Cree & GE ZigBee Bulb Issues

They were a no show. I could not get them to pair. With each of my three bulbs I have tried everything we discussed, then a few variants (hub resets, power cycling, initiate pair from different devices, doubled the search time, on\off\on timing, and yet other illogical activities I am embarrassed to admit).

I have lots of patience for these kind of things, but at some point you have to turn away (at least for now). Hate to give up, and still open to suggestions.

Hub detals:
Home Hub
Name Home Hub
Zigbee Id D052A80041E00001
Status ACTIVE
Firmware Version 000.013.00013
Hardware Version hub v1, US customer
Location Home
Last Activity At 2015-03-06 3:57 PM UTC
Last Ping Forced From Server Attempted At 2014-08-03T01:56:31.316Z
Last Ping From Hub At 2015-03-06T15:57:53.003Z
Date Created 2014-08-03 1:56 AM UTC
Last Updated 2015-02-06 11:39 AM UTC
Data
backupVersion: 0.9.211
bootloaderVersion: 4
hardwareID: 0001
localIP: 192.168.0.100
localSrvPortTCP: 39500
localSrvPortUDP: 0
macAddress: --removed
zigbeeChannel: 24
zigbeeFirmware: 1.5.4
zigbeeNodeID: 0000
zigbeePanID: 01E0
zigbeePowerLevel: 254
zwaveControllerStatus: 01
zwaveHomeID: CA61AC5A
zwaveNodeID: 01
zwavePowerLevel: 0
zwaveRegion: 1
zwaveSerialVersion: 4
zwaveSucID: 01
zwaveVersion: 0329

Same exact as my hub.

When you are attempting to pair, is the light fully powered (not on a dimmer)?

Yes, using a floor standing lamp with a 3way socket (good thought).

Was hoping that was your issue, I heard of users having issues with the light not being 100% powered when pairing. Looks like there was an update to ST Hub yesterday, I guess it would be worth attempting to pull the update if your device hasn’t already, rebooting, then trying one last time before returning the bulbs. It is a real shame because for $15 you really can’t beat having a controlled LED bulb.

Agreed. Well, been down this road before. 99% of the time it’s something simple, and frequently obvious when understood.

Are you sure you reset the bulb completely before trying to pair again after the firmware update.

This is what I typically did when working with these types of bulbs. Removed any partial or uncorking bulbs from the app. Go to the app main menu. Force quit the app. Reboot the hub,

Reset the bulb. Check manufacturer instructions, this typically involves rhythmically turning the bulb on and off at a certain pace until the bulb dims and brightens again, or some voodoo like that.

Then, turn the light on in a lamp that is close to the hub.

Then fire up the ST app and attempt to add a device.

-Todd

Mine worked the other way around.

Turned off the lamp with Cree.
Click on + to add devices (did not select specific device)
When in discovery mode, turned on the lamp with 2 crees plugged in. Both discovered.

Note: when I tried adding it with the specific “Cree” bulb, I was presented with the same two options that you mention.

Works. Each paired in under 10 seconds.

Using a wall-switched fixture on the opposite side of the house they were reset and paired like breakfast and bacon. In this case, I just reset bulb, turn them on, and search. Took all of 10 seconds to find each.

I have to say, without having you guys to bounce things, this would have been a fail. Oh, and @chuck_pearce, thanks for pointing out how cheap these are. That kept me in the game.

I found finally from help at ST, that I had a paired “Unknown device” that was my “almond + window switch” that I was messing with. By advice from the help crew for ST, they directed me to delete the unknown item and Voila! the Cree bulbs started to detect. So if you have any paired “unknown” devices that have nothing to do with the Cree bulbs, delete them and then try a reset / re-pairing of the bulbs.

I put to GE Zigbees into the system last October. They worked fine.
One of them appears to have died. The app is still running the schedule but The light is not on when I check my security cameras (they’re in a vacation home). I’ll be checking it out shortly but figure the bulb went bad and will have to exchange it

I have 6 cree bulbs set up in our master bathroom. They paired after a while, but they aren’t working reliably at all. Sometimes they work as intended, other times one or two become unresponsive. The one or two that become unresponsive is random it seems. My ZigBee firmware is up to date. Any ideas on what the issue could be?

I’ve had reliability issues with both the GE and Cree bulbs. I was really hoping that the Cree bulbs would be better.

I picked up 6 Cree bulbs Saturday. They are working great so far, better then my 1 GE Link I have.

One question, some of the bulbs are on a regular switch. If they are switched off and back on, they come on. However, ST does not realize they are on. I have a rule set to turn them off after X minutes, but ST does not realize they are on. Any ideas on how to get ST to realize they are on?

This is the same with all connected lights i am finding. My Hue bulbs do the same thing in SmartThings. i mentioned this to support for the issue I had with my Cree bulbs,

Here is my statement to them:
Josh Koehler
Mar 3, 11:20 AM

Yep, when I turn it off and then back on.
When it’s off at the switch, but the bulbs were on prior, smart things still shows them as on. When you change the state manually in smart things to reflect that they are off, and then turn the switch back on, the bulbs light up, but they still show as being off in smart things. It’s like the hub doesn’t know what state they are in any more as it’s waiting for an action to trigger the polling of the state from the bulbs.

and this is their response:

Josh,

Thanks for the info – that first part is expected for now, as the state is essentially “unknown” when the bulb is turned off from the switch. But the second part seems like it should work better than that. I’ll pass that along to our QA team to take a look.

Thanks again, and let me know if you have any other questions.

Charlie

This is just how zigbee bulbs work, any brand. Not an ST issue. They are intended for always on installations. You will find much discussion of this in the forums. The simplest solution is to use smart switches, but that does cost more money.

A cheaper alternative is just to put a switch guard on the light switches so they can’t be turned off from the switch.

It seems like a simple fix. When the bulb regains power, it should send a ping back to the hub to say I’m back and I’m on.

Am I right?

Not in zigbee networks. The bulb isn’t smart enough to know it was off, and it doesn’t ping the hub.

What you’re describing would fit a WiFi network. But not mesh, it’s just not what they’re intended for. Minimal cost because of minimal traffic and pretty stupid (and therefore cheap) end devices.

JDRoberts, I respectfully disagree. The allure of a mesh network is that devices can come and go and the mesh stays strong


Bulbs should be fine, but it seems like something in ST is causing it to “forget” the deviceId as part of the poor fingerprinting and join process.

My apologies, and good catch.

There are two separate issues discussed in this topic.

The first one, that the hub gets confused about the status of a bulb turned off manually, is the one I was referring to as just a fact of life with zigbee devices.

The separate issue you’ve brought up earlier in the thread of the zigbee bulbs forgetting what network they belong to (or perhaps the hub not recognizing them when they return) is indeed a flaw that may be specific to SmartThings, and definitely shouldn’t happen. That’s the whole point of mesh, as you mention–the nodes should not have to be re-paired after a temporary absence, regardless of the reason for that absence.

It may, as you suggest, have to do with ZHA vs ZLL, I don’t know. But that’s one that needs fixing.

Thanks, I can say that my 100+ zigbee C4 mesh has devices dropping and adding all the time. Heck my sr250 c4 remote lost battery power for over a month, just pop in new batteries and its syncs right up


Same thing with my motion sensors, had one lose battery in the winter up high, outside
 Replaced battery, boom, working again.

I still think there is something I can’t put my finger on, but a flaw in the HA light profile / fingerprinting that just causes ST to gain amnesia over the deviceId (not the MAC) and upon re-joining creates a new deviceId instead of picking up the old.

Finally getting enough of these bulbs to try to isolate so I can work with support to try to fix. Problem is I think it might be when ST reboots a server, of all things that could be causing the issue