Ikea bulbs almost always offline

I have huge problems with Ikea bulbs going Offline in my ST setup.

I have a Smartthings hub V3. Ikea bulbs. Ikea 2-press contacts, Ikea movement sensors, and 2 Aqara door sensors.

Most often – but not always – the offline bulbs are the ones farthest away from the hub that needs to connect through another bulb. That via-a-bulb connection works for some bulbs, and others often report “Offline”. When I check in IDE on PC I can see that the offline bulbs have not “reported home” in +12 hours (which off course is not the same as they are not trying to). The 2 bulbs that gives the most hazzle and have been offline in more than 24 hours have clear line of sight in the same room to other bulbs connected to the Hub. 3 and 6 meters, but unobstructed view, and they don’t get connection.

I have had the hub turned off in +20 minutes. Tried starting it up again where I connect bulbs in stages, further and further away from the hub. To no prevail. I have tried restarting hub after 20 minutes where all bulbs where on; also without that solving the problem.

Also, my experience with the 2-button Ikea remote contacts is bad. Often I need to press many times for it to react. And the ones farthest from the hub doesn’t react at all, even though IDE tells they are online and connected to Hub via a bulb.

  • What do you do to avoid Offline Ikea Bulbs?

  • How do you get the Ikea 2-button remote contacts to be stable?

…and no, I’m not looking into replacing all Ikea gear. Just to have it working as intended….

So how are the bulbs being switched on and off? Are they completely automated?

The bulbs that are online, I control with the one Ikea 2-button switch that works. Via Google home/assistant voice, and via Smartthings app.

The ones offline I cannot control. I have to cut power (switch where possible or unscrew the bulb). And this off course has a very low wife-acceptance-factor… :frowning:

Has it started recently?

Do you know any source of interference in your environment? Overlapping wifi channel with your zigbee channel? USB3 devices? IKEA devices are usually stable, but your description suggest interference. You can see signal quality indicators in the IDE as well, together with messages received, sent and number of errors, etc…

I have ZigBee channel 20 and wifi channel 1. That should be a good match with small interference.

Fed up with the problem I took two actions. I moved the hub, and I made a factory reset of the hub also. Moving the hub shouldn’t be nescessary and bulbs were in a nice chain with very good possibility for a strong ZigBee mesh.

Moving the hub didn’t seem to fix the problems, so i also did at total facotry reset (held Reset on v3 hub while powering on, waiting approx 30 seconds for blinking yellow LED to turn solid).

And after that, it has performed flawlessly. An update tried to load also, but did give som errors. If it eventualy ended up updating i do not know, but V3 hub is * Version: 3.1.0. Things works fine now :slight_smile:

Should others find them self in a similar situation, a full factory reset of the Hub should be on the try-out list.

What Zigbee channel do you have now?

Good question.

2.4.ghz wifi was on channel 1 before factory reset of hub and movement of hub, and også still after.

Before reset of hub, Zigbee channel was 20, which was a good match for 2.4ghz channel 1.

After reset of hub, Zigbee channel is 11which is a not so good match for 2.4ghz wifi. But it works much better. I think the hub really needed a reset

As it works i’m in no hurry but later I probably will move 2.4 ghz to channel 11 (ZigBee 11 is far from wifi 11).

wouldn’t resetting the hub also mean all your automations, scenes, all other bulbs, etc. disappear?
i have 7 ikea bulbs in 2nd floor where none of them are remaining online. i moved the hub from ground floor to first floor. and rebooted after 20mins, no benefit.
the bulbs in the staircase to the 2nd floor are connecting well to the hub. the wireless zigbee motion sensor in the attic is also connecting to the hub.
only the bulbs are not.

I have exactly same problem, but the SmartThings hub are within 1.2 meter from the nearest bulb, and within 3 meters there are 9.
all are offline.
within 8 meter radius there are 16
The Philips Hue hub, can see and control all bulbs, so can Google, and hue essentials.
The most stupid thing is, I can turn bulbs on a d off from my Samsung tv…
but groups don’t work from there…

I have tried to reinstall one bulb, that worked, but is not working in automatsations, and with 6 switched ( totally in house I have 16 Ikea bulbs, none of them work) I also have two sonoff bulbs, they work fine, and around 12 sonoff switches and 3 tv’s and a camera that works.
Samsung vision sensor also work.
I can’t waste time on starting all over again… first I have to setup all friends of hue switches, then set up groups in Essentials, then hope they pop up in SmartThings, and then create rooms, groups and manually program all the switches.
work for several days totally…
Why does this happen? why is it not possible to search for already installed devices? why can the tv see all bulbs and control them, when the hub cant?
it is not smart at all… really not…