Phantom Color Ghosts - Hue Just Went Bat Crazy

Hello Community,

My HUE rule for ‘on motion’ is now randomly changing the color between warm and a strange alien-green glow. I’ve narrowed down the color-changing events to the motion detector. Literally any new time motion is sensed, the light changes color. The next time, it changes back. It cycles between two colors. The command for the motion detector with that rule is to “turn on & set color.” Best I can tell is the color part is corrupted somehow. Is anyone else having this one???

Cheers!

2 Likes

I’m having the same problem. Also happens with button pressed triggers.

What are y’all using to control your lights (smart app? ).
I’m not seeing it here.

Same problem here. Apparently Hue are having a bad day. :slight_smile: Sorry for the off color joke.

I am using Smart Lighting app triggered by motion sensors. Warm White = Random(Warm White or Alien Green) while Energize = Random (Bright White or Baby Blue). They seem to alternate between colors. It’s a complete surprise every time I walk into a room!

Apparently this is isolated to smart things control of Hue lights. The scenes through the Hue app still select the correct colors every time.

1 Like

Confirmed the same behavior on button triggered lighting (Turn on & set color) events.

Alien invasion here too. Smart Lighting motion instance going crazy.

1 Like

Yes - I noticed today half my hue lights were off color - the others were fine with a motion triggered switch. The light strips were green the G10 bulbs were the normal white I use as a default.

Very odd.

I don’t think it’s limited to smart lighting motion. I just selected a bulb directly from the ST device and every time I select a color, it complies for a second and then changes shortly after to a different color. This appears to be a more general ST <-> Hue integration issue.

1 Like

Nope… all good here. I’m using CoRE to control all of mine.

1 Like

Are you using CoRE to “Turn On”, “Turn On and Set Level” or “Turn On and Set Color”?

Same behavior here. Just started about 4-5hrs ago. I have SmartLighting set up with SmartThings Motion Detectors to automatically turn on/off lights. I’m using the Warm White setting, so I get that alternated with an “alien green” color. It seems to be random which I get whenever the motion detector senses motion.

Interestingly, I can see mine briefly flicker the opposite color sometimes. So if it’s warm white and I move, it might turn green for a fraction of a second, barely perceptible, before going back to warm white. So I think there’s some race condition here. Both commands are sent and whichever is second is the one that sticks.

Edit: Also, I can confirm the behavior a previous poster mentioned: If you set a color manually, it’ll stick for a second or so and then, on its own, change to a different color. I cannot replicate this in the Hue app. It seems like a SmartThings issue.

Is this just with Smart Lighting app?

Doesn’t appear so. I can cause a color shift to happen simply by manually selecting a color for the light from within the SmartThings app. It’ll change to that color for a fraction of a second, and then change to something else (where “something else” doesn’t follow any pattern I can identify).

Mine went crazy too. I use Smart Lighting to turn on all of my lights, so I suspect it’s that at fault in my case.

(I do admittedly still use Rule Machine for some stuff as I’ve mostly been out of the loop since until today my devices had been working perfectly for 4 or 5 months).

What version of Hue Connect are you using? The stock one found in marketplace or are you using one of the custom ones found in the forum?

I absolutely can not replicate this with my hue lights…

Gen 1 & 2 Hue Color bulbs connected to a Gen 2 Hue Bridge.
Automations are controlled by CoRE.

All colors are changing as programmed.
Button controller (minimotes) are setting the colors as programmed
Setting colors in ST app works just fine

I just double checked my Hue Connect SmartApp… While in the SmartApps tab of the IDE it looks like I’m using the stock app…

but, in reality it seems that I am actually using this little piece of code here.

Maybe give this one a shot… I wonder if you just copy and paste this over your current code if you will keep everything, or if you will lose all of your bulbs and have to rebuild… hmmmmm… I can’t promise what it will do… I haven’t touched this in months…

good luck!

Edit 24 August 2016
I’ve double checked all of my stuff. I am NOT running the custom smartapp of hue connect I posted above. I am running the stock ST smartapp that is installed via the market place. I am however, running a custom dth for my bulbs. All bulbs are connected to the hue bridge.

I can not duplicate any of these problems. I’ve been running all of this for months, with no issue.

This is where you can find the device handler I’m using. Since these bulbs are zigbee you should be able to install this dth and change the dth for your bulbs in the ide. Then by refreshing the bulb in the app, it should update the dth. I was reminded this morning that the dth is what calls the color, not the smartapp. If this is a major problem for you, you can give it a try.

https://github.com/CyrilPeponnet/smartthings/tree/master/smartapp/HueConnect/HueDevices

@Aaron please feel free to look at my account fit troubleshooting this. I am not having any problems and can not duplicate the issue.

1 Like

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m using the stock Hue Connect app with Gen1 Hue bulbs and bridge.

Considering this just started a few hours ago, I think it’s a bit too early to panic and potentially lose all my bulbs and automations. I tried to file a ticket with SmartThings about it, but every time I click submit it just sends me back to the main support page and I don’t get an email that a ticket was created. So I’m pretty sure the support site hates me.

1 Like

I’m also running the stock published Hue Connect smart app. Considering there have been many changes to improve Hue, today’s events not withstanding… I’m also in no rush to replace with a custom version and go through the pain of reconfiguring everything quite yet.

I have been doing some testing though. I noticed that while, as of today, color selection in the ST device, Smart Lighting and button apps appears to render the wrong colors intermittently switching between two alternating color pairs… The AskAlexa integration seems to get it right every time. It appears that this might have something to do with the way the colors are requested in the code.

Curious, I installed CoRE (I’ve been looking for an excuse to do so) and tried various combinations of set commands with some interesting results.

Setting color by RGB values (e.g. #FF0000) and color temperature (e.g. 2000K) seem to produce consistent results and accurate colors. Setting colors using the named colors was inconsistent. For example:

Red => Red
Warm White => Bright White
Soft White => Bright Lime Green
ivory => Medium Lime Green
Lime Green => Darker Lime Green ( had to be sure) =😀

Since RGB and Color temperature values were accurate and consistent in CoRE. I might consider this a fallback plan, but I’d be curious to know what changed and if it will be fixed before going through all the effort to rework. I also noted that CoRE’s response time was significantly slower than the Smart Lighting SA… Understandably as this is a monumental bit of software development.

1 Like

I have only one color hue bulb direct pair to the ST hub and the rest to hue hub. It’s using a custom handler. It’s like Christmas when there’s motion. This is only happening with Smart lighting. CoRE is working fine.

I have the same configuration. I fixed the problem by eliminating “set color” from the Smart Lighting rule. Very odd behavior.

@tslagle13 Can we get a verdict on this one? Did something change in an integration somewhere? It is not urgent by any means but certainly caused some wonder and investigation.