‘Smart’ light bulb woes

I am having a problem with the smart light bulbs in my house. All of them are Phillips Hue bulbs, three white only, 2 coloured.

Last night at 2.55am, all of them deregistered themselves from both my Amazon Alexa account and my Philips Hue app. I know what time it was because the one in my bedroom switched on, then off, then on again, then my Echo Dot refused to accept the voice command to turn it off again (obvs I was awake by this point).

Previously when this has happened I have assumed the Alexa system is messing things up, but today for the first time I noticed the bulbs all disassociate themselves from my Hue app as well. Philips has recently merged its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi apps into one; previously I was only accessing my bulbs over Bluetooth on the Philips app, but now I’m able to use the Wi-Fi version.

So I have got as far as thinking that my router is periodically doing something that causes the bulbs to go haywire - perhaps terminating and not renewing their IP address lease? Frankly I don’t have the expertise to work it out any further or to think about potential fixes.

The router is a BT Smart Hub 3 with 2 additional Wi-Fi extender discs in the house, although i used to get the same behaviour with my previous BT Hub 6 and no discs.

[Jaymoss]

I can not help with this but I am phasing out smart bulbs from my set up as they are just far too troublesome plus all the ones I have had have not lasted long enough to be worth the money

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

I am having a problem with the smart light bulbs in my house. All of them are Phillips Hue bulbs, three white only, 2 coloured.

Last night at 2.55am, all of them deregistered themselves from both my Amazon Alexa account and my Philips Hue app. I know what time it was because the one in my bedroom switched on, then off, then on again, then my Echo Dot refused to accept the voice command to turn it off again (obvs I was awake by this point).

Previously when this has happened I have assumed the Alexa system is messing things up, but today for the first time I noticed the bulbs all disassociate themselves from my Hue app as well. Philips has recently merged its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi apps into one; previously I was only accessing my bulbs over Bluetooth on the Philips app, but now I’m able to use the Wi-Fi version.

So I have got as far as thinking that my router is periodically doing something that causes the bulbs to go haywire - perhaps terminating and not renewing their IP address lease? Frankly I don’t have the expertise to work it out any further or to think about potential fixes.

The router is a BT Smart Hub 3 with 2 additional Wi-Fi extender discs in the house, although i used to get the same behaviour with my previous BT Hub 6 and no discs.

If this is the BT Complete WiFi setup (black discs with primary disc built into BT Hub), it may be like the sister product BT Whole Home WiFi (white discs that supply WiFi only and plug into exiting router via Ethernet) that I use. If it is, you may have a "secret" steering.htm page where you can disable various parts of the system relating to steering devices from mesh node to mesh node.

I had a problem where some devices were being steered away from the nearest node and ended up on one at the other end of the house. May be worth checking this out if it exists for you ..

You could also check out Fing (App link: https://www.fing.com/products/fing-app). This can help in identifying when devices come & go from the network

[Mr K]

I got a smart bulb from Poundland. It was fun for a couple of goes but now it's just a switch operated bulb. You know where you are with a switch, Alexa is evil and shouldn't be trusted

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by Chris

Last night at 2.55am, all of them deregistered themselves from both my Amazon Alexa account and my Philips Hue app.

I dont understand how that can happen buddy,someone hack in maybe?

I hope ya get it working ok

I have a couple of standard smart bulbs, registered in 'Smart Life', Ive never had an issue with them.
I also have a couple of old Hive smart bulbs, never had a direct issue with them, but the Hive hub has been known to drop offline.
When the hive bulbs die, I'll replace them with standard smart bulbs (JFYI, they have been running for many years now).
All are controllable using Alexa.

[techguyone]

Hue is overpriced, I've had remarkable success with TP-Link Kasa bulbs & plugs, I've pretty much got them everywhere except the bathroom.