What is home assistant

A Smart home hub that Observe, Control, and Automate your smart home devices. You could find many smart home devices are supported. If not, support it by yourself. Home assistant is written in python and fast developing.

What is C by GE lights

C by GE lights are smart lights with caveats.. Many amazon reviews on Amazon are poor:

  • 1/5 star: The lights work OK with their own App, but are unreliable with Echo Dot, (Alexa). Had it working for a while, then, out of the blue it disconnected from Alexa and I haven’t been able to get it back.

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars Stops Responding Intermittently Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2019 Cojjlor: Tunable WhiteSize: 2 Pack Verified Purchase These are the first ever smart bulbs I’ve bought and I’ve had these bulbs for 3 weeks and they intermittently stop responding completely. I’ve got them setup with my Google Home Mini and anywhere from a couple hours to a few days after setup, they stop responding. My Google Home Mini thinks for a few seconds and attempts to adjust them, does the jingle for success, yet the bulbs are unchanged. They won’t respond to the Google Home app, either. It doesn’t matter how much I change the settings in the Google Home app, the bulbs won’t respond and only manually turn on/off using the last setting and brightness they were on.

  • Factory resetting is a joke (especially when I have to do it so often) and the only way I can re-establish connection to my Google Home Mini. It’s a shame because these would be really great if they weren’t such a headache with trying to stay connected.

This is because these light only allow one device to connect. Either the C by GE App or Google Home. If the App or Google Homes drops the bluetooth connection, it will stop responding. A C by GE C-Reach Smart Bridge could solve the problem as it connects to the lights via bluetooth and everything else connects to the Bridge. However, it costs 30 to 50 dollars!!!

Each Bulb only costs less than $5 when on sale. Currently, a 4-Pack costs only $15.

Solution: A custom component of home assistant which serves as the smart bridge.

To save 30 to 50 dollars. I wrote a custom component in python that serve the same purpose as the C by GE Smart Bridge. Once you configure it correctly, it will expose your lights to Home Assistant. Then you could connect your Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant to Home Assistant and control the C by GE lights at the same time. Brightness and color temperature are supported. RGB color has not been tested. Adaptive lighting touted by Apple in iOS 14 has already been implemented via Circardian Lighting.

Please see detailed instructions on my github.