Set vs Toggle color bulbs (Sengled Element Color Plus)

#1

I've replaced every single bulb in the house with Sengled Element Color Plus bulbs. I just started testing changing them via rules rather than setting them via voice (Alexa) and noticed some unexpected behavior. The only changes I've been doing so far (via voice) was setting the level and shifting between white colors (i.e. cool white, white, warm white) or using colors via HSM.

Any of the light fixtures that have multiple bulbs have been setup into groups in 'Groups and Scenes' which has worked well in Alexa. But I thought that using the groups might be the cause of the unexpected behavior, so I did a little testing tonight to see if that was correct. I also needed to know what the difference between Set and Toggle actually were since I haven't found it in the documentation or the community after searching.

Starting with the bulb at 20% and warm white and ON

As a group

Set color: Livingroom Light Group ->Blue ->Level: 100
The color and level changes as expected

Toggle color: Livingroom Light Group ->Blue ->Level: 100
Turns OFF bulb! Turning on goes back to the prior setting (warm white at 20%).

Single bulb

Set color: Livingroom Light 1 ->Blue ->Level: 100
The color and level changes as expected

Toggle color: Livingroom Light 1 ->Blue ->Level: 100
Turns OFF bulb! Turning on goes back to the prior setting (warm white at 20%).

Starting with the bulb at 20% and warm white and OFF

As a group

Set color: Livingroom Light Group ->Blue ->Level: 100
Turns the bulb ON with the color and level changes as expected

Toggle color: Livingroom Light Group ->Blue ->Level: 100
Turns the bulb ON with the color and level changes as expected

Single bulb

Set color: Livingroom Light 1 ->Blue ->Level: 100
Bulb stays OFF but when turned on is at the expected color and level

Toggle color: Livingroom Light 1 ->Blue ->Level: 100
Bulb stays OFF but when turned on is at the expected color and level

Is this the way that Set and Toggle for color bulbs should be working?

#2

I have no insight into Toggle/Set, but just opened a ticket with Support this afternoon for a buggy driver. I saw some anomalies with the Sengled Color bulbs too, and found a workaround for the issues by switching the driver to Generic Zigbee RGBW lights from the Sengled Color Plus driver. (this is the 2nd Sengled driver issue I have encountered in recent weeks).

You might want to try this and see if it resolves your issues.

#3

I have a few Sengled color bulbs, and I find that they don’t always turn on to the right color or the right level. I’ve played around with turning pre-staging on and off, and still can’t get them working consistently.

I’m thinking of going with all Philips Hue, via a Hue Hub integrated with HE.

#4

I encouraged a friend to go all in on Sengled and found the same. I also found similar issues myself using a separate Hubitat dedicated entirely to bulbs. They'd usually turn on and off when asked, but sometimes I'd have to activate scenes or send color or level commands twice to get that part right. Group messaging usually helped, but sometimes the problem still remained.(My guess is that Hubitat sending so much at the same time was overwhelming to the Zigbee network or the bulbs, but I started moving everything of mine back to the Hue Bridge to get rid of these annoyances and the friend is currently migrating most of his to the same.)

I love Hubitat but would definitely recommend a Hue Bridge if you have a lot of lights.

#5

@billmeek Toggle is used to turn on or off with each successive activation of it. So if your light is on and you press toggle, it will go off and if it is off, it will turn on. Good to turn a light on/off with a single button. Set usually just sets a particular value for something but doesn't necessarily turn anything on or off. So if your light is already on and you "Set" the color, it will change the color. If it's off, it will also "Set" the color and then turn on. Reading through what you show above, it seems to work as I would expect it to except the very last section with the single bulb off, I would expect it to come on. Hope this helps some.

#6

Thank you. I had read that before and tested with generic drive for another color issue I was having and it didn't really help. So I reverted back to the Sengled driver. I may try again the generic driver again and re-run the same tests.

Not a lot of lights here. I have 14 of the Sengled Element Color Plus bulbs including the 2 outside (front and back porch). Switching them on/off and setting levels has been reliable given the small area and the overabundance of zigbee repeaters in place. Setting the level and color (or temperature) has mostly been fine when using smaller groups (i.e. "kitchen light" is a group of 3 bulbs in a single ceiling fixture). I have noticed that I may have an issue when changing "all lights" to another color via Alexa on rare occasion. But so far I've attributed it to sending multiple bulb commands too quickly. A good example is if I accidentally set off the HSM-Away alarm which turns on all 14 lights and sets them to red. When I quickly cancel the alarm, most of the bulbs go back to one of the white colors. But a few bulbs may (but not always) still be set to red if I immediately issue a voice command "set all lights to warm white".

@lelynch That was exactly the information I needed. Thank you!

The Sengled bulbs allow color pre-staging and I thought that toggle to set aught to allow you to change the color while off without turning the light on. So if neither toggle/set can change the color when the bulb is off, I assume that you would use the action:

SetBulbColor
SetBulbColor.png837×354 20.8 KB

Which (unfortunately) doesn't appear to work.

#7

Something like this should work and is much easier to set up. You don't have to select a level. Setting the level right after color or CT may turn on lights even with color prestaging and level prestaging checked

image
image.png1021×640 49.3 KB

If the light is on then I send the command with zigbee group messaging, but if it is off I send it individually because sending it to the group will turn it on no matter what.

#8

Thank you Ken.

1 Like
#9

My pleasure. I hope that helps :slightly_smiling_face: