First of all I want to thank for the great products you are releasing.
I recently acquired a Yeelight E27 smart bulb which is controlled by the app Yeelight. Problem is that, the place I want to insert this bulb does not exist internet. I do have a router just giving wireless network but no internet access. From what I understand, the application connects to your server which then sends the controls to the bulb.
Problem as I specified is that I do not have internet where I want to place the bulb. I do know that I can enable developer mode on the bulb, and use and api or create one to send json commands directly to the bulb. Obviously this is already good to have, but my main question is:
Is there any app that controls the bulb directly without the need to connect to the server?
If not, is this a feature o be included in next releases?
First of all, thanks for choosing Yeelight! Regarding your question:Is it possible to control the Yeelight bulb using official Application without internet access? The answer is: no, currently we don’t support it.
Current applications uses internet a lot besides control, for example, the favorite, the alarm, the scheduler, it all relies on cloud server. If user just wants to control the bulb, then it can be done by using developer mode, we will consider add this support in Yeelight app.
I recently started reading about home automation … Yeelight and Mi products seems really one of the best in the market.
Concerning this question I want to know if we there’s any update (since it was asked 1 year ago). It’s important to understand how dependent the products are on the internet before I purchase them, because we have lots of internet latency/problem (disconnection sometimes) in my area and Im afraid that this will affect the performance and reliability of your products.
I want to check if can we connect the yeelights in a LAN independtly of the internet, or is there any plan to have a hub that makes yeelight works without network congestions (maybe with Zigbee or even wifi but without being dependent on the internet ).
Regarding using Yeelight products in a LAN without internet access, the answer is Yes and No.
If you want all the features, including timer, alarm, scenes, firmware update, voice control and etc, you need an internet access. However, you can use developer mode without having internet access. Under this situation, you can’t use Yeelight app but you can use other home automation tools like homeassistant, domatics and other third party app like Yeti.
One thing you need to pay attention to is: developer mode can only be enabled through Yeelight app when internet access is available (it’s default to be disabled due to security consideration and will be disabled once you do a factory reset). SO you need at least one time internet access before you can enjoy LAN control.