All, Up until a couple of days ago I was ready to toss these bulbs in the trash (Really Just Return them) but after a nearly 2 hour phone call with Cree the engineer brought up a seemingly isolated oddity that’s related.
In California the energy companies there have replace the analog power meters with digital AMI (Smart Meters) in particular a brand called iTron.
Users of the Cree bulbs have reported pairing problems with their Smartthings Hubs and it turns out that those meters use the Zigbee protocol to communicate statistics back to the energy company. The RF signal is generated in an Omni-Directional manner so it has and does interfere with the communications of the Cree bulbs and I assume other Zigbee devices.
After my long discussion with the engineer and the inability to get ANY bulbs to pair I took a flashlight and when out and looked at my meter. Sure enough it’s an OpenWay meter made by iTron. Now I don’t live in CA I live in Michigan.
So the next day, as a test I took my ST hub to work along with the 3-4 bulbs I could not for the life of me pair. I plugged in my hub to works Internet connection and with my clip on lamp that I used at home to test I installed a bulb. I set my ST to look for new devices and then turn on the bulb, Kazaaaa Paired !!!
Next bulb, same story and each bulb performed the pairing in less than 5 seconds. No resets no fussing with on/off cycles, it just WORKED.
Now I have a probable culprit. Took my newly paired bulbs home with my ST hub and ALL works as it should.
Now I located some specs of the meter I have and I posted those with a link to the iTron site and meter info for your viewing pleasure or discomfort as it may.
I also looked up some of the crap the power companies are doing with these meters and how they can potentially affect my health or at lease my aggravation level when my home automation’s don’t work or my wifi is acting badly.
Hope this helps someone because I put lots of hours of phone calls, forum reading and trial and error into this.
PS. I’m also going to install a RF isolation mesh to see if I can reduce the Zigbee interference.
Specs:
OpenWay RFLAN Module » Two-way, unlicensed RF module »
Adaptive-tree RFLAN architecture provides easy installation and self-healing capabilities
Home Area Network (HAN) »
Every OpenWay CENTRON meter includes a ZigBee radio for interfacing with the HAN, in-home displays and load control devices »
The OpenWay CENTRON can store consumption from 2.4GZ OpenWay gas modules utilizing the ZigBee radio
https://www.itron.com/na/PublishedContent/OpenWay%20CENTRON%20Meter.pdf
Other links of interest:
http://emfsafetynetwork.org/make-your-own-smart-meter-shield/