I really hate Phillips Hue because it's always a hassle to integrate them without some weird bridge or workaround. So what's the solution? Kick Phillips hue out of your smart home. Easy! But then I got my hands on two free Being Ceiling Lights. So I wondered if there was a way to integrate them without capitulating to the Phillips ecosystem. There is a way with just a simple shelly rgbw2 controller. Here are the steps:

  1. You pop open the lamp and remove the circuit board present in the lamp

  2. You connect the shelly to power and ground

  3. You connect the wires labeled C, G, and F with the shelly

  4. You connect the VCC wire to the power supply

And there you have it. Lights with a nice shell controlled via MQTT or HTTP. I assume this works with similar Hue products but I haven't gotten my hands on them yet.

At the end just a quick explainer for the software: fresh out of the box the controller comes in RGBW mode but can be switched to 4xWhite mode. Just go into the setting labeled "Device Type"