Hi there! I’m a brand new convert from Wink (yep, I think it finally died!) and am used to everything running smoothly with the touch of a button or a voiced command to Alexa. It’s been quite the change switching everything over to Hubitat. I currently have 10 Eva Logik z wave dimmer switches, 2 Leviton (edited- not lutron) Fan switches, and about 6 Cree zigbee bulbs I got forever ago (but they seem to last much longer than traditional LED bulbs) and would love to still be able to use if possible. I use them in lamps and am used to having said lamps on a schedule, but still be able to control them with Alexa or by app. I also have a Kwikset z wave lock I’d like to pair but I’m not exactly sure how ... maybe I’ll address that later ... anyway ...
I’m able to reset the bulbs and pair them (I’ve done 2 so far) but I can’t get them to work once paired. I’ve tried every driver that seems remotely possible and nothing works. It defaulted to “advanced zigbee bulb” when it paired but no buttons work. I’ve unplugged my wink brick so no interference there. I don’t have any sensors for anything as I’ve seen in earlier posts being part of the problem ...
Hubitat seems very “programmer mode” style and not extremely user friendly to me so far so the more specific you can be on suggestions the better ... thanks in advance!
Well...if you want a specific suggestion, it would be to get rid of the Cree bulbs and replace them with something better. (A search of this forum, and probably many others, will reveal problems many have had with these bulbs, particularly on "mixed"/non-bulb-only Zigbee networks.) But they look like your only Zigbee devices, and the biggest problem with them is that they are bad repeaters for other/non-bulb devices, so that alone probably isn't the issue here. (Keeping them on a dedicated hub or a Hue Bridge are two possible solutions, but again, I'm not sure this applies for your case.) If you moved them after pairing, you could try re-pairing them in place. Don't remove them from Hubitat first, just pretend you're adding a "new" Zigbee device, and they'll be recognized as the same thing.
The driver yours selected on pairing should work. If you wanted to try another, "Generic Zigbee Bulb" should also work. After you switch drivers (i.e., after hitting Save Device to commit the change), run the "Configure" command by hitting the button at the top, then wait a few seconds. You could even try this with the existing "Advanced..." driver if you don't want to switch.
Beyond that, you could try general Zigbee troubleshooting, like making sure you aren't on a bad channel (e.g., Zigbee channel overlapping with Wi-Fi channel--note that the channel numbers are different and you need to compare the actual frequencies; range issues; etc.). This document has some more tips: How to Build a Solid Zigbee Mesh - Hubitat Documentation
Welcome! I'm a Wink survivor as well. There's a learning curve but the HE platform is vastly more flexible thank Wink. And no cloud dependency (other than setup and things like alexa) is particularly appealing to those of us who suffered from Wink.
Here's the deal with ZLL bulbs like Cree. When they sit on your zigbee network they try to be repeaters. And they are horrible at it. They wreak havoc on a mixed network. Many of us install a secondary hub just for ZLL bulbs. I have a Hue hub for that purpose. Though most of my bulbs are actually Hue, you can use a Cree bulb as well, though I do find the Hue bulbs to be much nicer and more reliable.
Are the Lutron fan switches Lutron Caseta? If so, you will need a Lutron PRO hub. You then pair the switches to the Lutron hub and use the Lutron integration to control them all from HE. It works GREAT and many of us here are huge Caseta fans. I have a couple of fan switches and about 30 regular wall switches.
The zwave switches and lock should work fine... you'll just need to make sure you have some good zwave beaming repeaters near the lock. Many locks will also pair in "whisper" mode for security - which means you'll need to be close to the hub to do the original pairing.
Yeah ... I read several posts about Cree bulbs but they were all 2+ years old and I was hoping some new drivers or something had been created to accommodate them better since. Apparently not.
I believe the fan switches are casetas but I got them to pair directly to HE. They ended up using a different driver though and I can control them without a hub. Will a hub work better? I don’t know.
I do have 2 Eva Logik switches right next to the front door so hopefully those will repeat adequately because I really don’t have a good way to get my hub near my front door.
I read that article. The time that it takes to make the zigbee mesh, is that how long before I know if the drivers or bulbs will work on my network or should they work immediately after pairing? Should I just pair all of the bulbs, let it select the advanced zigbee driver and then unplug the hub for 20 minutes and reboot? Would that make it work? Just trying to think of options before buying yet another piece of equipment or all new bulbs ...
Unfortunately the reason the Cree posts are two years old is because all of our Cree bulbs have been out of service for at least two years!
If your fan switches paired with HE and are working leave them be. They must be different than the ones I use, which do require the Lutron hub.
You may be able to pair that lock just fine. But some of them will only pair if right next to the hub, regardless of repeaters. It's a "security" feature that can be a pain. But try the way it is - you may be fine.
The HE device compatibility list shows devices that the HE folks have actually tested. But there are lots of devices that will work just fine, either with one of the HE generic drivers or one of many (MANY) community-supported drivers. A quick search on these forums will usually help you figure it out.
I have seven old Zigbee bulbs in my mesh, three of them Cree, the rest Osram. The generic zigbee bulb driver works well for the Cree. As @bertabcd1234 points out, you need to save the device and hit configure when you change the driver. They should begin working immediately (no need to power off your hub and wait) if things go according to the book. You should see them appear in the Neighbor Table of the getChildandRouteInfo page: (yourhubsip/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo)
As I recall (from the SmartThings days circa 2016) there were two issues that affected people's experiences with Zigbee bulbs. One was a firmware issue in some Osram bulbs that caused them to drop packets when acting as routers. SmartThings pushed firmware updates for these years ago.
The other was a malfunction that seemed to happen to several users who had more than nine Cree bulbs in a mesh. Seem to come up often enough that there was probably something to it, but details of what the underlying issue issue might be are scarce.
The ZLL vs. versus ZHA profile compatibility issue is yet another matter; however what I've read in the specs say that the profiles are in fact designed to be compatible at the network layer.
As I have updated my Osram's firmware and only use three Cree bulbs I seem to have dodged these bullets; for the small number of bulbs that you have you may have good luck as well.
No luck so far ... I could try deleting them and rediscovering them maybe ... I have tried just about every driver I thought could work to no avail. However, I’ll try again. I’ve also hit all the buttons and they do nothing. This makes me sad because my bulbs worked flawlessly until my wink hub turned into a brick the other day.
Also regarding the fans, they didn’t work with the lutron drivers ... I don’t remember which worked but they act like dimmers (%) rather than like fans (hi med low). But it works.
Do any of the bulbs show up in the neighbor table section of the getChildandRouteInfo page? If so they will be shown along with additional info about the quality of their connection to the hub.
I have no idea what you are talking about! How do I access this information? Hubitat is completely foreign to me ... I’m used to stuff being very straightforward with the wink hub. Also I’m only like 3 days in ... been very frustrated with the whole system so far.
You would open a browser window and type in this URL:
yourhubip/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo
Substitute the IP address of your hub for the
"yourhubip" bit. If the Cree bulbs are connected to the hub they (or at least one of them) must appear in the neighbor table; post a copy of it if you can.
If the neighbor table is empty, make sure the bulbs have been reset (the timing is tricky, make sure you see them blink at the end of the on-off sequences) and try joining them again. It's not necessary to delete them from the hub beforehand.
Lutron Caseta Fan Controllers, Dimmers, Switches, and Pico Remotes all require the Lutron Caseta SmartBridge Pro2 in order to be used with Hubitat.
If your Fan controllers are working, without a SmartBridge Pro, then they are not Lutron devices. It sounds like they are Z-Wave or Zigbee devices instead. Perhaps Leviton is the manufacturer? Or GE?
As @ogiewon pointed out, your fan switches are probably Leviton fan controllers. These are z-wave+ devices that can pair directly to Hubitat. This is what they look like:
That is OK and fairly normal for people that come from Wink. Wink works differently than other hubs, and is very dumbed down. People that come from other hubs like Smartthings have to do similar things to Hubitat, so there isn't quite as much adjustment.
I came from Wink too, and the first few days were tough. You will get the hang of it pretty quickly if you just forget how Wink worked, nothing from that system really applies to any other hub. Ask lots of questions before you get to the breaking point, we are here to help.
I haven't ever used Cree but in general Zigbee bulbs (even my at the time very expensive) Sylvania RGB bulb gave issues at first. Of course it wasn't that great in Wink either, it would often drop off the hub that hub too. In my case I added lots of good repeaters, and started using more and more switches instead of adding more bulbs. And my bulb now seems to be OK.
These older bulbs don't have much RAM in them, and they do some pretty bad stuff to the network. LOTS of good repeaters seem to overcome this somewhat, but if the device is bad, it will be bad on most every system.
You are correct! Leviton!! Not lutron! I always want to call them lutron ... I looked at lots of stuff before getting them and it all runs together after a while.
Thanks! I’ve used Wink for years and everything was so straight forward ... this is a whole new way of thinking of things. I had everything on routines and able to be voice controlled with Alexa and google ... my set up ran perfectly ... until my hub became a brick. I will learn this new way ... hopefully I’ll be able to get everything set back up how I had it before too long and with little more frustration!
Also, apparently after getting frustrated with it yesterday it decided to work. Today I decided to mess with the bulbs again. I deleted the first Cree bulb from the hub and reset it to factory and rediscovered it. It set up quickly and actually worked right away! I played with all the settings and everything worked. So I deleted the second bulb and did the same thing. Again ... it decided to work! And I think I have 6 Cree bulbs in various lamps around the house (I’ll find out as I go pairing everything else). The rest of my smart bulbs (maybe 3) are some cync bulbs I got with the purchase of something else a few years ago and don’t work with anything but their own network (as far as I can tell) ... not my favorites.
And sorry for confusing the lutron and Leviton names. It is definitely the Leviton. I have 2 of them. I edited the original post to reflect accurately.
I also don’t know how to quote someone’s text so I hope y’all can figure out who I’m replying to.
I’m going to attempt to reset and pair some more cree bulbs and cross my fingers that they work today! I’m not sure what I did differently but hoping it all works since I don’t have anything zigbee but the bulbs.
I’m a brand new convert from Wink (yep, I think it finally died!) and am used to everything running smoothly with the touch of a button or a voiced command to Alexa. It’s been quite the change switching everything over to Hubitat. I currently have 10 Eva Logik z wave dimmer switches, 2 Leviton (edited- not lutron) Fan switches, and about 6 Cree zigbee bulbs I got forever ago (but they seem to last much longer than traditional LED bulbs) and would love to still be able to use if possible. I use them in lamps and am used to having said lamps on a schedule, but still be able to control them with Alexa or by app. I also have a Kwikset z wave lock I’d like to pair but I’m not exactly sure how ... maybe I’ll address that later ... anyway ...
(A search of this forum, and probably many others, will reveal problems many have had with these bulbs, particularly on "mixed"/non-bulb-only Zigbee networks.) But they look like your only Zigbee devices, and the biggest problem with them is that they are bad repeaters for other/non-bulb devices, so that alone probably isn't the issue here. (Keeping them on a dedicated hub or a Hue Bridge are two possible solutions, but again, I'm not sure this applies for your case.) If you moved them after pairing, you could try re-pairing them in place. Don't remove them from Hubitat first, just pretend you're adding a "new" Zigbee device, and they'll be recognized as the same thing.
I always want to call them lutron ... I looked at lots of stuff before getting them and it all runs together after a while.
I will learn this new way ... hopefully I’ll be able to get everything set back up how I had it before too long and with little more frustration!
