SmartThings with Sengled bulbs to Hubitat

I had a SmartThings dongle for my Nvidia Shield TV but they discontinued service about a year ago. I finally got around to buying a Hubitat but I've found it difficult to add/pair devices.

For the Sengled (I have [2] E11-G13) bulbs I tried pairing but it didn't work. Next I reset them, power on/off 15 times, then got the bulbs supposedly in pairing mode and the bulbs flashed 5 times. Then I tried pairing again but still Hubitat fails to find them. I brought the lamp to within 2 feet of it. I also tried initiating pairing, starting with both the light off, then after initiating pairing turning the light on and also with the light already on when initiating pairing.

The SmartThings bundle that I bought only had the dongle and the 2 bulbs. There was no other hub. Does Hubitat need some sort of Zigbee hub to communicate with these Sengled Zigbee E11-G13 bulbs?

I've seen some posts mention that you can't have more than so many Zigbee devices but my Hubitat is new and only has 3 other Kasa power switches paired. So I shouldn't be reaching the Zigbee device # limitation.

Appreciate any help!

Nevermind, I noticed Hubitat for some reason showed a System Message alert and said the Zigbee network was offline. I didn't even know you could turn Zigbee off.

Anyways, I reset my Zigbee network and successfully added the bulbs.

Yes, you can turn it off, or it can turn off if your hub is low on ressources. Is there a lot setup on your hub?

No, I'm just getting started. I've only got 5 devices currently added. It's far from intuitive. I have a network with multiple vlans which further complicates things. What would cause Hubitat to run low on resources?

As far as I can tell, Hubitat doesn't at all support devices on different vlans.

I haven't yet figured out how to create a dashboard. Going through the device or rooms tab via the Android "app" (or glorified web app) is a terrible experience.

Now I'm having a similar issue with adding my thermostat with Z-Wave. I'm not sure if proximity is an issue or not but I can't move the thermostat and trying to move the hubitat around the house to try to add devices isn't very practical. I'm not sure what the 'appropriate' range a device should be within the Hubitat when pairing. I'm also not experienced with Zigbee/Z-Wave. I don't know if these devices communicate outside my LAN to each other or if their communication is restricted to it's vlan.

These issues are new to me as for whatever reason on SmartThings, HomeAssistant, Google Home it was far easier to add and interface with various devices.

Just some notes.

1: If you have a failed z-wave pairing, STOP. Check your z-wave settings page for ghosts (there won't be anything in the routing column). Delete device there. Reset physical device before trying again.

2: Don't mix Zigbee ZLL based bulbs (Cree, Hue etc) on the same mesh with ZHA devices (most everything else) as they make really bad repeaters and will crash your mesh like a drunk bride's maid at a wedding reception. Segregate those kind of bulbs to their own mesh either using another hubitat or a HUE bridge. The exception to this are sengled bulbs as they do not repeat. This is a good thing but you may want a zigbee repeater or two around to strengthen your zigbee mesh because of it.

4: Don't just unplug your hub to reset it. That will cause database corruption. (On the occasion you actually do have to, do so at the wall, not the hub). If your DB does become corrupt, there is an easy fix, but always best to shutdown cleanly from the settings menu and then unplugging.

4: Ask questions. Everyone is here to help one another. :slight_smile:

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Zigbee and z-wave devices are not a part of your LAN. Zigbee and z-wave each form independent wireless networks.

The hub itself is assigned an IP address on your LAN, so it can be accessed via a web browser or the mobile app, communicate with the Hubitat cloud, integrate with some other devices (non-zigbee or z-wave), etc.

So regarding support for VLANs. I’m certainly no expert, but the hub is just an end device and can send/receive IP packets across VLANs if you have your VLANs and firewall rules configured appropriately.

If you haven’t seen the hub documentation pages, you might find that several articles are helpful since you’re just starting out.

https://community.hubitat.com/docs

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I looked at Z-Wave Details page but see nothing. Z-Wave status shows 'Enabled' but there are no devices to delete. Z-Wave logs are empty.

When you say reset physical device, do you mean factory reset? I'm concerned about doing that as it communicates with my heat pump and I don't know if I'd mess something up in performing a factory default reset.

I'm not really sure what a Zigbee ZLL based bulb is. I do have Hue bulbs but haven't been able to get Hue added to Hubitat (I'd read this might be because I have my Hue bulbs on a separate IoT vlan?). So if I have a mix of Zigbee ZLL based bulbs, you're saying I would have to buy another Hubitat to manage them? I do have a Hue bridge but it was my understanding that Hue bulbs won't work without a Hue bridge.

Good to know about the Hub needing to be shutdown. Yet another thing I'll have to put on a battery backup, have to shutdown for planned power outages and figure out how to configure Hubitat to communicate with my NUT server to work with my UPS.

If there aren't any z-wave devices attached to your hubitat then you won't have any ghosts to remove. You do have to exclude any z-wave devices from previous hubs to pair them with hubitat (you can use hubitat with the exclusion) but if you get repeated failed pairings you need to factory reset the device you are trying to pair. This isn't a hubitat thing, it's a z-wave thing.

Hue, Cree, and the like are zll based zigbee bulbs and should be on their own mesh. If they are on a Hue Bridge leave them on the hue bridge and use Coco Hue from the hubitat package manager to connect hubitat and hue. The hue bulbs will then be put on hubitat that way but kept on their own mesh.. If Hubitat is having problems communicating with your Hue Bridge and they're on seperate vlan's you will have to alter your firewall rules to allow them to talk to eachother.

I also recommend in your DHCP server, create a reservation for Hubitat and your Hue bridge so they don't lose eachother and you don't lose dashboards to HE changing it's ip address.

Any zigbee devices you have have to be factory reset to join to Hubitat or they will stay joined to your old hub.

There is a community nut driver available I believe. [DRIVER] NUT Discovery + UPS & Outlet Status

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