Lights Unavailable / Not responsive

[kideon]

This may be general to the Phillips Hue platform and not plugin specific but I wanted to ask to see if anyone else is running into this. My lights are now consistently coming up as randomly not available and not responsive but then they respond to certain things. Like in the app I can't control it but if I turn all lights in a room on or off they change. This plugin can also accomplish the same thing. Sometimes it takes multiple commands to turn them on or off with Alexa.

It's gotten worse lately and I didn't know if maybe it's the bridge hardware or software. Anyone else running into this?

[drparker151]

If it's happening in the Hue app then it is very likely a hue issue. Did you recently make any changes to wifi? Add another microwave? Have you checked you wifi channels vs the hue zigbee channel? You can also use a program like inSSIDer to check on all neighboring access points and what channels are being used. I did change the zigbee channel my Hue hub uses.

This site explains the channel overlap with wifi:

[logman]

This may be general to the Phillips Hue platform and not plugin specific but I wanted to ask to see if anyone else is running into this. My lights are now consistently coming up as randomly not available and not responsive but then they respond to certain things. Like in the app I can't control it but if I turn all lights in a room on or off they change. This plugin can also accomplish the same thing. Sometimes it takes multiple commands to turn them on or off with Alexa.

It's gotten worse lately and I didn't know if maybe it's the bridge hardware or software. Anyone else running into this?

That generally points to a lack of LQI (link quality index) between the coordinator (bridge) and some of your bulbs. Adding a couple of routers (plugin outlets or more lights) between the bridge and the unreachables should solve the problem. Sometimes simply repositioning the bridge by a few inches can make a difference, especially if it is near your wifi router. Of course anytime you can move the bridge closer to the lights that's the best option of all.

An individual light command must reach a specific light. The longer your system is active the more links and routes get discovered and become available to the coordinator. That's the beauty of Zigbee... It's always growing the routing system, learning new routes and discarding less effective routes along the way. For fringe devices a simple rearrangement of furniture, opening or closing a door, adding a wifi switch or outlet can suddenly make a few fringe devices show up as unavailable to the coordinator for status reporting.

Group commands are different. When you send a command to turn off a group of lights the coordinator sends out a single group command which only has to reach one light in the group. From there it is passed within milliseconds to other members of the group (which presumably are nearby) and they all turn off together, even the ones that are showing as unreachable.

BR30 can lights in particular are especially vulnerable to weak links and appear to "drop off" the network and then just as suddenly reappear. They are already surrounded by a metal housing and sheetrock that shields signal reception, so minor changes to the home environment can make a big difference in their LQI. Yet normally they all still work just fine when sent a group command.

If you have 50 lights and 4 or 5 show up intermittently as unavailable it's not too big of a deal if they are members of groups that are reachable. If you have 10 lights and 2 or 3 are unreachable that is more of a concern.

I've also found that different brands of bulbs are better routers than others. Philips are by far the best and can handle dozens of endpoint routes. Osram/Sylvania bulbs are weak routers and only like to link amongst themselves. I have 13 Osrams still in use and I have yet to see one link to an endpoint device (sensors, etc.). Sengled bulbs do not act as a router period (a flawed design in my opinion, but no doubt saves the company a few pennies per bulb). Zigbee plugin outlets seem to be the strongest routers of all. I use SmartThings/Samjin and they play well with others. The JowiHue plugin controls the SmartThings outlet without issue.

--Barry