I was going to stomp on this thread, but I should be a better person than that.
I'm at a loss for why my Sengleds (some element classic, some element color plus) randomly drop off. It typically happens during a power outage, some of them turn on and stay on, some don't turn on, sometimes they won't come back at all unless I either physically remove power and put it back, and even sometimes it requires them to be reset (off/on enough times quickly that my wife asks me wtf I'm doing while adding zigbee devices).
I've tried experimenting with classic drivers for both, and have noticed NO difference. I wish there was a rhyme or reason to why they don't consistently come on - it's not even consistently the same style that has issues - this morning I had 2 classics, 4 plus out of total of 12 bulbs sideways. No power outage last night/this morning, no hub reboot since 7/15.
Back in the day I wrote an app to monitor their state, save it, and restore it (used it with the old GE Link bulbs) - hubitat/SmarterBulbs at master · bdwilson/hubitat (github.com) - I still have it enabled for these bulbs, but it's probably not necessary.
Will the smart people here:
recommend which driver to use. the advanced zigbee one did not work - just tried. I still don't know what classic vs. non-classic do.
Should I make 2 groups with the different type bulbs and do the rule machine stuff that people described here? I physically have to touch these devices when they are sideways, so not sure how power cycling them in hubitat is working for folks.
I don't think it's my zigbee mesh as my only repeaters are 2 of the little Tuya USB devices and one is a Sonoff one with an antenna.
Should I disable my SmarterBulbs app if all I have are Sengleds which should report on/off?
Should I throw these all in the trash and get Hue's. I'm about at that point. I only use the warm 2700 color anyway, so I really only need that + dimming. I don't have a hub.
I would think adding some more repeaters would strengthen your mesh. ZigBee is a mesh architecture after all. The way your network is constrained it looks like a star network topology. Those three repeaters are all choke points for the inrush of messages when power resumes. If you had multiple routes, the network would be more resilient.
Certainly not discounting the "more repeaters the better", but if I replaced them all and had a single hue hub, supposedly, they'd all work fine off of that single hub.
Hue isn't straight ZigBee, they bake in their own resiliency features. If you can afford to use all Hue, bulbs you can replace the Sengled bulbs, problem solved. If you can't you might want to add a few repeating devices. I fixed my ceiling fan woes by adding a ZigBee power wallwart in those rooms.
I have 36 mix of RGBW and Just dimmers and am having great success on the included Advanced Zigbee Bulb drivers many months now with no problems. I use the RGBW drivers on my color bulbs and the plain ones on my others. You have to click configure after setting that driver.
Sengled? I changed the driver to that and hit configure and it just went bonkers changing colors... but after reading, sounds like that is normal. I don't see that when they lose power they do not report the new state. is that correct? @danabw I think you're using these too?
Yes Sengled correct they go to previous state on power restore. I am pretty much all Sengled on powered zigbee stuff. I use their repeating plugs and also the non repeating ones.
Ok, I moved one to Advanced RGBW, configured, got the blinking different colors, set it the color I wanted, on/off seem to work fine. I set power loss settings to all 3 options, but it appears all 3 result in the same thing for me when unplugging/re-plugging a lamp back in - HE status doesn't update, shows OFF, but light is ON.
I just turned them off or on with a zigbee button. I keep the bulbs with power going to them at all times. It is only an issue if the whole house looses power then it's just a matter of cycling them once.
Interesting @brianwilson I have Sengled bulbs throughout my home but I did make it a point to put a Zigbee repeaters around the house via Jasco in Wall Zigbee switches. All my bulbs do come on after a power outage but that is the expected behavior since they simulate bulbs on a switched circuit and with power restored that emulates the switch turning on.
So far after 3+ years I haven't had a drop off of any Zigbee devices. Even when I had peanut plugs the mesh was solid. I replaced the peanut plugs two years ago with the Jasco in wall's for a cleaner look.
I have 27 non RGB bulbs running right now and the mesh is something like this based on proximity of device to repeater. But Zigbee is a self-routing protocol, so routing is up to the mesh.
I originally used Sengled Zigbee bulbs with my Hubitat hub. I did not have any issues with these bulbs, however I did have about 7-8 Iris 3210 Zigbee outlets around the house to act as Zigbee repeaters.
Eventually, I replaced all of these bulbs with a Philips Hue bridge + genuine Hue bulbs. I made this change simply because I wanted all of my lighting to be Apple HomeKit natively compatible. I had already replaced my Z-Wave switches and dimmers with Lutron Caseta. I really liked that all of the Caseta devices worked natively with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Logitech Harmony Hub, Hubitat, Home Assistant, etc… By switching over to using a Hue Bridge + Hue bulbs, I was able to achieve the same level of interoperability and extreme reliability for table and floor lamps. I also like that Hue bulbs have a real power restoration feature.
It's fully documented on the Sengled site. The Sengled element bulbs were deliberately designed that way. Two comments they made were due when they were first manufactured many years ago, they were installed in fixtures that were connected to light switches. Users complained that toggling the switch didn't turn on the lights thus the default state for power restore was light on. The second reason was safety when power was restored it would light the way.
Later bulbs had an option in firmware for power on state but out of box they retained the same light on with power restored. I have seen this in their RGB version of their bulbs.
Since there are capacitors in the bulb, they will actually transmit a last gasp message when turned off at the switch or power lost, which lets the hub know that they are now powered off. When they are powered on, they will always turn on and transmit another message to make sure the hub is kept up to date. The issue I see mostly is that the hubs aren't online when power is restored they will be out of sync but with a power restored routine in the hub I can re-sync my lights.
In my limited experience(3 sengled classic) I did not have a good experience. I use 3 Kasa(WiFi w/ HE integration) lights, that have never fallen off, not even once in almost a year. I had my sengleds falling off regularly and 1 even went bad in about 18 months. I heard the LiFX are very good, but never used them.
I have almost 20 Sylvania RGBW's that are good, but occasionally they need a power cycle to "wake up". I don't know if they have fallen off the mesh, but I suspect the SOC overheats or otherwise locks up, and a power cycle fixes whatever it is. I put up with it, as I don't think Hue's prices are justified in the least. And if you have epilepsy or a family member who is sensitive, the HUEs strobe like mad, visible on cellphone video. I couldn't detect any strobing from the Sylvanias, unless it's at such a super high rate, that the video can't pick it up.
I just captured some video on my iPhone 14 pro of two different Hue bulbs. I could not detect any strobing whatsoever. Was that an issue that plagued earlier revision Hue bulbs?
All of the online searches pertaining to this issue seem to have a common theme of users trying to power their Hue bulbs via a dimmer switch, instead of via full, direct power.
What's the value of the Power Restore State in the preferences of EACH bulb?
The default value is On.
I have all of my bulbs (Sengled Element Plus and Ikea) all set to "Last State" and they are honoring that.
I use the Advanced Zigbee CT Bulb driver.
I don't have any Sengled Element Classic bulbs active at the moment, so I can't check on those.
I do recall they did that weird "light is on (emitting light), but not actually switched on" when you check the properties.
