FAQ: Are Smart Bulbs Repeaters? (Updated 2019: the new answer is yes, but may be inconsistent)

[JDRoberts]

@Royster

Thank you @JDRoberts for this information. I think I can confirm the Ikea lights are also repeaters. When on, two buttons I have in the same area work. If off at the switch, the buttons are dead. So I’m thinking they’ve connected to the bulbs rather than the hub? Before I connected them they worked fine. Any way around this as my other half always hits the switch

The following might give you some ideas (this is a clickable link)

FAQ: Philips Hue and Other Smart Bulbs - What sort of light switches to use with them? (Long FAQ)

Thinking on a big move to Hue lights, the real question is - what switches to use with them? If they’re all automatable via ST and other devices, do I really want to put them all on controllable switches too? There’s the advantage that I can arrange to ensure those switches are on so that the the Hue bulbs would be too…but it also leaves open the ability for folks to just turn them off and leave them off. Hmm. Thoughts?

If you mean is there a way to keep your other devices from using the IKEA bulbs as repeaters, the only way is to take the bulbs off power, take the hub off power and take out any batteries in it, leave everything else on power, and leave it that way for at least 15 minutes.

This would cause your other zigbee devices, including the buttons, to go into panic mode because they can’t find the hub.

After 15 minutes, put the hub back on power but leave the IKEA bulbs off power.

Now all the zigbee devices Will start rebuilding their neighbor tables, but they won’t use the IKEA bulbs as a parent because those are off power and signal strength is part of the equation when the other devices are selecting a parent.

If it was me, I would keep the IKEA bulbs off power until the next day because it could take a while for all the neighbor tables to get rebuilt. But a lot of people would only wait one hour. It’s up to you.

This method should work to keep other devices from choosing the bulbs as repeaters, which means if someone turns the switch off to the bulbs it won’t affect the other devices, but it’s a pain in the neck, and you will have to do it again anytime you add a new zigbee device or you move a zigbee device to a different location in the home or your hub has been off power for at least 15 minutes.

BTW… back to your current situation (pun intended)… Most smart bulbs are intended to always be on power. The obvious reason is because that way they can hear the next command from the network. But the not so obvious reason is that when you turn the switch off and then turn it back on there is a big rush of current (called inrush current).

That’s not a major problem if it only happens a couple of times a year like when there’s an emergency power outage. But if you are using a switch to regularly turn current off and on to the bulbs several times a week, you can over time damage the radios inside the bulbs, making expensive bulbs that much more expensive. It’s not a safety issue, it just means that a bulb that is supposed to last 15,000 hours might only last 10,000.

That’s why it’s better to use one of the methods in the FAQ I linked to above to make sure that people are not using the switch with smart bulbs. FWIW…