I have two Gledopto Zigbee bulbs paired directly to my HE that I put into a group. In the group app for the bulbs, I can set a level and color temperature and when I tap the ON button, both bulbs will smoothly fade on and go to the correct color temp and level.
When I create a SCENE with those same color temp and level settings, the bulbs will popcorn and flicker and MIGHT turn on, depending on the level I’ve set. I have the same problem when I I manually set the bulb options in RM (I’m trying to program a Pico).
EDIT: I should clarify that the issue occurs when I set the level to something low, like 20%. It doesn’t happen if I set them to 100%.
Okay, I found more info: in the group app with the bulbs OFF, if I set a level and tap the level set button, the bulbs will popcorn, but if I leave the level alone and just use the ON and OFF buttons, it fades nicely to the last set level.
Now I’m wondering if I should pair them back with the Hue bridge and program the Pico to activate a Hue scene instead...
My understanding is "Zigbee group messaging" is what you use to reduce the popcorn effect. It's supposed to handle switching, level, and color changes. I do not use Scenes all that much but do control my den lights (BR30s and A19 Sengled Color Plus bulbs) with a mounted lutron pico. The switching part seems to work fine with no popcorning. I have not been able to initiate dimming properly with the pico so have abandoned that for now. When I use Alexa to control the group - changing colors / dimming etc works great.
I ditched hue a while ago - did not want to maintain too many different types of hubs. Their stuff seems decent for what it does - the devices are pricey though. If it works for you though then thats probably the way to go.
