I’m trying to get a ZigBee signal out to my mailbox, and the closest device is a Hue bulb in my porch light. Those only repeat for other Hue devices, and unfortunately the mailbox sensor I’m trying to reach is connected directly to SmartThings.
I thought I’d solve this by getting an IKEA bulb for the porch light, which theoretically should be a better repeater for the mailbox sensor.
However, upon installing the IKEA bulb into the porch light, it just flickers constantly. The brighter I set it, the quicker it blinks. If I set it to around 5% brightness, it stops flickering but it’s pretty dim.
After reading around a bit, it seems the IKEA bulbs (and some other LEDs… but not the Hue bulb that used to be in there) will do this when used with certain types of dimmers, and the porch light does get brighter/dimmer when it detects motion so I guess that’s probably the problem.
My question is… short of finding a new porch light or trying other brands of smart ZigBee bulbs, is there a way to fix the flickering/power/dimmer problem? Like I said, the Hue bulb had no trouble with the porch light so I’m not sure why that one works and the IKEA doesn’t.