Looking for Some Budget Garden Lighting for an HA Noob

brettule on 10/06/2025 - 18:58

I've been playing with Home Assistant for a couple of months, enough to get my heating working and a few lights sorted. Nothing too fancy. I want to set up 3 or 4 low voltage lights in my small garden to cast upwards through my fruit trees with a warm cosy light. My bike shed has mains power and I'm happy to run a wee trench to power them, but I'm a bit lost on what to buy. I want a kit, that it's easy enough to connect to HA but isn't super expensive, $100 or $200 I think. My HA is ZigBee capable but I don't have any devices using it yet, everything is just regular wifi. It would be nice to adjust the brightness of the lights, I don't really care about RGB colours but if it has that feature then so be it. Do you have any recommendations and links?

Cheers

Electrical & Electronics Garden Light Home Automation

Comments

  • Downvoter on 10/06/2025 - 19:08
    -4

    I’ve got this to light 5 x 3M high Heliconias against my fence line. Good old solar.

    https://www.bunnings.com.au/gardenglo-400lm-solar-powered-4-…

    • brettule on 11/06/2025 - 07:58

      Home Assistant compatible please.

  • Hybroid on 10/06/2025 - 20:03

    Wait for this to drop to $39 again, plug whatever lights you want into it, control via HomeKit.

    https://www.amazon.com.au/meross-Waterproof-Compatible-Assis…

    • toecutter69 on 10/06/2025 - 21:11
      -1

      https://github.com/krahabb/meross_lan/issues/526#issuecommen…

      I saw people having issues with his device. Anyone got it working on home assistant?

      • raun on 10/06/2025 - 21:43
        -2

        I have this connected to my HA setup and haven't had any problems with it

    • brettule on 11/06/2025 - 08:02
      -1

      Not quite what I want. I don't want to run 240v under the lawn to the LED lights, I'm looking for a low voltage 12v or 24v solution. Also, I don't just want to turn them on and off, I want to be able to control the brightness of the LED's. I'm thinking more of a kit that has a 240v transformer which is smart enough to connect to HA and adjust the brightness of the string of lights connected to it.

      • websterp on 11/06/2025 - 08:55

        Well if you want individual lighting control, low voltage and has to be relatively cheap then check out Tuya/Smartlife based garden lights from Aliexpress or Brilliant/Arlec/Mirabella/Kogan branded smart garden lights from Bunnings or online stores as they all have Tuya based controllers. Then use Tuya Integration to connect to HA or if you have the tools and skills you can always flash Tasmota or esphome and enable local control to eliminate the need of Tuya cloud.

        • brettule on 11/06/2025 - 09:01
          -1

          I don't require individual control, but I do want to control brightness of them all. I thought the Tuya controlled lights might be good, thanks. Can you recommend any particular product(s) that work well?

          • websterp on 11/06/2025 - 09:30

            @brettule: Check out the likes of Brilliant/Arlec/Mirabella at Bunnings. Price may be a bit higher than Aliexpress but you get a much better Warranty and no questions asked returns.

  • IMadeYouReadThis on 30/09/2025 - 13:26

    OP, did you buy anything? I am in the same boat and looking at Brilliant lighting at Bunnings controlled by a smart plug.

    • brettule on 30/09/2025 - 13:38

      Yeah, I bought the Brilliant Smart Fuchsia RGB 4 Pack for $150. It feels like its more for shrubs than trees because it doesn't cast light very far. Each light has a fixed cable run of 2m between each, which isn't really enough for trees. The RGB colour mix to create a warm light is a bit crap too, you can sort of see the bleeding of the colours to try and make a warm light, I need to stop buying RGB and just buy lights that are 2500k warm light only with dimming capability. It does however work with Home Assistant no probs.

      I rate it 6/10. Not enough to be super happy with it, but not so bad I need to return it. I'm going to leave it over summer and see if the vibe grows on me during the warm months when I can be in the yard.

      • IMadeYouReadThis on 30/09/2025 - 14:12

        cheers mate, thanks for your response. Yeah the one you linked is just 3w LED - I will try 5w/10w LEDs which is a little expensive but may fill the space better. Also, thanks for your feedback on RGB. I was so adamant that we need colors while wife argued that she wants warm lights only - with your experience, I may go with warm white :)

        • brettule on 30/09/2025 - 14:57
          +1

          All the RGB globes, lights strips and now garden lights that I've used are bollocks at creating warm light. The only globe worth its salt was the TP-Link KL60B, really nice warm glow in a traditional filament style bulb, they don't make them anymore though.

          • IMadeYouReadThis on 02/10/2025 - 09:51

            @brettule: I have bought some warm white landscape lights off AliExpress and they look great and truly warm. With RGB, its only worth if they are RGBW like Eufy Outdoor lights or Twinkly RGBW lights

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