GE Link Bulbs no more useful than standard LED's?

Thanks! I saw that code earlier but wasn’t 100% sure if it was the same code.

Some people have tons of problems, some people don’t have any. I’ve been (knock on wood) lucky so far and haven’t had them drop off randomly ever.

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Hi Brad, the stock GE Link devicetype now includes almost all of the custom code, so you could really go either way. I think we updated the custom type with the new UI style, and ST hasn’t done that yet.

Don’t forget if you have a v2 hub, the stock device type will run local with automations, but the custom one will not.

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There can also be channel issues, and since the SmartThings hub does not allow you to change the Zigbee channel, and its own channel is randomly assigned at the factory, that’s something that can affect some users and not others. And also depends on local interference.

My GE links drop off much less often when they are attached to a link hub than they were when they are attached to my SmartThings hub.

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THIS!

I have better experiences depending on my wifi channel. Also, with my neighbors equipment getting better, it appears their broadcast range has increased, further compounding plausible zigbee bulb reliability.

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I have issues with zigbee devices on one side of the house, including the SmartThings arrival sensor, many weekday afternoons starting right around 3:40 PM. It seems really clear that one of my neighbors has boosted Wi-Fi and a kid that gets home from school around then. :flushed:

Exactly why I love z-wave and cannot completely comprehend the zigbee push. I wish I had z-wave bulbs for my lamps…maybe one day.

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I finally started getting GE Link issues on the ST V2 hub just like I did with my Wink hub, strangely once the first failed, several have since failed in quick succession, what I have personally had success with is switching the light off at the switch for 15 minutes+ and then turning it back on.

Seems they integrate themselves back in to the mesh and start responding again without doing anything else.

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This might be of interest:

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Awesome, that was the page I was asking you about in PMs. As always, @JDRoberts to the rescue!

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Agreed. I really don’t understand how anyone can push Zigbee as more homeowners are getting high-powered WiFi.

I installed an Amazon Fire stick a few months ago, which only works on 2.4 Ghz and my entire Zigbee network went to hell. Ultimately, I just pulled the stick and everything started working again. That thing must spam the spectrum. Now I try to keep any 2.4 Ghz device out of the house and only use the 5GHz band on my router.

But after that incident, I won’t buy another Zigbee device. I dread the day I get a cord-cutting neighbor who is streaming a lot of video over WiFi. I’ll probably have to toss every Zigbee device I own.

(PS. Per previous discussion, the “IDE trick” works for both Zigbee and Z-wave.)

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I regret that I have but one like to give this post

Problem is Zigbee requires very advanced users. you need to connect to the IDE and search for your Zigbee Channel being used, then go online and learn about zigbee and Wifi overlapping then connect to your wifi devices and move all of them away from the wifi channel that your zigbee network lives in. I did this and it increased the reliability of my zigbee network along with buying 6 zigbee repeater outlets and clustering them in trouble spots in the home.

In other words, 95% of consumers will never ever be able to do this. Honestly ST could have made it a LOT more reliable by only using channels that sat in the main wifi overlaps or outside of wifi’s band, ch 15,20,25,26 are the only useable zigbee channels, and honestly I consider 15 and 20 to be barely useable. Having a “wispy” tol to sniff and show me the spectrum use going on in my location I see a lot of noise there.

http://www.mobiusconsulting.com/papers/ZigBeeandWiFiInterference.pdf - for more information…

Oh also turn off 802.11n support if you only have a 2.4ghz wifi router, it blows up the whole wifi band as it will start consuming most of it.

Just the above will make most people say, “OK, I’m not interested”

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Wow, I must be extremely lucky then. I took all 7 bulbs out of the box, put them in lamps, saw them blink, added to ST, and not one has dropped off yet. I didn’t even know they were in the same spectrum as wifi until I started reading this. It just worked for me, and I have two wifi networks (channel 1 and 6) running in the house.

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Or you dont notice any failures yet. they wont just drop off forever, they will just not respond here and there. Dropping off can be triggered reliably by simply unplugging your hub for 2 hours. the chances that your wifi messes up your zigbee for 2 hours at a time are slim, but you will probably see strange things like not turning on or off, or a very long delay, etc… If you are ok with living with quirkyness like that you may never actually see it as a problem. Most people I know if the light does not turn on or off within milliseconds of touching the switch they get concerned.

What get’s real fun is when door sensors dont trigger, except maybe a half hour later because they did not communicate and then finally made it through to the nearest device that could repeat and sends the signal. Battery operated devices are more prone to interference problems as they are much lower power to try and keep the battery lasting as long as possible and they dont do a repeat of the status regularly.

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In Europe a few years ago they passed new regulatory standards reducing maximum 2.4 band signal power ceilings to about half that of the US maximum because of concerns about signal pollution in the band. They were trying to get ahead of the problem. Phillips was one of the supporters of the new regulations, which was interesting. They wanted to be sure people in apartment buildings could still run their Hue lights. :wink:

http://www.jennic.com/support/solutions/00002

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That actually is my next step. Remove my two high power wifi access points and replace them with 4 low power access points across the house. Ubiquity UniFi will allow me to use really low power wifi while maintaining coverage.

What is amazing is that looking at how polluted the 2.4ghz spectrum is in a city apartment. Friend of mine can see over 200 wireless routers and access points from his living room on the 14th floor apartment he has downtown. he could not get the phillips HUE bulbs and hub to work in his apartment.

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Most weekdays at about 3:40 pm my SmartThings arrival sensor, which Is Zigbee, goes bananas. Keeps popping on and off the network.

I’m pretty sure one of my neighbors has boosted Wi-Fi and a kid who gets home from school around then.

:flushed: :desktop_computer::joystick::trackball::headphones:

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There are lots of variables: location of the lights, your WiFi devices, are they on 2.4 or 5, how much do you download, etc. What makes matters worse is that even if you do everything @Timgray suggests, you probably cannot control your neighbor’s WiFi. Interesting to hear what @JDRoberts says about the standards in the EU. I didn’t know that.

I’m just starting out. I have 6 GE link bulbs. Those i have in locations that don’t require a wall switch. I have two more in the outside lights off my garage. I always leave that inside switch on all the time. My wife and I have our phones with us all the time so that is not an issue.

I like them.