Outdoor Smart Bulb on a photocell switch

SmartApps & Automations
1

Hello -
First timer here…
My house has an outdoor light on side of garage that is controlled by a photocell. Normally sun goes down light comes on, sun comes up light shuts off.

I wanted to put a smart bulb (color) at this location to run automations to change color of light at different times of the night…to match what my Christmas lights are doing.

I set up a Sylvania Smart Bulb (inside) and set up some automations with no issues. I then plugged my smartbulb outside. Naturally I plugged it in during the day so the “switch” would be off. However when the sun goes down the light does turn on but smarthings shows the light as offline. In fact it shows it offline no matter how close I get the hub to the lightbulb. No matter what I do at this location, even if the bulb is on smarthings shows it as offline. If I take the bulb and move it to lamp, smarthings sees it online immediately. Do smart bulbs not work if on a photocell switch? The bulb has power, obviously so I assumed smarthings would only see it “online” after sunset. That’s just not the case.

Any help is much appreciated.

2

You need to disable the photocell and use another method to control dusk to dawn.

Smart bulbs are designed to ALWAYS have uninterrupted power you dont know exactly how the photocell is disabling the bulb but for certain it interrupts the power some way.

I just replaced the fixtures where mine were.

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3

Thanks, I found an easy solution. Black electrical tape over the photocell did the trick.

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