I’ve come across a couple old posts about this behavior but still haven’t found a solution. I have 6 Sengled BR30 bulbs tied to the same light switch and only connected to my SmartThings HUB. I also have them in a Group/Room in the SmartThings app. I have no automation/routines set up. At random times throughout the day/night all bulbs turn on at once. When this happens and I visit the app the “status” is different each time. These are the various statuses I see.
a. The app says all lights and the group are connected but all OFF.
b. The app says the group is OFF but one of the 6 bulbs is ON (it’s not the same bulb each time I see this).
c. The app says the group is ON and one of the 6 bulbs is ON (it’s not the same bulb each time I see this).
d. The History doesn’t show any ON event at the time all bulbs turned ON.
e. The History shows one ON event for one of the bulbs at the time they all turned ON.
Note that in every scenario all of the 6 lights are physically turning on all at once (i.e. it’s never like 1 bulb or some subset of the 6). So as you can see this is very confusing. I have already run through all the reset exercises, deleting and re-adding of bulbs and the group, uninstalled/reinstalled the app, cleared cache, etc. – Basically I’ve tried everything support has suggested.
One post mentioned disabling the auto update service within the app. I just did that now under SmartThings settings > Auto update device and services > switched that to OFF. I also went to the Hub settings and set Device firmware updates = Do not allow. I am now waiting to see if that resolves the issue. I also see there is a Secure mode setting. I’m apprehensive to turn that OFF since it says if the bulbs loose connection I have to manually re-add them. I’d rather not turn that off b/c the bulbs are in a ceiling fixture/not easy to get to without a ladder.
Any suggestions?
Phone: Pixel 4 w/ Android 10
SmartThings App: Android version 1.7.47-22
Hub: SmartThings (3rd gen/latest) w/ firmware version 000.031.00004
Hub is hardwired to my router and according to support the WiFi connection/communication distance to the bulbs is fine and strong.
Bulbs: Sengled BR30
I have 13 of those bulbs and never experienced any issues. I’m also not one to use groups in the app and instead use groups in Alexa and Google Assistant.
Maybe it is the group? Try going without a group in SmartThings set for a few days and see if that helps. Then try creating a group of just 3 bulbs and go another couple days. Might help narrow it down.
Another thought; are you using the Smart App that sets the lights based on an individual light? As an example, if light 1 turns blue turn the rest blue. If so, disable that as well.
Thanks so much. I have just deleted the group. We’ll see what happens. No I don’t have any cross-triggering going on, just scenes that I can manually turn on and off. Also I am only using the Smart Things app currently (I’ve already killed all the lights from Alexa for now to rule that app out).
I did start monitoring the issue in the ST API logs. I see when the issue occurs it’s right after a PING command is sent to a given bulb. Immediately after that the light ON event occurs. I passed this info to support just now but here’s a screenshot of what I’m talking about.
I’m curious what is sending the ping and why. I went through my logs and never find any pings.
Do you have any repeaters communicating to those bulbs? Just wondering if the hub is losing those devices at times and searches for them.
Do let us know what support comes up with.
Interesting… No I don’t have any repeaters I don’t think? Hub is just connected via ethernet in to one of my standard WiFi router’s outputs (TP-LINK Archer C7). Now I do have another router output going to a TP-Link 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Easy Smart Switch. That only has my game consoles plugged into it though. I don’t think that could be in play but maybe? I will say that it seems the Hub does lose connection with one or more of the lights at various times. Why that would be is beyond me though, my overall set up seems very standard.
I have yet to witness the issue since deleting the group. But going through various logs I do still see incessant pinging. Like Patio 1 for instance it’s nothing but pings over and over again the past few hours. These pings are still happening even after those above settings were turned off and the group deleted (since yesterday 6/26/2020 ~ 2:45pm PDT). I’ll reply again if the issue happens again or when support responds back, whichever comes first!
I just replied to your open Support Ticket with us, but seems this has mostly stopped occurring. The behavior stopping when the Lighting Group was deleted I have to assume is a coincidence. A Lighting Group is just a UI thing within the App, it does not create any sort of link or association between the bulbs within your Zigbee Network.
As well, the pings are just a way of checking in on the device itself, to determine if it is or is not online, so we can offer an accurate status within the App. This is normal, and shouldn’t cause the device to change state.
I mentioned a few other things in my response, but I do think it would be worth checking on:
The Switch you mention all these Bulbs are wired to. These Sengled bulbs will return to an “On” state when power cycled, even if they were “Off” before. If your Switch is faulty or cannot support the load of 6 Zigbee Bulbs, this could be causing them to lose and regain power sporadically.
Adding in a Zigbee Router device. This is what @Nameless was alluding to above. Currently, all of these bulbs are non-sleepy or sleepy end devices.
Thanks @garrett.kranz. Oddly enough I didn’t receive an email notification that you had replied to my case. Thanks for following up here.
The issue literally hasn’t resurfaced since I deleted the Lighting Group (been > 72 hours now). I haven’t changed anything else since that AFAIK and anything I changed prior did not resolve the issue. Before deleting the group the issue was occurring multiple times per day. Are you 100% sure that deleting the group is not what fixed this?
There will be a delay as my response routes through the original representatives that were handling your case before it was escalated, just wanted to let you know you can expect a response from us soon.
Yeah I’m positive, the Lighting Groups are handled by a cloud service that simply aggregates the selected devices into a single on/off/dim (if applicable) command option. This is roughly the same as grouping them into an “All Off” or “All On” Scene as far as how commands hit the lights themselves.
Glad to hear you haven’t experienced issues in awhile, though. Keep in touch about this in the support request if it comes back up!
Thanks @garrett.kranz. We really should get the actual solution figured out and posted here so that others don’t have to go through what I have in order to fix it. I can’t imagine the fact I haven’t seen the issue in almost 4 days now is coincidence. If it resurfaces I’ll surely post again here. I look forward to hearing back on the case and learning the root cause from your team so we can share it to others facing this issue.
@garrett.kranz This issue has resurfaced seemingly out of nowhere. Every day for the past week one of my bulbs will turn on on its own. Afaik I have made no changes that would have reintroduced the random turn ons. No automations added, nothing else in control of these lights besides my Smartthings hub and the Smartthings app ad hoc. Can you please advise?
Sorry to hear that! My two thoughts on what could be causing this:
A issue similar to that of what is known to be experienced by LIGHTIFY bulbs (and similar models) where they “turn on” randomly because the bulb software crashes, the light reboots, and then returns to an “ON” state after the reboot. These Community posts cover that phenomenon: Osram Lightify Smart Bulbs Randomly Turning On / OSRAM LIGHTIFY Light turning on by itself (there are definitely more examples out there).
The Switch you have these bulbs attached to cannot support the load of all the lights. This you’d have to check on yourself and I am by no means an electrician.
I’m pretty confident though these bulbs are losing power or rebooting, as they do return to an “ON” state when that happens. I use Sengled bulbs as well for a few lamps in my house and can attest to that they do that when power cycled, although I’ve never had the specific issue you describe with them. Hope this is helpful!
