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.
I was lucky and had no issues with the C8 transfer.....knock on wood.
If they work then I would also not consider replacing them. Everyone's network is different.
Same here. I have total of 15 bulbs between two properties with zero issue. They are even more reliable than my Hue bulbs.
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.
I can add these two SmartThings repeating bulbs, now that remember, were the first bulbs I bought several years ago when using SmartThings, and they transferred to the C7, and migrated to the C8, no issues at all ever.
Guests have turned these off at the lamp switch, not realizing they should stay on, but I haven't noticed it affecting the network. I don't think that the fact that they can be turned off is good reason to not make a bulb a repeater, as the intention of automation is to not turn off their power and to just use them digitally.
My repeater bulbs only get turned off rarely, and by accident. The repeater bulbs seem popular in my graph, probably because they get good reception standing up in the room in the lamp bases, unlike outlets that are low and often obstructed.
Seems to me bulbs are a perfect candidate for repeaters, despite what Sengled thinks.
This is true, however, some bulbs actually make bad repeaters. They work fine as long as they are only repeating bulb related messages. Once you start adding additional devices you start increasing the risk that one or more of the bulbs will crash. This isn't true of all bulbs, but it is of enough of them to cause problems.
As a result I would do one of two things. Don't use bulbs that repeat, or setup a mesh just for the lights. I did the later.
I had he same issue with my wife, but she knew better. The solution was to remove the knobs so she cant physicaly turn them off.
My solution was to move all Zigbee bulbs to Philips Hue bridge. Somehow, the bridge magically handles the repeating bulbs being powered off without any noticeable effect on the rest of the bulbs handled by the Hue hub.
Since all my bulbs were moved to the Hue bridge (probably 3 years ago), I don’t remember any issue with the lighting control.
My Zigbee mesh is so small, and getting smaller I just removed them, paired the other stuff (hue motion sensors) and added them back. All together only 6 devices.
I have personal issues with using the hue hub. So while i have one, it is powered down and I avoid using it except if I need to grab a firmware update.
They tried to weasel out of replacing a bad, brand new motion sensor because it was paired to HE and not a hue hub and tried to claim some how HE fried it. That was the only reason i bought the hue hub. Now add on the cloud account requirement, and i'm not interested in further supporting them.
This isn't a requirement unless you're using some of their newer "security" products. I do remember your debacle on the motion sensor, so can't fault you on the rest.
In my use case they needed the repeating. They are doc lights so maybe some of the bulbs could not get to Zigbee repeater. Regardless it works now and it did not work properly before. I will only buy Zigbee repeater devices unless I have no other option.
I can contest that the INNR bulbs work well.
Early Zigbee smart bulbs definitely struggled to act as Zigbee HA 1.2 repeaters. Some of the worst products in this regard were the Cree Connected, GE Link, and Osram bulbs. Early Philips Hue bulbs were also known to cause ZHA 1.2 mesh network issues. These bulbs all did alright when handling ZLL traffic, but struggled to handle a large ZHA mesh network.
Most all Zigbee bulbs today are Zigbee 3.0 devices, like the INNR bulbs being discussed above. These seem to perform reasonably well as Zigbee repeaters for all generations of devices.
Note: Aqara Zigbee devices are known to have issues with many brands of Zigbee repeater devices. Caution needs to be taken to build a stable mesh network if using Aqara devices.
I am slowly rebuilding my entire environment. As noted above I have my lights on a dedicated Zigbee mesh to avoid the poor performance of early bulbs. I just moved the exterior lights over to the new hub yesterday and they performed well overnight. It is interesting watching how the mesh starts to come together.
The exterior bulbs are all Sylvania. The office lights are Sengled. You can see the Sengleds are non-repeaters. Finally the kitchen switch is an Inovelli that I added in cased the exterior lights need it as a repeater but as you can see everything is currently hitting the hub (C8) directly.
I'll add a few more switches and outlets around the house as I expand outwards. The next hurdle is getting the mesh out to the workshop. An extra switch in the bedroom should bridge that gap.
One step at a time.
A great assessment.
I have a number of Sengled bulbs retired to a box. Maybe 6 months before the C8 was released I started having issues w/them falling off my mesh. Add them back, a little while later they'd fall off again.
Tried them again on the C8 and they still kept falling off. Something had changed in my mesh that they just didn't like, but I was unable to track it down, so I pulled them and am now using all Hue for my bulbs. I have one Sengled color bulb I may try to reinstate as I have one automation where I'd prefer using color to indicate when door are unlocked at night (currently just have a Hue light turn on). Other than that they will probably stay in the box and eventually be donated to friends into automation.
I had a bunch of Sengled bulbs working fine for a long time. Then they started to drop off the mesh. It got so bad, they would not stay connected more then 24 hours. I move them on a different zigbee mesh with Z2M and they are rock solid now. It's been more then a year and they never droped again.
No Hue hub required?
I have no smart bulbs...yet.
Using Hue hub with built-in integration.
Download the Hubitat app
