I have a Hue bridge and 8 hue A19 lights in my home.
Single story ranch. Two of the Hue lights at one end (master bedroom), four lights are in the other end (family room) and two lights are in the office (just off center in the house towards the family room).
All of the Hue lights worked perfectly except for one bulb in the office - it consistently went AWOL (unreachable, would not turn on or off reliably, etc.). It was one of two recessed ceiling lights on the same switch. After multiple bulb resets I replaced the “bad bulb” with a new Hue bulb assuming that since it was two feet away from another Hue bulb that worked perfectly that the first bulb had issues. Same problem w/second bulb.
Did bulb resets again, rebuilt Hue zigbee network, and the same problems persisted with both bulbs. All this time I never considered it a proximity issue since my Hue bulbs in my bedroom (much farther away) worked perfectly, and another Hue bulb in the ceiling three feet away worked fine.
Finally after getting another “Dad, the light didn’t come on again!” support shout from my family, I moved my Hue bridge into the office two days ago. All the other bulbs continue to work perfectly as before, and now, tah-dah, so does the problem bulb (or I should say the bulb in the problem location, since multiple bulbs in the same spot had difficulties).
So I’ve still no idea why that one location is a problem (maybe the ceiling fixture was installed differently or they used a different fixture, or something else in the ceiling was blocking the signal somehow) but moving the bridge solved it. The bridge is now about five feet away from the “bad light location.”
Just thought I’d mention this adventure in case it helps someone else dealing w/a recalcitrant bulb that “should work” but won’t.
I think I will need to do the same (despite having built a “server cupboard” in my study for the hub). The problem I have is that 1 or 2 of my kitchen ceiling lights don’t always come on (out of a total of 6). This always gets comments like “why don’t we just use the switch??” and I have no valid come back really.
…but I thought the whole point of a zigbee network was to avoid the need to move the hub closer to the lights? I have plenty of (always powered) bulbs between the hub and the kitchen.
I’d rebuild your zigbee network before moving anything, but clearly in my case that wasn’t solving my problem so I had to resort to bridge logistics. And remember that the Hue zigbee and non-Hue zigbee are separate - Hue lights don’t repeat for non-Hue lights, and vice-versa.
The Hue bridge is actually in a more central location in my home since I moved it. One of the main reasons I hadn’t put the bridge in the office before was that I didn’t want it too close to my router in the office, to minimize any wi-fi/zigbee conflicts. I’ve read here that you want your hubs/bridges 3m away from your router in general. I had to do some work to get power/ethernet to the bridge in a good spot in my office about 8’ away from my router, and so far it looks like interference isn’t an issue.
Yeah, I read that as well but sadly not that practical really. It’s especially frustrating given they say with one hand “plug your hub into your router” and with the other say “keep them away from each other”. It’s amazing that I can talk to a box in my house and it’ll turn on my lights, and yet we’ve still not managed to build wireless systems that can handle interference!
I have both Hue and ST devices creating a zigbee network (both networks have enough devices to create a decent mesh). I wouldn’t be surprised if they compete with each other though and also with my microwave, tumble dryer, hairdryer and the dog next door.
