Sengled Bulbs

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1

The Sengled bulbs I have that are not candelabra base act as repeaters, as can be clearly seen on the device graph. I can't get model number from the Amazon page I bought them from, but they are the soft-white dimmable with regular A19 lamp base. Currently only about $5 each on Amazon when you buy four. These have been great bulbs for me with no issues with the C-8 (then again, none have had to be rejoined yet).

The device graph also shows the candelabra base as being only end devices always. I have plenty of repeaters besides the bulbs in the form of outlets and relays. The bulbs also reside only about 15-20 feet from the hub. I see them pair and then route through repeaters later.

I decided to pick-up the fight again, I just paired one of them without issue, surprisingly, and I am not going to pair the 2nd one right away like I had been doing. Maybe one at a time will help, after letting the first one settle into the network.

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Strange I've never seen a sengled bulb that repeats.

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Neither had I, sounds like a Unicorn. :slight_smile:

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Funny, those A19 Sengled bulbs seem to be the most popular repeaters for my end devices based on the graph. They usually have 3-5 devices routing through them.

I may have just found the solution to the bulbs. I had in the past tried pairing close to the hub, and close to repeaters, but in addition to adding one at a time now, I just paired them in the basement. This is on another level from the hub, but directly below all the repeaters in the living room.

I noticed that these bulbs paired through a repeater this time instead of directly to the hub, as I watch the device graph when joining them. Usually they connect directly to the hub regardless of being right next to a repeater. Probably a result of the antennas and power of the C-8 ZigBee.

Now that I got them far enough away from the hub to initialize through a repeater device, they both seem to be hanging on for now. It hasn't been long, but it is longer than usual that they are still working.

These are ZigBee 3.0 bulbs, I would think they would be happy just joining directly to the C-8 hub when initialized.

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Ahh that may be because they're 3.0 (my mistake) 1.2's don't repeat

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Actually, the 3.0 bulbs are the candelabra non-repeaters. Not sure if the Soft-White A19s are 3.0, but apparently they are 3.0 if they repeat.

The candelabra bulbs are currently still working, fingers crossed.

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Per Sengled, their Zigbee bulbs are purposefully designed to NOT be Zigbee repeaters.

https://support.sengled.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010871308-Do-any-Sengled-Zigbee-devices-act-as-Zigbee-repeaters#:~:text=Our%20Smart%20LED%20bulbs%20were,bulbs%20by%20a%20wall%20switch.

I really doubt that any Sengled bulbs are actually repeating. Could be a fluke of the Zigbee graphing. Or, possibly the bulbs in question are not actually Sengled bulbs? There are lots and lots of Zigbee bulbs on the market.

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This would be my guess.

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9

I have 5 and none are repeater.

Capture

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My bad, you are correct. The two bulbs that are repeating are some old SmartThings bulbs I bought way back and forgot about. I was thinking I was on all Sengled bulbs. Those bulbs are very busy repeaters.

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11

Thanks for updating us. That definitely makes sense that these are not Sengled bulbs.

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12

They do not repeat and I have had a lot of troubles with them because of this. I switched all of my Sengled bulbs to INNR Bulbs which do repeat. All my problems went away once I replaced them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08428JSDZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

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I don't see how this could cause problems. In fact, in some situation, it can avoid problems (that's why Sengled engineers design them like this). A non repeater device won't cause havoc on the mesh when its power is inadvertently turn off. (like cutting power to a bulb with the wall switch).

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14

Not in my experience. The project that I had was 'Dock lights'. With Sengled bulbs some bulbs would not turn on or off. I had to play around with plug socket repeaters to get it to function most of the time. You can not sell someone 'most of the time'; my customer needed it to work 'all of the time'. With the INNR repeater bulbs it just worked. Zigbee is designed to have a lot of repeaters so it only makes the mesh stronger with more repeaters.

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I also had nothing but problems with Sengled and replaced them with Innr. Having said that, when I moved to the C8, the Innr ZigBee 3.0 radio caused issues with my Zigbee Hue sensors causing them to get stuck initializing. The solution was to remove the Innr bulbs, pair the regular Zigbee stuff, then add the Innr back. Truth be told my last three Innr bulbs will soon join the Sengleds and Sylvanias in the closet waiting for the day I finally post them all for sale cheap.

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16

I have 12 Sengled bulbs in service for like almost 5 years now without issue from C4 to C8.
Both the Element and Color Element Plus or whatever they are called.

The Innr ones look nice, I have a few of their plugs, but they are too expensive IMHO to buy a lot of them.

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I was lucky and had no issues with the C8 transfer.....knock on wood.

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18

If they work then I would also not consider replacing them. Everyone's network is different.

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Same here. I have total of 15 bulbs between two properties with zero issue. They are even more reliable than my Hue bulbs.

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Overall, my C7-C8 migration didn't live up to expectations. I ended up having to pull everything down and rebuild both my Z-wave and Zigbee meshes from the ground up. It was at that point that I discovered the issue with Inner, specifically Zigbee 3.0 devices.