I think I spoke too soon. The three Sengled bulbs closest to the hub (within 10ft) continue to regularly disconnect. All other zigbee devices appear to be functioning normally.
I think my next step will be to reset/delete the problem bulbs from the hub, and re-pair them using the Zigbee Map app to force them to route through a repeater rather than directly to the hub. Unfortunately thats probably only a short term solution since they will eventually re-route on their own.
Open to any other ideas people might have. I could potentially put them back onto my C7 and use hub mesh, but that would be a last resort
Once you have the latest build (2.3.9.196 or above)...
If/when the bulbs drop off, could you please try adding a zigbee device? No need to have an actual device or to reset a bulb. I just want to see if it will cause them to start talking to the hub again. It's not a fix, but if this works, it may give us some ideas.
I have a Sengled bulb sitting around but not connected to anything, will set it up and monitor its behavior in the meantime.
When you say they disconnect, does that mean you can no longer command them? Or does that mean they no longer show up on the graph? If the latter my Sengled bulbs do that all the time. But they can be commanded and as soon as they are commanded they show up on the graph again.
Good question. They no longer respond to any commands. Power cycling or reseting/re-pairing the bulbs seems to fix it temporarily so I was assuming they were falling off the mesh
Updated the hub yesterday and haven’t seen the behavior improve.
The two bulbs furthest away seem to be staying connected ever since I reduced the radio power to 4. Not so much the case for the other 5 bulbs that are relativey close to the hub. I’ll try your recommendation tomorrow and report back.
For the last few weeks, when one drops off I’ve been putting the hub in pairing mode and first try power cycling the bulb. Sometimes it will find it as a previously paired device and reconnect More often I need to reset the bulb and re-pair (which also finds it as a previously paired device). Hard to say exactly when they drop off since they don’t regularly report and it’s only obvious when a command fails, but they tend to work initially but stop responding within 12hrs
Last night I was trying to get the 5 problematic bulbs reconnected and was finding that I would pair #1, pair #2, then recheck #1 and it would already be unresponsive a few minutes later. This happened pretty much every time I paired one of the 5 bulbs - another one would get booted. Not sure if was coincidence or if there was something strange going on at the time, but this was worse than what I was previously experiencing. All other devices were working fine and just the bulbs were affected.
I’ll start keeping a log so I can better document the exact behavior
Also, could you please see if doing a network rebuild from the Zigbee details page have any effect? It wouldn't be instant, but if it works, it should have an effect within a few minutes.
I've been doing various trials with my Sengled bulbs over the last two weeks in an (unsuccessful) effort to keep them connected to my C-8 Plus and wanted to share what was done.
In the end I was forced to keep them on my C-7 and use Hub Mesh
My C-8 Pro is on the latest firmware and Zigbee power is set to 4. I have over 200 zigbee devices, including numerous mains powered devices and dedicated repeaters within about 5ft of each bulb
The furthest bulb 2 floors away from the hub has been staying connected without any issues
The three bulbs 1 floor away and three bulbs in the same room as the hub all lose connection within an hour (sometimes within minutes)
Putting the hub back into zigbee pairing mode immediately after resetting/re-adding a bulb would sometimes (but not always) find the same bulb a second time as a previously paired device. Sometimes it would find one of my other zigbee devices that (to my knowledge) was connected and working properly
Doing a zigbee network rebuild after pairing did not keep any of the bulbs connected
Force-pairing (using Zigbee Map app) a problematic bulb to the nearest repeater (sonoff dongle-p, Inovelli blue switch, Ikea repeater) to avoid a direct connection to the hub did not keep the bulb connected
After tons of resetting, re-pairing, and cursing I found only one reliable method of keeping all the bulbs connected - pairing them to my C-7. I have not had a single bulb disconnect since.
Overall I would say my zigbee network was much more stable on my C-7. Occasionally devices now "miss" commands, and these same exact automations never had a problem on my C-7. Its particularly noticeable when multiple device commands are sent at the same time (i.e. "sunset" triggering shades, blinds and lights), but I'm occasionally finding some devices do not properly respond to simple automations the first time
I think there is something with the C8 that doesn't like these bulbs. Though the warranty hub fixed most of the pairing issues I was having with the Sengled bulbs, and with them staying connected, I still get some flaky behavior with the Sengled Candelabra bulbs that were also the worst behaving when I had my original issue. They do stay connected now, but maybe 5%-10% of the time they do not follow the command. Sometimes they stay on or do not go off, but I can still turn them off/on digitally if I notice they missed.
My regular size Sengled bulbs are still working with no issues at all, I'm not sure what is different with the Candelabra bulbs. Those are still bulbs I had been using with the C7 that I never had issue with until the C8.
I definitely agree with you - the issue appears to be specific to the C8/C8 Pro
I had the same bulbs and devices paired to my C7 for years without any issues. Now on the C8 Pro my Sengled bulbs are unusable and I'm finding the zigbee network to be a bit flaky in general.
Ironically I was an early adopter of the C8 along with all of its Zigbee issues. At the time I had no choice but completely roll my zigbee devices back to my C7. 1.5 years later I decided to try a C8 Pro because of the CPU/RAM improvements and I assumed all the zigbee bugs had been worked out.
We are in much better shape today than when the C8 was first released, but I still think there are some devices that the C8 doesn't play well with
Have to agree as well. For quite a while I have had to use my C7 and hub mesh. All my sengled bulbs and a few other devices have just not worked with my C8
I have been having very similar issues, and now most recently I’m unable to pair any Sengled bulbs. The C8 finds them and get’s stuck initializing. I’ve tried rebooting the hub, trying with clear keys, I have no repeaters (my hub is quite close and only have like 15 devices), I changed my channel to 25 and power of 12, I’ve rebooted the zigbee radio. Nothing seems to work. I have 5 bulbs that were migrated from my C7 and mostly are responding (still do something different in color/temp from what I ask occasionally). My C8 is up to date and at this point I’m not sure what else to try.
Zigbee channel 26 is power limited to 12 which you are using anyway. At my place, I found that there were two strong hub type devices on 25 which are not mine. I suspect those are the electric meters. Run a channel scan to see if you ought to move channels.
Ok gave this a shot and it keeps finding them like normal but always gets stuck at initializing. I did try the keys in clear as well, same thing happens.
