Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor Issues - Will Pair, Send One Set of Events, Then Stops

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Hi, I've successfully had 3 Hue Outdoor Motion Sensors paired to my Habitat for a couple of years triggering outdoor lights at night and on motion. Over the last few months they stopped communicating to Hub. Finally have some time to fiddle with them, so I 'reset' all of them to unpair them, then started the pairing process again.

With every single one of them, they will be found and pair, I can name them, and they'll send that very first set of events to Habitat reading all the sensors (motion, illuminance, temperature, etc). Then the light blinks red on and off for a minute then stops, and then they will never send an event again, REFRESH does nothing, etc.

Out of frustration and to test, I ordered three brand new ones, just opened them out of the box, fresh pairing, they are immediately 'discovered' and added, and the same thing happens, they pair, the device logs show the first series of events (motion, temperature, illuminance etc), then they never send another event again, and REFESH doesn't work.

I have a series of INNR and Hue outlet Zigbee repeaters around the house, all responding fine. The Hue Motion Sensors can be right near the Hubitat.

I'm on an updated C-8 Pro. (Seeing other posts about Zigbee issues with C-8?) - could that be my problem? For the past years without issues I've been on a C-7. I'm wondering if the problem started when I migrated to the C-8.

Any ideas why, in every single case, both new and old Hue Outdoor Motion sensors will immediately discover with no issue, send one batch of events, then just go dead and not check in again? What should I try to troubleshoot this?

Thanks!

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Try this workaround.

3

Wow... I remember the days when would throw money at HA like that.... Feel free to send any spare devices my way... :slight_smile:

(I'll admit I probably spent more on my own "play-thing" recently, being a Synology NAS...)

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I have HUE motion sensors (edit indoor) throughout my house and I also began to experience this. They used to pair perfectly.

My solution has always been just to go through the pairing process again, this has always worked fine afterwards. This has worked with the last 5 or 6 devices.

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Haha yes, have done the same with Synology! And Ubiquiti, and Roon, and.... my poor wallet.

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I think I remember them being quite slow to get going even on the Hue bridge, but I could remembering the dials.... could be just a "thing".... perhaps sit it out and see if they start reporting?

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I don't have a solution to this but I have had the exact same issue with two indoor Philips Hue motion sensors. I tried pairing them on two C8 hubs, one with plenty of repeaters and devices, and the other on a hub with zero repeaters. The sensor would pair and send the first events then nothing after that. I tried for hours even following the workaround with no luck. I then tried to pair one of them to a C5 hub and it worked without issue. Out of frustration I deleted them from my hubs and factory reset the sensors and threw them in a drawer for a battle another day.

I have many Philips Hue motion sensors that work on all my hubs with no issues at all, so it's a mystery why I was having trouble pairing more of them.

After a few weeks I pulled them out and tried to pair them again expecting the same problem, but, both paired and work with no issues and I have no idea why. During the elapsed time there were no changes to any of the hubs. No new apps, no updates, no reboots. So I don't think it's a problem with the hubs, or the sensors. The only thing I can think of is RF interference of some kind, but that is only speculation on my part.

If the workaround doesn't get you going, maybe try what I did and wait for another time. All I know is the two sensors that refused to pair are working as they should for at least a couple of weeks now.

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It is probably worth capturing the platform version you are running, for anyone who can help in resolving your issue :slight_smile:

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Hey all, thanks for all of the above info. I just tried @kkossev workaround solution, and they paired quickly and have now started sending additional events after the first pair, and I can reliably get REFRESH to give me new events.

Strangely, one stopped responding after pairing the other 2. I'll give it some time and move them around and see if the mesh stabilizes and they will get reliable.

Big question about RELIABLE - I always upgrade to the latest Hubitat just because I like having the latest... BUT, at the same time, 99% of the reason I use Hubitat is for some very basic simple things like motion activation on outdoor lights and these Hue Outdoor Motion sensors (and Zigbee in general) is really one of the most important things to me.

In studying the references above and browsing around, I'm learning maybe C-8 and Zigbee 3.0 could be a lot of my problems, am I better off downgrading back to a C-7. for more reliable old fashioned Zigbee, or should I stick it out with my C-8?

Thanks!

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I'm on C-8 Pro Platform 2.3.9.166

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11

Similar experience with hue indoors after a power outage where the hub was out for maybe 8 hours or so. Not clear what fixed it.

I wrote this after:

I had something very similar happen with my usually reliable Hue indoor motions during two power outages, while on inverter generator. House power was out overnight before generator was started. Returned to normal when utility power returned. Couldn't replicate it later. Now trying hub mini ups battery backup. Also live in woods. Weird.

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What channel Zigbee do you use? Maybe WiFi interference is the cause?

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I had this same issue with Hue Outdoor sensors and did a post on here some months ago. There was no issue pairing and it picked the correct driver; however once paired it sent initial events for temperature, luminance and motion active then nothing, zilch. It wouldn’t fix and I think think there’s some issue between the driver and the newer devices maybe.

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Try again

Nope, staying connected to the hub does not depend on the driver used.

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My post maybe wasn’t worded well. It did remain connected to the hub and showed connected directly in the Zigbee details page. But although it all appeared as it should, nothing would update. It just showed the initial temperature, luminance and was stuck on motion active. It got returned to Amazon, I’ll try another at some point but fully expect the same result.

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I tried everything and have this same issue with my multiple SML004, older ones (SML002) are fine.

I have a hue hub and checked, they’re all up to date and tried the above work around only to have stability issues. These have been rock solid on the hue hub, was just trying to eliminate CoCoHue for an unrelated issue.

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I could do with two of these sensors for my external luminance that I use in lighting and curtain closing rules. Unfortunately it seems that the SML004 simply does not work with the Hubitat driver, so I won't risk purchasing them again until there's some acknowledgement of the issue and a fix by Hubitat (as its their driver)

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Yeah, they are great sensors with great battery life. I had finally gotten a couple to pair by clearing the double rebuild method but they were inconsistent. I wonder if it’s the driver or the 3.0 stability. Fortunately going through cocohue is easy enough of a workaround since i have a hue hub.