I've been having issues w/my Sengled bulbs (white, white extra bright, and color) where they drop off the mesh and can't be controlled. This started on my C7 and has continued on the C8. All are using the Advanced Zigbee Bulb driver, or the Advanced Zigbee RGBW Bulb driver.
No other Zigbee devices are having any similar consistent issues on my C7 or C8 (aside from Hue outdoor sensors on the C8 that many of us have been dealing with).
Not sure how to monitor the bulbs and get a notification when they drop off, so I can look at recent events in my logs and try to troubleshoot what's going on.
Normally I'd use something like Device Activity Check, but bulbs don't report anything on a regular basis that I'm aware of.
You could issue a refresh command and monitor whether the "Last Activity At", which is updated by this command, actually changes. Of course issuing a refresh may affect how\when the problem occurs, but on a non battery device it should not matter as long as it's not too frequent.
There wasn't a "Refresh" command available for the bulbs using the Advanced Zigbee drivers, so I had to switch to the stock Sengled driver.
With the Sengled driver I can send the Refresh from RM, but I can't find a way to get to the "Last Activity At" value in RM. Not in Custom Attributes in RM as far as I can tell. Also not in logs.
Note that if this does work -- and I'm not saying it does -- Device Activity Check has a built-in way to do this without requiring RM or other means. However, if you need more customization than this app provides, RM or something else can certainly do it.
Aren't you using DAC for this? I don't think there is a way to get at this metadata from RM, though there is a way to get the last actual event time (but a Refresh is unlikely to generate an event if nothing actually changed).
I had the same issue with my Sengled Color bulbs. Randomly dropping off the network and need to be re-included. Only happened on the C8. Also using the advanced zigbee driver for mine.
I am hoping this latest fw update will correct this.
Geez...what a doofus. (Me, not you. ) I was thinking about the bulbs not reporting battery or temp like my contact/motion sensors do, so started thinking I had to monitor them from a different app. [sigh]
Well then... I guess I'll have to hope for a fix down the line if this doesn't do it for me. Did you notice any patterns or times that it happens? I couldn't pinpoint anything specific or same bulbs. It's all random for me. I've only had 1 bulb drop off twice on me since getting the C8.
I have struggled to find any clear pattern. In part because I wouldn't know they weren't working until I tried them, and except for two of the six or so I had in place, most were infrequently used.
I'm hoping monitoring the two I have remaining (I switched out most of them for Hue bulbs to avoid WAF damage) will help provide some clues.
I've seen others reporting issues w/Sengled falling off before the C8, so I'm thinking the issue(s) is/aren't necessarily C8-specific.
They seem to be really weak. When I decided to pull one out of the drawer and put it in use, it would drop off every couple of days on my C-5 that’s mostly Sylvania lights and GE Zigbee dimmers. I moved it to my other C-5 (that’s now the C-8) and it has been connected for a couple months now. Because there are so many end devices (including my Zigbee locks) on the C-8, there are only repeaters on this mesh that I have not had any problems with. 3 Sonoff dongles, 5 Samsung plugs, 2 Hue plugs, and 5 GE in-wall dimmers (previous gen).
Yup - it definitely isn't a consistent/everybody issue. I'm fine if it's a "just-me" as long as I can figure it out. I hadn't changed things on my C7 for quite a while when the bulbs started dropping, so it's hard for me to point my finger at anything clear.
The hub mine were falling off is my main hub and contains Zigbee repeaters in every room, and other Zigbee devices (including contact sensors outside through an exterior wall) were not having any issues. So it doesn't seem like mesh strength is an issue.
Maybe not, but the one that kept dropping for me is in a bookcase behind my wife's steel reinforced wicker baskets. Otherwise I would just attribute it to the bulbs being garbage since no other devices had any problems.
I don't think so, as mine worked for years w/out issues, one of the most reliable devices I had. I was very busy w/family duties when the bulbs started going off mesh some time back and didn't document the timing, so I'm not sure how long it's been, other than it started on my C7 well before the C8 release.
Back to my main focus in this topic - @bertabcd1234, @thebearmay@garyjmilne - Refresh does not update the Last Activity date, so that won't work to check for the bulb's existence. So looks like I'm going to have to set up RM to turn them on at some interval while monitoring the activity date in Device Activity check. Luckily the two Sengled bulbs I still have on my mesh are in locations where I can turn them on/off on a schedule w/out bothering my wife or myself.
@thebearmay reminded me to refresh my browser...when I did that it did show an updated last activity date. DOH...browser basics.
Just to be extra paranoid, I'm going to pull the bulb and do a refresh just to be 100% sure that just running the Refresh command by itself from the Device page isn't updating the last activity date.
OK - we're good, Refresh w/bulb removed goes nowhere, no logs, no change to activity date as expected.
So now I'm going to be refreshing three Sengled lights and when (if?) one or more falls off I'll get a notification and maybe see something going on in logs, or timing when it happens, that might be helpful.
I don't think there is a way to get at this metadata from RM, though there is a way to get the last actual event time (but a Refresh is unlikely to generate an event if nothing actually changed).
) I was thinking about the bulbs not reporting battery or temp like my contact/motion sensors do, so started thinking I had to monitor them from a different app. [sigh]
