Sengled state after loss of power

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1

Philips Hue, after years of resisting, as of late last year, finally conceded; you can now set their state following restoration from loss of power to on, off, or last state (I believe); alas, I haven't invested in Philips.

My Sengled, if ON when the power is lost, remembers color and intensity when power is restored (or I'm not leaving power off long enough for it to forget).

However, if OFF when power is lost, regardless how short, when power is restored, it comes on at 100% 2700K.

Is it weird it remembers one but not the other given the lights are most likely to be off during overnight power outages? If it can remember they were on at 1%, why can't it remember they were off?

I assume this is a Sengled design issue, not a Hubitat one, but I wanted to post in case I was missing something obvious to help prevent the lights from coming on full intensity when power is restored (aside from leaving them at 1% all night).

Also (less annoying), if off and you ask for a color (via Alexa), regardless of intensity set previously, it comes on 100%. For example, turn off while 1% blue, then later ask Alexa to set light to green, you get 100% green, not 1%.

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Because of Sengleds On after power restore, I have created a virtual switch on my dashboard that turns these back off, which is also voice controlled by Alexa.

after

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I believe the Sengled classic bulb does support the power state but not color bulb. Which version do you have? You can try by pressing the configure button on the driver and see if it's working for you.

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My Sengled Classics all come on after power loss

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Yes, they do; as do my color bulbs.

I just found it of interest, if they were off at the loss of power, when power is restored, they come on at 100% 2700K, However, if any other setting when power is lost, they'll restore at that setting when power is returned.

So they can remember they were on 1% blue after a power outage, which is practically off as far as ambient light goes, but can't remember they were off (or choose not to and come on 100% 2700K).

The Color bulb: model: E11-N1EA

So when the Sengleds all come on at 100% following a power outage, if they wake you, you ask Alexa to turn them back off?

Is there a way to automate turning them off when power is restored?

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Yes. "Alexa turn After Power Outage On"

I doubt it, Because your hub would have to boot up, and I doubt it would "trigger" an event if the light was already on when the boot up happens.

I haven't tested this, in my head it "may" work. If you have your hub on a UPS to where it stays on when the power is out, you may be able to use a bulb's dimmer value or switch "on" (however this would have to be one you never otherwise would turn on) to trigger the after power outage turning them off.

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My Hubitat is on a UPS.

Yep. I read elsewhere you can toss a normally always off smart bulb into a socket somewhere unseen, one that always powers on after power to the bulb is restored, then, just have a rule that watches for it to come on; if it's ever on, chances are power to the whole house just restored, therefore turn off your other bulbs.

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Here is an option. Power Failure Recovery via RM?

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@mareksoon i ran in the same situation and conclusion with my Sengled E11-N1EA. So i simply return them because it's not good when a bulb turn ON after a power failure, useless. The best option is to buy Hank RGB Bulb HKZW-RGB02 for the same price.
Z-Wave Plus http://www.hank-tech.com/product-detail.aspx?id=342&pid=1
They are Z-wave so you will be far away from the Zigbee bulb who are often bad repeater.
Also Hubitat have a built in driver for the Hank : Hank RGBW LED Bulb
And you can configure what you want them to do after a power lost! On, Off, Remember last state.
I have 5 Hank RGB Bulb HKZW-RGB01 and they work great.

EDIT 2 feb 2021, I use them since oct 2019, 1 inside and 4 outside. They work in any temperature, -30 to +30c.
image

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I've just got some Sengled Element Classic bulbs and thought I would get in touch with Sengled asking if there are considering changing the firmware so that it remembers it state prior to a power outage including if it was off. I've just had this reply:

Hello!

Thank you for contacting Sengled Support!

I am not sure if the development team is working on that particular feature, but we have had several customers requesting this feature, and that demand has been expressed to them!

Please let me know if you need anything else!

Have a great day,

Marty
Sengled Support

So maybe a bit of hope. The only question then is will any new firmware still work correctly when paired to Hubitat? I know that Hue bulbs loose that ability when paired direct to Hubitat.

I'm working on a foolproof method of knowing if there has been a power outage so that I can use RM to turn off any Sengleds after a power cut.

I can easily detect a longish power outage (anything over 30 seconds) via my Iotawatt device, but when we get outages they are often only for a few seconds, which is enough to switch the Sengleds on at full brightness but not so easy to detect. Even using the specific Sengled driver, when testing I've been able to get the situation where the bulb is on but the driver thinks it's off, so I can't use that reliably.

My plan is to tear down a spare Sengled bulb and connect the DC led driver output to a small electromagnet which then activates a contact sensor. The bits are on the way, but I've no idea how well, if at all, it will work. But if it does, it should be fast and accurate.

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When a Sengled element is powered off at the switch it sends an 'off' status (useful) but when powered on at the switch it doesn't seem to send an 'on' status. Why would they not do that ?

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Create a rule that run after the Hub restart that refresh the state of your device. I assume your hub had a power outage, that it is not on a UPS that keep it ON during an outage.
Trigger Events: Location Event: systemStart
Actions: Delay 1 minute to let the Hub finish is reboot process
Refresh : Bulb, switch, lock....
Notify MobilePhone: Electricity is back

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I've had great luck with using a Ring Extender 2 to detect a loss of power and return to mains. It has a battery so as long as your HE stays up during the outage (mine is on a UPS) all is good. Obviously if HE goes down and Ring reports a return to mains HE will still be booting and the event will be lost. In my case HE will not go down because it only has to stay on UPS for the 30 seconds it takes the generator to start.

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Useful. I assume the Extender doesn’t continue its role as a repeater during battery operation so it would have to be a direct link to the hub for this to work of course.

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I'm thinking it does since it is designed primarily for use with Ring alarm systems.

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That’s really quite a capable and useful device then…. Do both Gen1 and Gen2 devices offer that ? I have a Gen1 somewhere.

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And it's a nice zwave repeater! Not sure about the gen1.