I moved from smartthings because on Feb 15 they pushed an update that killed all my 100 zigbee (sylvania BR30) bulbs. I am well aware of the reputation that these bulbs have and I know first hand how difficult they are.
Until the update I created a reliable mesh that worked flawlessly. It took a lot of time, trials and errors.
Now I rebuilt my mesh (various turn off and restart changing position of the hub, moved wifi router, changed order of things in the rebuilding of the mesh)
but 2 issues are still present:
alexa voice command are very slow to respond;
the mesh is very unreliable, many of the bulbs being dropped any now and then.
Any suggestion is appreciated to diagnose and solve.
What version of the Hubitat hub do you have, and what FW version are you on?
My first thought would be "wow that's a lot of bulbs!" But that's probably not where you want to go. I think what I might suggest if you really want to keep the bulbs is to separate them onto their own zigbee network on a separate channel with a dedicated zigbee controller. You might or might not need some line-powered repeaters on that network.
Before I ditched most of my Sylvania bulbs for Hue (I have 16 of the RGBW RT 5/6, 5 Flex XL, and 2 gardenspots that have been great), I had close to 70 Sylvania lights running on a C-5. It was a little painful to maintain. I actually had to add some repeaters to make them more reliable; mostly GE in-wall dimmers and Smartthings outlets. Still I would have to rejoin a bulb once or twice a month. It seemed like once I got the number of Sylvania lights down under 50, things finally became completely stable. I personally would use 2 hubs for 100 Sylvania Zigbee lights. They are always changing routes and maybe as routers (which each bulb is) don’t always keep good track of their internal routing tables. Even Hue puts a 50 bulb limit on the Hue bridge.
thanks for the reply.
Been there... but again with over 15 repeaters (mostly IRIS plug zwave zigbee) I was able to stabilize it. I tried to separate the bulbs from everything else no change.
No, but it might be pertinent that I don’t import individual bulbs unless I really want to control them individually. I import groups created in the “Groups and Scenes” app from Hubitat so zigbee group messaging is used when possible. I also don’t import anything into Alexa that I’m not really going to use. Alexa is a cloud integration, and I don’t rely on it for anything important. I do have every single device imported into Apple Home via the Homekit beta app and Homebridge because it’s local control and it doesn’t seem to get bogged down like Alexa.
I used to see this a lot with the A-19 rgbw bulbs. I figured they were overheating because they would get too hot to touch. Once they cooled off, they would start responding to commands again. I didn’t have any of them in enclosed fixtures, and the Hue lights that replaced them don’t run hot. I also had 6 BR30s that did this less frequently. The rt 5/6 version hasn’t had the same issues. I forgot that I also have 5 (very hard to find) high output rt5/6 rgbw Sylvanias that have been in use nearly 24/7 in my kitchen for ~4 years with zero problems.
It's funny, I've 12 a19 that overheats and still work. Many of the br30 I'm seeing being dropped are in well ventilated fixture.
I been dragging with them since 2016 and yes they're a pita, but i was at a point that it was working for me. I didn't drop a bulb in 2 years almost. And then smartthings decided to destroy all my work.
but again with over 15 repeaters (mostly IRIS plug zwave zigbee) I was able to stabilize it. I tried to separate the bulbs from everything else no change.
