Cannot find devices (Zigbee, Zwave etc...)

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Hello, I just received a new hubitat (this is the 4th return) and tried to pair zigbee and zwave devices.

I have a C7 and I am trying to pair the following devices:

Sylvania A19 Smart
Aqara door sensor

The aqara door sensor gets paired and discovered fine when I start zigbee pairing, the sylvania bulbs are not even found.

  1. Yes I have followed both manufacturer and hubitat instructions
  2. Yes these are compatible devices

(FYI, I have also tried ZWAVE because the manufacturer says that the bulb are ZWAVE not zigbee, yes I have followed instructions to start the exclusion)

I can add the sylvania lights perfectly fine through my phone. I have bought and returned several ones.

I have also tried pairing Element Plus Bulb Sengled, that is not discovered either.

I have returned 4 different hubs thinking they are faulty, no luck, is this just a waste of money at this point?

I wanted to give the forums a try before I go bunkers.

Thank you

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Welcome to the Hubitat forums.

There is almost no way you got 4 bad hubs in a row. I have heard of an occasional failure, but not four bad ones. At this point I would think it is your devices, or some other thing and NOT the hub.

That is a huge red flag. Zigbee and phone are not two things that are ever in the same sentence. You must have some type of Wifi or Bluetooth light? You paired it through the phone initially, right? Those likely are not compatible.

Far as I am aware, these are not on the compatibility list. Your results may vary with this one. Having particular repeaters and a certain mix of devices will be key to keeping these working.

Those should be Zigbee, at least they are in the USA. Were they ever paired with another hub? If so, they must be reset before pairing with Hubitat. Also, did you try pairing these close to the hub?

It might help if you tell us what region or country you are from to get some more specific advice. Some of these devices differ from region to region.

Also, what version is your hub on? (Settings tab, Hub Details)

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Hub version is: 2.2.8.156

If you go in the compatibility list on hubitat it says that sylvania A19 is compatible. Unfortunately it does not let me post a link here although if you google hubitat compatibility list it's a link from hubitat and if you search Sylvania you can trace it back to the actual product number (yes I have checked the product number it matches, I have the exact bulbs that hubitat shows in the compatibility list). I have 8 bulbs all 8 are not detected.

The door sensor pairs fine even though you say it's not compatible.

FYI, I am doing this to write and vlog a hubitat review, that's why I wanted to make sure the hubitat was not faulty and send it back 4 times. I also sent back the bulbs multiple times.

No the Sengled is not using a hub, they are out of the box, and yes I have followed instructions to pair nothing is working.

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I am wondering if I am missing something, do I just receive the hub go in the web interface > register > find zigbee and z wave? or do I have to do other settings beside from that?

What's the range of the hub? I have tried to put the bulbs 10 cm from the hub still nothing works.

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Those Sylvania bulbs are wifi ones, it says. Unless they make another one the same. So they won't pair with zwave or zigbee. Can you post images? I'd like to see their packaging

As far as the Sengled is concerned, find out if it needs some sort of rigmarole to put it into pairing mode, like being turned on and off rapidly 8 times or something.

I had aqara devices and I didn't find they worked well with hubitat - kept disconnecting

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Sylvania makes several different A19 bulbs. Some are Bluetooth. Some are WiFI. Some are Zigbee. I have not been able to find any Z-wave bulbs.

Hubitat is compatible with the Sylvania Zigbee bulbs, but it does not have Bluetooth or WiFI radios to work with the other bulbs.

In contrast, your cell phone has Bluetooth and WiFI radios, but does not have a Zigbee radio. Thus, if you can pair the devices with your cell phone, I suspect they are either BT or WiFI.

Some specific Amazon Alexa devices come with Zigbee radios. However, I recommend connecting Zigbee devices directly to Hubitat rather than through Alexa.

Although Phillips Hue bulbs can pair directly with Hubitat, they seem to work better through the Hue bridge as firmware updates are automatic when connected to the bridge, but not directly to Hubitat.

Please state the specific model number of the bulbs you are using so we can tell whether it is compatible with Hubitat, My suspicion is that you do not have Zigbee bulbs.

Aqara devices are non-standard Zigbee. Thus, they are not officially supported by Hubitat. However, there are device drivers developed by members of the community that MAY allow the Aqara device to work. The reason I state it that way is that Aqara devices tend to be very finicky about what other devices are in the Zigbee network. I have a couple of Aqara devices, but I could never could get them to work until I replaced all the Zigbee smart plugs in my house with compatible smart plugs. By the time I did that, I spent a lot more than I expected. Also, the compatible smart plugs do not have power reporting capability, which I had with my older Smartthings and Centralite smart plugs. I had to get Z-wave smart plugs with power reporting capability for a couple of applications. Thus, in order to get the inexpensive Aqara devices to work, I spent many times more than I expected. If I had to do it over again, I would never have purchased the Aqara devices in the first place.

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This.

A19 is not a model number. It describes the shape and size of the bulb.

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Welcome to the Hubitat Community!

Please explain exactly what you mean by the above statement? What App on your phone are you using to "add the sylvania lights perfectly fine"? If you're using a Sylvania App on your phone, then my guess is that those bulbs are either WiFi or Bluetooth, and not Zigbee.

If they are Zigbee bulbs, are you connecting them to the Sylvania Hub? If so, they will need to be removed from the Sylvania hub, and then factory reset before they can be paired via Zigbee to the Hubitat hub.

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I thought the Osram/Sylvania Lightify hub no longer worked as of 8/31/2021. So I concur with your conclusion that these are WiFi or BT bulbs, which also are in the Sylvania Smart+ line up.

@mafiatoad22 - can you post the specific model numbers of the Sylvania and Sengled bulbs you have attempted to pair to Hubitat?

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???

Osram/Sylvania have never sold zwave light bulbs.

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They released updates to both the hub and app so that the hub works 100% local. No cloud involved. Everything from the system still works but, to control your lights remotely (unless your using something like the HE community integration), will require a VPN or similar.

They did it right by the users when they shut off the cloud service.

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Alright seems that the conversation has strayed away from the original topic and divulged into a polish campaign.

@HAL9000 Obviously if I stated the A19 in the compatibility list that is of Sylvania brand it can be only the only one there
Look at compatibility list please Smart+ A19 RGBW Bulb Zigbee Generic Zigbee RGBW Light

@ogiewon Obviously the Sylvania app

@ogiewon Ah ok, well it would have been good to highlight that on the compatibility page

At this point I am going to try again with Sengled, and pick another compatible zigbee device that has a component serial in the official compatibility list.

I see lots of passionate people here want to make sure I don't completely bash the thing before giving a last final try.

I cannot find this, but is hubitat open source?

I am going to check a few things, if I can figure out what the problem is I ll post it here.

My big recommendation, I know this forum is probably for amateur programmers or the light tech, although keep documentation open, keep updating the devices compatible, having multiple people saying multiple thing is not a good thing in a open community, have a central repo for this kind of stuff

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No.

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With which hub? Sylvania has never made one in the Smart+ product line.

And what zwave bulb were you referring to?

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Not sure I agree with the above statement. You have received numerous, quick, accurate responses to the issues you posted about. It speaks volumes about this amazing community of volunteers that are willing to share their experiences and knowledge that they have accumulated over the years.

Home Automation is an ever changing field of technology, and it does take a little while to come up to speed on the differences between the various communications protocols, and the various manufacturers' device product lines.

While it is obvious to you, to the rest of us, we need additional information to assist in troubleshooting. The Sylvania app implies that the bulbs you chose are not Zigbee bulbs, but probably Bluetooth or possibly WiFi. In the Hubitat Device Compatibility list, it is clearly stated that Zigbee is the required communications protocol required to use Sylvania Smart+ A19 RGBW bulbs.

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I agree it would be nice if Hubitat listed all of the specific model numbers from Sylvania that meet this specification. However, Sylvania/Osram has been creating these bulbs for many years now, with product lines changing ownership and model numbers changing multiple times. It is not really realistic to believe that the relatively small Hubitat team has access to every product from every vendor that they have ever made. Thus, it is very challenging/impractical to keep the documentation accurate to that level of detail.

Please be aware that Sengled also makes smart bulbs that are designed to work with either Zigbee or WiFi. Hubitat only works with Sengled's Zigbee bulbs.

For example, these are Zigbee bulbs that work well with Hubitat.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7I4X94/ref=twister_B09BKB3KGN

No, it is closed source.

Hubitat's documentation is actually a WiKi, that community members can request access to submit changes to. Thus, the documentation is fairly 'open'. Please feel free to help keep the documentation up to date as you find errors, omissions, or out of date material. This is the power and strength of such a strong community, and we welcome you to become a part of it!

I am not sure what level of experience/proficiency you have currently in the home automation field. Thus, it is difficult for me to accurately 'target my audience'. I hope you share more about your experiences and become an active member of the community. Please realize that Hubitat does enjoy a passionate following here in the forums. In addition to thousands of active community members, we are also very fortunate to have the Hubitat Team be very active as well.

Again, Welcome to the Hubitat Community!

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I would like to point out that while HE is not opensource it IS built on opensource technologies. Whether or not they are in compliance with the various licenses is not known. My assumption is they are for the most part but have not looked into it all that much.

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Correct. For example the underlying Linux OS, and Java. But the hub platform itself, which runs as a JVM, is not open source, while it does use open source tech like the H2 database.

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Completely off topic but I've always wondered if there is an OpenHab / HE connection somewhere - OH runs as a JVM and H2 (for persistence) as well.

Ah well, maybe a topic for another discussion! :slightly_smiling_face:

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19

Alright, alright, this is the missing piece of the puzzle, this is the Sengled that does actually work ‎E11-N1EA, tested with 4 different bulbs, absolutely no problem.

Thank you everyone for your help the compatibility list should be updated

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The Sengled E11-N1EA is a Zigbee device and it is on the Hubitat compatibility list.

A number of Osram and Sylvania Zigbee devices are on the list as well. Their WiFi and Bluetooth devices are not compatible, so they are not on the list.

What update to the compatibility list are you suggesting?

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