I’ve tried twice this afternoon to put in a claim with Cree for my now useless bulbs and their Website responds with a gateway error.
Just awesome.
The recommended I reset the bulbs, which i did…again. And I responded back to their email. I can’t wait to see what they try this time.
I did that already, twice.
They know there’s an issue with the FW according to ST. Maybe the Cree support staff don’t but good grief.
Yeah…but if they replace them with older ones that haven’t been updated…that should fix it, right?
Likely as long as you have Zigbee OTA bulb updates off on the hub to stop them updating.
Watch, for the first time ever in history I’ll end up getting something that doesn’t need updating out of the box the one time that I need it to be old firmware. LOL. The struggle never ends.
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I made the leap. Hue bridge and 8 bulbs are on the way. I’m done with Cree.
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They did the same to me. I had already reset all 8, twice. SMH
FYI, after explaining to Cree support that resets are not a solution they have agreed to refund the purchase price. My Cree bulbs are on their way to Cree via prepaid FedEx as I type.
I’m actually impressed Cree agreed to the refund but it is the right thing to do as the bulbs can no longer be considered useful with the flashing issue (believed to be the FW crashing and the bulb restarting).
My refund almost covers the cost of the hues/bridge I bought to replace the Crees. And BTW, since pulling the Crees and adding the hues my Iris sensors have been solid too.
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Just spoke to them too…they’re sending me out replacement bulbs. So we’ll see if those work any better. But they’re not taking the two I have back…so maybe I’ll use them in a closet or something. Somewhere I don’t really care about flickering. LOL
Just got my 2 replacement Cree bulbs from Cree today. They’ve both been on for about 3 hours and so far, cross your fingers, no flashing! Hopefully they stay that way. 
So, after a bit of back and forth with Cree support, they’re sending replacement bulbs for my 9 that are doing the flashing thing. I still haven’t found solid answers for the following:
-Do I need to disable OTA upgrades in the ST hub before swapping in the new bulbs? Or is the problem an old hardware rev that doesn’t play right with the new firmware?
-Is there any easy way to do a 1:1 bulb hardware swap instead of needing to modify all of my lighting automations, etc. to incorporate the new devices?
Quick answers:
- Yes, disable OTA updates otherwise you will likely get the flashing again.
- No easy way, have to do it by hand.
Your replies are quite timely. I just added another Cree bulb to my mesh and it was on older firmware. It was just updated yesterday afternoon (OTA enabled), and so far it’s been working just fine like my other 9 Crees.
It’s so odd that you guys are experiencing this while others aren’t.
@Ryan780, what firmware did your replacements come with?
It’s hard to say. I had two issues. The flashing is very random. I could go days without issues then it could happen several times in short succession. No pattern at all. The belief is it’s crashing FW and the bulbs restarting. Maybe the FW update process screwed up somehow and the FW itself is okay? No one seems to know. But I do know Cree caved quickly to my request for a refund so they know something is up.
My other issue was Zigbee sensors disconnecting if they had meshed through the Crees. Not sure if this happened when the FW crashed or not or something else caused them to become flaky repeaters. But I know taking the Crees out my network fixed my disconnecting sensor issue. You may not see this with a newly added Cree as none of your sensors are meshed through it.
I don’t have mine paired with ST anymore so I can’t really tell. Sorry.
I also had the random flashing. It would usually happen multiple times in a row and then go days without happening at all. Maybe when there’s another firmware update I will pair back to ST to try and update them again. For now they’re going in the garage where an occasional flash won’t bother anyone.
New bulbs from Cree haven’t exhibited any flashing for 3 or 4 days now. So it appears that bulbs are still shipping with old firmware.
I tried contacting Cree for replacement and they told me, its an issue created by ST. Cree has refused to provide replacement bulbs. Now in process of contacting ST support to see if they have any resolution for this issue or not.
Really? Cree provided me replacements no problem. Still no flashing after a week with the new bulbs.
Well, I sent Cree an email and all I have heard is crickets.
I have had it, and I will be boxing up 15 Cree bulbs and just shipping them back in a cardboard box. They are useless to me now. $300.00 shot down the crapper. I will never purchase any Cree product again.