But you ordered 3. That is gonna hurt 
In all seriousness, I have 5 and most everything seems to route through them. They are rock solid.
Edit: If you have a Costco membership, you can order the Hue bulbs online for much cheaper than Amazon last I looked.
I didn't know this was a thing until the other day when I went to unscrew one that had been on all night. Let's just say, I'll be using the fingers on my other hand to unlock my phone, for a while.
Yesterday, after my 5-node Linksys Velop meshed network was the victim of a "surprise" firmware update and I announced I was ripping it all out, my significant other asked (for the first time) how much all this home automation stuff cost. I said "oh it's not about the cost. It's about keeping you happy. Now be a dear and hand me those 4 Amazon boxes."
My house is like a Faraday cage. Right now I have an ST plug on the 1st floor and another on the 2nd floor. I am going to add another to each, and one down in the basement, which will be a total of 5. The house is about 3500 sq ft but there are no zigbee devices on the third floor.
I've got the Velop AX; just one node covers 2600sqft pretty well although I may have to add a second eventually. It has been the best (fastest, most reliable, devices stay connected) router I have ever had.
My FiOS connection is in the basement and the house was built before wiring the house with Ethernet was a thing (actually it was built before AC wiring was a thing). I'm completely dependent on wireless backhaul. 4 nodes, one on each floor, cover the house. The generator (in the back yard) wasn't getting sufficient wifi signal strength to keep a solid connection, so I added a fifth just for it. The 5th also helps with wifi at the hot tub, which of course is critical.
I completely understand. I had a house that had the old gravity furnace that was converted from coal to natural gas. It also had plaster and lathe walls and ceilings. Good times. A $200 gas bill during the winter 25 years ago. Our current house is 33 years old and I was able to run ethernet to the upstairs by running it into the garage and up through the space behind one of the dormers.
My HE zigbee radio is on channel 20. I'm thinking I will force my Phillips Hue bridge to another channel, say 15. I figure it will help ease any potential for zigbee congestion. Does this make sense?
Yes, that makes perfect sense.
You should also make sure your home WiFi 2.4GHz radio is using channels 1, 6, or 11 with a 20MHz Channel Width. This will make sure that the Zigbee radios on channels 15 and 20 do not conflict with WiFi radios as they are all sharing the 2.4GHz RF spectrum.
Great info and a really handy chart. Thanks.
OK. Hue bridge installed. It picked a default channel that was not the channel my HE uses, so we are good there. Half of my Crees moved over. Most of the Cree bulbs have come over to the Hue bridge without having to go through the whole reset process, which is convenient. Three GE Link bulbs taken temporarily out of service and replaced with the three hues that came with my starter kit. The hue bulbs actually seem pretty nice! Will do the others room by room. It's a bit of a pain but I've already reconfigured my home automation network 3 times... Wink to ST to HE, Leviton to Leviton Pro. So by #4 I have the process down, and have implemented everything using groups on the HE... so all I have to do is update the group and all my rules, automations, etc., work just fine.
I do have some Segleds. If my Hue migration doesn't work I may try one of those. I also ordered a Z-Wave bulb as a backup.
Just be aware that Sengled bulbs will NOT work directly with the Hue bridge. Hue expects ZLL bulbs, whereas the Sengled bulbs are ZHA only bulbs.
I think the Hue bridge is a great solution to keep the Cree and GE Link bulbs working, without impacting the Hubitat ZHA mesh network.
THanks, good tip. I don't think the Sengleds are repeaters anyway so they won't exacerbate any routing issues.
Interesting... the sconce that prompted all this troubleshooting got moved over to the Hue hub yesterday (using a Hue bulb) and it is non-responsive today. I will continue to move my Crees to the Hue hub just to make my whole installation more efficient but it does not appear to have solved my issue. Different bulb, different bridge, different channel... I wonder if it has something to do with the fixture or location itself. I have a zwave bulb on order... that may work.
Quick update - after migrating the remainder of my Cree bulbs to the Hue network, the errant sconce is now responding. I'm guessing as I added more bulbs to that network, crappy as they may be for repeaters, they are good enough to cover that spot.
This will be something I watch for. I've had LIFX bulbs for a while which are great, really bright, great colors. Recently I've been buying Sylvania Color bulbs and putting them where color quality isn't important to me. I was able to pick up a 12 pack for less than $80. You can't even get 2 LIFX bulbs for that price point. But I wasn't aware of the Sylvania over heating problem.
Cree bulbs usually do OK when only repeater ZLL traffic for other bulbs. It is when they are tasked with repeating Zigbee Home Automation, ZHA, traffic that they have issues.
Glad to hear things are stabilizing for you!
Fortunately, Sylvania does honor their 2 year warranty, and I have replaced around 24 bulbs this way. I haven’t had any issues with their recessed rt5/6 lights which also have much better color representation and a cri>90.
Yeah a lot of work to fix one bulb but hey if it ain't right, it ain't right... I had one other bulb in the basement right next to the main panel that never worked right... I figured it was EMI from the panel. I just re-homed it as well so we'll see if it helps at all.
I had all sorts of null entries in my routing table so I decided to force a rebuild and turn off the zigbee radio for a half hour. Looks pretty clean now... the remaining bulbs are a couple Sengleds that won't easily work with the Hue hub and that don't route anyway.
Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=7, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]
Child Data
child:[basement furnace water leak sensor, D270, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Kitchen sink water leak sensor, A23B, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[kitchen bathroom motion sensor, 16DC, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[shop motion sensor, 8B6B, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[kitchen freezer temp sensor, FC2C, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[2nd floor hall closet motion, 5BD6, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Dining room lamp right, D79C, type:EMBER_END_DEVICE]
Neighbor Table Entry
[Gun room workbench 2, 1A3F], LQI:253, age:4, inCost:3, outCost:1
[Drawing Room front lamp, 29D9], LQI:249, age:5, inCost:3, outCost:1
[sunroom table lamp, 64DB], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:1
[office desk lamp, CE22], LQI:252, age:4, inCost:3, outCost:1
[Bedroom air conditioner, D861], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:1
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