What a mess around setting up a simple bulb.

[ericmark]

In the past bulbs came from Lidi or internet, and set up with Smart Life, but wanted a bulb for outside light, so she picked one up in Screwfix, we both tried setting up with phones with both smart life and the one recommended Wiz, tried again and again and then gave up and swapped bulb, put problem bulb in spare lamp tried with tablet and straight away worked.

Not a clue why.

 

[Rodders53]

Bulb is a shape a lamp goes in a luminaire.

So the reason may be the shielding from the luminaire (and/or its lamp-holder) vs that lamp's antenna to your wifi antenna(s)?
Different signal strength levels: lamp A works, lamb B don't due to superior s/n electronics within.
C'mon you're an Engineer. Think logically of some of the possible reasons.

One common reason for setup problems with many smart devices in dual 2.4/5 GHz WiFi systems is that the smart devices only use 2.4 GHz and need the 5 GHz switched off during pairing. That may or may not be relevant in this case?

 

[hllns]

There's a lot of moving parts here, sounds like the sort of result you might get if the wireless coverage to the outside fitting is marginal or it's picking up neighbouring interference, is it WiFi (802.11bgn) or Zigbee?

 

[ericmark]

I think the 2.4/5 Ghz may have been the problem, but not had problems in the past. Had this bulb been my first it would have also been my last.

All very well saying set to 2.4 Ghz, but could not see how to do this with my phone. I must admit I like the off function where it dims down the light first, rather than simply off.

The house when I moved in had two quartz halogen lamps with PIR's, these needed removing to do repairs, but the PIR would turn off before I had reached the door, and would also trigger when not required, so aim was a light I could turn on before I get out of the car, and will stay on until inside the house.

Steps up the side of the house are in poor condition, on my to do list, but the 9 watt bulb does a good job room for improvement, but now no need to use the phone as a torch. Still to fit a second one for steps other side of house, and one to fill in the gap between the lamps.

Wife picked up the bulb, likely tool station, 4lite Wiz 9 watt is on their list, and at around £9 they are cheap, the annoying thing was each time we tried, I had to re-enter the wifi pass word, I give up and swapped it with the one I had got from Lidi earlier, and fitted the 4lite Wiz in a standard lamp in living room to play with to see if I could get it to work, and down loaded the Wiz app on the tablet so I could better see the key board, and it then found the bulb with ease, as to if because closer to router or the tablet was 2.4 Ghz it is an old one I don't know.

Once paired in I could pair with google home, so now also controlled with a voice command. It will now be used other side of the house, for the steep concrete steps. I only use lights when I need them, can't see point in having them on when only visitor is milk man at night, I have set a timer for him.

I need more bulbs, likely another 4, so would be interested to hear how other people get on with different makes.

 

[ktuludays]

If it's a "smart" bulb is it simple?

 

[hllns]

Try to check the quality of the wireless connection close to where the fixtures are, connect to the wireless and do a speed test to push a bit of data over it and see if it drops out, it's slightly imperfect as a phone will behave differently from a smart device and it may use 5Ghz which a lot of smart kit doesn't do. If that's not working well I wouldn't rate your changes, you might be at the mercies of whatever variation there is due to the bulb manufacturer and fixture, how much your neighbours are using their wifi today etc.

If it were me I'd probably look to just have normal lights switched in/close to the house using a wired in smart switch of some kind.

 

[ericmark]

I did consider another smart relay, however would have needed to order from internet, could not really pick one up last weekend, the bulb I ended up using was zigbee so it has the hub a lot closer to it. I hope down to phone being 5 GHz and the tablet 2.4 GHz it was all well and good the instructions saying set to 2.4 GHz but there did not seem to be a option on the phone to switch to 2.4 GHz and the router is always running both.

Going out not a problem, can turn outside lights on/off from main house, returning is the problem, when we bought the house it had quartz halogen lamps with PIR's on them. The distance from where car is parked to house means the PIR's did not see me park the car, so first section was in darkness, the shed does not help, and doors into main house are up steps either side, so as we started on the steps the lights would switch off.

So switching on lights with the phone seems the best option, also smaller wattage so we can leave lights on for visitors. The steps to left are steep but have hand rails, to the right tend to get slippy in wet, but not as steep, my preferred route, and wife parks at top of house, which also has lighting problems, hardly any light from street lights, so she turns on her bedroom lights to give just a little light, OK if we remember and turn on outside lights before leaving, but if we intend to arrive back in daylight and have not turned them on, it is a case of using phone to light the path, tried a solar light, but depends on the cats, if they have been walking past it and triggering it, likely flat when we get home. And the slope tends to get moss on it, and easy to miss edge of steps, so regular weed killing and lights required.

Never mind intruder lights, we want lights for us an visitors. The latter we can set time for milkman, and others tend to arrive in the light, so lights only for leaving. The trees mean PIR at top of house with wall lights is on/off all the time, even without cats, and still does not see us, until after first step, so smart lights seemed the way to go.

 

[conny]

This just re-enforces my statement in another thread that too many people rely too much on this 'Smart' business.
I can't see what is so hard about staying with some systems we have been using for over a hundred years. I'm all for automation in some areas of life, but when you have to use one device to operate another device, (where the second device is actually a totally separate device in it's own right!), then things are going to go wrong and cause frustration and anger.
Stick with the simple and things will be fine. It will also be less of a drain on the earths resources.

 

[Mister Banks]

I dont understand why we are now in the position where every smart led bulb needs its own app or why you can never seem to buy the same led bulb twice. In the old days a 60w bulb was a 60w bulb, you just bought the cheapest and they lasted years. Now a 5w led bulb from one manufacturer is different in brightness to a 5w led bulb from a different manufacturer. And dont even get me onto longevity! Wheres the cost saving when we need to change led bulbs multiple times a year? How can manufacturers quote 22k hour lifetimes when most of my led bulbs dont even last 2k hours!

 

[ericmark]

How can manufacturers quote 22k hour lifetimes when most of my led bulbs dont even last 2k hours!

That is some thing I have heard a few times, yes I have had bulbs fail, but I have a lot now, and most are the originals, so big question why do some people find they don't last long, and other people say they don't last long.

Is it over voltage, spikes, or simply luck. I have a SPD fitted, do you?

I can't see what is so hard about staying with some systems we have been using for over a hundred years.

In the main as I don't want the work of wiring switches.

you can never seem to buy the same led bulb twice.

This is the main problem, but also every bulb is different, after fitting the two new bulbs I have found one can be set to slowly switch on and off, the other has a dusk to dawn feature, with an off section in the middle. The TCP bulb is a GU10 so the dusk to dawn feature is not much benefit, but would be if it was on the E27 bulb.

I looked at Screwfix, 10 manufacturers of smart bulbs, and the prices vary so much, on the TLC site as low as £2.82, yet can be over £50, at around £10 they are worth it to me, being able to turn on lights before I leave the car, and it save wiring up two way switches in the house.

I look at the smart remote at £11.74 so you can switch bulbs without using phone or voice so you can get bedside control for around £25, some 5 years back, I needed a hub and smart switch, plus the remote, I paid over double that when I set up energenie, OK remote also worked sockets which the extruder alarm was plugged into, so other reasons for that route, but the smart bulb is a cheap option. OK table lamp was easy option before, for years we each had table lamps by the bed, and they did get knocked over trying to find them in the dark, I still knock my remote onto the floor from time to time, but I can simply pick that up again, it does not smash. And I can revert to Hey Google turn on lights.

I will admit the switches and lamps at the side of the bed in the old house was better, but that was a lot of work wiring up them, the smart bulb is so easy, once one learns how to program them.

 

[njknh]

I have 6 Wiz smart bulbs that I've had for a couple of months. These are mostly the 60W equivalent warm-cool white B22 version, but I do have a couple of the 100W equivalent bulbs which only come in E27 at the moment. I bought 4 of the 60W equivalent bulbs from B&Q and had to return them all as they would go offline during the night every few days and would need to have the power cycled to get them to work again. None of the Wiz bulbs I've bought through Amazon have been a problem so far. I have a 2.4GHz mesh IOT network that has a medium to strong signal strength throught the house, but I do wonder if the wifi implementation in the Wiz bulbs is a little flakey. Perhaps it was just a bad batch of bulbs at B&Q - none of my other wifi IOT devices ever lose wifi connectivity.
Now that they have been set up with the original version of the Wiz app I generally control the bulbs using Alexa. As with many Alexa skills you have to be quite precise about the wording of actions. I can also control two of the bulbs using a Harmony remote which links to the bulbs through the Smart Things app.
My reason for using these bulbs is twofold - I like being able to adjust the colour temperature so I have daylight during the day and warm white during the evening and I wanted to be able to turn bulbs on and off when the house is unoccupied, using a combination of schedules and sunset times.
Hopefully over the next couple of years as the IOT marketplace becomes more mature and the Matter & Thread standards become more widely adopted things will get better, but it does mean that many of the IOT devices you buy today will soon be obsolete. At the moment it's silly how many different apps and radio networks you need to control different IOT devices.

 

[old duffer]

I have 6 Wiz smart bulbs that I've had for a couple of months. These are mostly the 60W equivalent warm-cool white B22 version, but I do have a couple of the 100W equivalent bulbs which only come in E27 at the moment. I bought 4 of the 60W equivalent bulbs from B&Q and had to return them all as they would go offline during the night every few days and would need to have the power cycled to get them to work again. None of the Wiz bulbs I've bought through Amazon have been a problem so far. I have a 2.4GHz mesh IOT network that has a medium to strong signal strength throught the house, but I do wonder if the wifi implementation in the Wiz bulbs is a little flakey. Perhaps it was just a bad batch of bulbs at B&Q - none of my other wifi IOT devices ever lose wifi connectivity.
Now that they have been set up with the original version of the Wiz app I generally control the bulbs using Alexa. As with many Alexa skills you have to be quite precise about the wording of actions. I can also control two of the bulbs using a Harmony remote which links to the bulbs through the Smart Things app.
My reason for using these bulbs is twofold - I like being able to adjust the colour temperature so I have daylight during the day and warm white during the evening and I wanted to be able to turn bulbs on and off when the house is unoccupied, using a combination of schedules and sunset times.
Hopefully over the next couple of years as the IOT marketplace becomes more mature and the Matter & Thread standards become more widely adopted things will get better, but it does mean that many of the IOT devices you buy today will soon be obsolete. At the moment it's silly how many different apps and radio networks you need to control different IOT devices.

I was a zigbee developer in 2002 and have a background in RF networks. I belong to a time when you paid a licence fee to work with 802.11 802.15 and I have developed with PLC (the absolute best option there is bar none)
2.4ghz plus is for huge amounts of data...switching on a bulb requires a few bits.
Protocols for meshing are like...come on everyone, join my mesh...oh, I don't want you to join me, hello, who are you, come and join my gang..oh I don't want you...etc etc..massive overly complex "simple" system.
So when using high bandwidth devices, expect them to be a very crowded space, all completing for attention.
IoT is nothing new, its just a fashion word for a fashion industry in which everyone wants to own IP on the protocol.
There was an EU funded project many years ago that had developed an chip that would be installed in everything that would be addressable and controllable. The goal was to reach the 1 euro price point at which time it would be part of the manufacturing process. Can't remember its name so it must have failed

 

[ericmark]

Bulb is a shape a lamp goes in a luminaire.

I made the mistake of ordering a head lamp, it came minus the bulb, yes bulb is a shape, but the lamp traditionally is the whole assembly which fits on the spigot, we would remove the lamp from the wall, refill it with oil, adjust the wick, or pre-heat the oil with Tilly lamp, and light it, then replace on the wall.

In the main the descriptive words refer to some thing it replaced, so the electrical replacement for the wick or mantle was bulbous in shape, and even when the shape has changed it has retained the old word, we still call some one who works with domestic water a plumber, but really a plumber is a worker of lead, think lead still used for organ tuning but used very little today.

As @old duffer has said, using a PLC with SCARTA we can get a more robust system, but we want some thing anyone can work with, I may be licenced, but rarely use it now, been a VP8, VR2 and GW7, the latter is still active, but want my wife to also be able to use it.

Once the first lamp of any make is programmed in, it seems adding more is easy, just the first one which causes problems. But also seems hard to find out what products do.

 

[Mottie]

Stick to one make maybe? I have 7 hive bulbs and 1 hive socket. Three outside (one a fair way away from the router with a car in between) and 4 inside as well as one socket controlling a display cabinet. Obviously the lights/lamps/socket has to be permanently on. I’ve had no trouble with them and none of them have ever gone wrong. I can’t see the point of having different apps for different things. Hive controls my heating. If I ever decided on smart TRV's it'd be hive again.

 

[ericmark]

I also started with one make, in my case Energenie Mihome, it was some time ago, and I had a problem, seems not allowed to lock my late mother in the house, she needs to be sectioned before one can do that, unless it a care home when they it seem use different rules!

So I knew when she had gone on walk about, the social services installed an alarm, this was upstairs between my wife's and my bedrooms, so before answering the door to visitors we had to run upstairs and turn off the alarm, not really a good option. Plus we also had a problem with heating, had one wall thermostat go faulty and turn house into a sauna, did not want a repeat of that.

So we fitted 4 programmable TRV's, a smart socket which the alarm was plugged into, and a light switch so I could turn lights on/off when in bed. These worked well, specially the TRV heads, the rooms once set were spot on, and had I been asked to write a report my only complaint was the socket only had three built in timers, and when we wanted a forth we needed to use IFTTT to get it.

When my mother died, the new owners did not want the electronic TRV's so all the Energenie stuff was removed and came to the new house, and Homebase had a sale of Energenie stuff, very cheap, so we did a trip to Birmingham and bought a load more, so know up to 5 light switches, and also a load of smart sockets, including some which plugged in, with energy monitoring, so the control page looked like this and now the problems started, I have removed 3 light switches and one double socket, touch wood all now seems to be working OK, but it seemed it was due to how much I had on the same system.

Next was Lidi and I got some lamps being sold off, then realised I needed a zigbee hub, which I got from the internet, and the devices worked well, but Lidi don't stock them year round, so realising how well they worked, we needed a supplier who could supply the good year around. The Livrno flexible strip light worked well, I had one in the centre of our display cabinet, but the two Ikea units either side were a bit dated and not smart.

The top picture was with Ikea but there are 5 units, and only 3 lit, so went with Screwfix, TCP 5m LED Smart RGBW Striplight 17W 1500lm (576PK) which when one of the wallmarts failed replaced it FOC so glad I went with them. And 5 meters was enough to do two display cabinets so TCP either side and Livrno down the centre, the Livrno does seem better made, but TCP easier to install around the corners.

So now three makes, not set out to have three makes, it was just what I could buy at the time, added a relay for landing lamp and then got some cheap outside lights £2 each, to replace the quartz halogen with PIR as did not want to run tungsten any more, and the PIR did not really work very well, turning lamps off at most inopportune moments, so in all 7 outside lights, 3 existing still with CFL bulbs, plus a bulkhead lamp and integral lamp both run using plug in smart adaptors, and 2 with smart bulbs in, one smart bulb was in stock had been used on the landing before new lamp.

So could not find any smart bulbs in Newtown or Welshpool, so wife went to Shrewsbury. And she could only find one bulb, this time a Wiz, yet another make, lucky all will work with google home, but need setting up with their own apps first. Did not set out to have so many makes, and each one has some thing the others don't.

The only one I would say was a mistake, was Nest Gen 3, it said it worked with Energenie, it does not.

Some will work with PC or Phone, but some only the Phone, and emulators don't seem to work, some have direct remote controls, does not rely on wifi, some fad in and out, some have dusk till dawn with off time in middle, some the high and low colour temperature LED's are either very close or combined, others they are so spread out to make lights look odd.

The problem is you need to buy them to find out what they will do, or more to point what is will not do, I would like to set up geofencing on my out door lights, I am sure it can be done, but don't want them switching one when I am home watching TV.