus will do TV controls without a Harmony hub or similar... but who knows, they aren't showing off much of it's skill yet. It Still may... Who knows. If you haven't bought... wait a few weeks and see what people are saying about the Echo Plus... I bet it will have some impact on your purchases.

[jwlv]

One big plus to having a built-in hub is that as long as the Echo Plus exists, you can be assured that support for your compatible smart devices will remain. There have been numerous other devices that are no longer supported due to a variety of reasons (E.g. company went out of business, company sold to other company, obsolete/discontinued product line).

The fact is that most smart devices need to "phone home" or rely on the back-end server of the manufacturer to work. This renders the smart devices useless when they pull the plug on the server.

At least you'll know with high confidence that the hub inside the Echo Plus will be supported for a good long time. 

[Puck]

Amazon is advertising the Echo Plus with a Hue light bulb to prove it works with Hue... So you will only need the Echo plus to control the bulbs with the Echo plus... If you add other Dots, they will work also, as the single hub is all that is needed until you reach some ungodly number of bulbs (Supposedly 50 bulb max, but some have run even more simple bulbs) Along with those Bulbs, you can also run several other "Accessories" such as motion sensors and Tap Switches and Dimmer switches. I think up to 12 or 13 of those, depending on the amount of recipes you involve in their set up. Motion sensors are cool so you can walk hands free into a room and say nothing and the light comes on... I have one in my closet and LOVE IT. Open the door, Light comes on (Dim at night, and bright during the day)

I currently have a Hue bridge, so I won't be buying an Echo Plus, but if I knew all this and knew the single device would do what i want, I'd just buy the Echo Plus and a few bulbs to start. The only thing we don't know about the Plus, is what kind of functionality it's internal bridge will offer to other branded bulbs (HUE) and such. I don't think (but I could be wrong) the new plus will do TV controls without a Harmony hub or similar... but who knows, they aren't showing off much of it's skill yet. It Still may... Who knows. If you haven't bought... wait a few weeks and see what people are saying about the Echo Plus... I bet it will have some impact on your purchases.

Awesome, thanks a ton!

I agree waiting a few days is the smart choice to see what the Plus can really do...but for $50 more and with a Hue bulb it sounds like the way to go for now. I really just needed verification that the Dots will control the lights with the Plus - was hoping that was the case, since being hit for another hub on top of that for each room Dot would be a big turn off for most.