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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Innr lights and Hue switch unresponsive during 10 seconds every now and then?
nu1mlock
Member
Hi,
I just got my Homey today. Just getting started but I'm loving it so far.
I reset all my lights (Hue and Innr) and added them to Homey (without the bridge). I don't know if this was the best way, but in my mind I wanted Homey to talk directly to the lights instead of going through the bridge (not sure that's how it works, but that's what was going on in my head).
Everything works, but every now and then, all my Innr lights stop responding to commands. They are farthest away from Homey (15-16m when walking around corners, through walls is shorter. Walls are thin something, "plaster" maybe? Don't know the word).
I tried the switch with a Hue lamp just 1m away from Homey and the same thing happened, though I don't know if it was the remote or Hue bulb that lost connection. Come to think about it, the remote actually started blinking red sometimes. It can start blinking red if I'm sitting 5m away from Homey but with line of sight.
Edit: I should mention that the app on my phone doesn't work for those same lights when the lights "lose connection".
I'm using the Philips Hue ZigBee and INNR Lighting B.V. apps to control the lights.
I still have the bridge, but I was hoping there could be something else. Or is the "official" app better if I have the bridge? Would the bridge not add extra latency or be less customizable?
I'm rambling as usual. Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts or inputs on what is currently happening with my stuff?
Thank you!
Edit: At first I thought that it might be because the bulbs might be too far away (though it worked fine with the Hue Bridge), but aren't they supposed to create a mesh network and not be dependant on how far away from Homey they are?
I just got my Homey today. Just getting started but I'm loving it so far.
I reset all my lights (Hue and Innr) and added them to Homey (without the bridge). I don't know if this was the best way, but in my mind I wanted Homey to talk directly to the lights instead of going through the bridge (not sure that's how it works, but that's what was going on in my head).
Everything works, but every now and then, all my Innr lights stop responding to commands. They are farthest away from Homey (15-16m when walking around corners, through walls is shorter. Walls are thin something, "plaster" maybe? Don't know the word).
I tried the switch with a Hue lamp just 1m away from Homey and the same thing happened, though I don't know if it was the remote or Hue bulb that lost connection. Come to think about it, the remote actually started blinking red sometimes. It can start blinking red if I'm sitting 5m away from Homey but with line of sight.
Edit: I should mention that the app on my phone doesn't work for those same lights when the lights "lose connection".
I'm using the Philips Hue ZigBee and INNR Lighting B.V. apps to control the lights.
I still have the bridge, but I was hoping there could be something else. Or is the "official" app better if I have the bridge? Would the bridge not add extra latency or be less customizable?
I'm rambling as usual. Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts or inputs on what is currently happening with my stuff?
Thank you!
Edit: At first I thought that it might be because the bulbs might be too far away (though it worked fine with the Hue Bridge), but aren't they supposed to create a mesh network and not be dependant on how far away from Homey they are?
Comments
The remote I was using was the Hue dimmer switch. I didn't walk around while using it. But I tried using it in two different rooms.
It's like the bulbs lose connection somehow. I also did a factory reset on both the Hue Bridge and Homey and re-connected the bulbs back to the Hue Bridge, just to be sure.
In case it matters, I don't have a crowded wireless network. No neighbours, no wireless stuff except two phones, Amazon Echo and Homey is connected right now.
I've noticed that it isn't remote specific because the same thing happens if I use the Homey app on my phone. But yes, after a while it starts working again. Not always 10 seconds though (as I originally said), it can be anything from 2 seconds to maybe 30 seconds, it differs every time.
I used the Homey app when I was in the bathroom and both lights in there worked fine at first. But after a few on/off switches (in the app), the bulbs stopped responding. After a little while, they started responding again. The two bulbs are right next to each other over the mirror. Sometimes only one of them stops responding, sometimes both.
Note that this can happen on all my bulbs, both Innr and Hue bulbs, both E27 and E14 bulbs, both regular white, ambience and color bulbs. It can also happen mid-transition between on/off states, meaning when a bulb is off and I turn it on (either with the Homey app or the remote) it can stop responding while it's lighting up, stopping it while dimmed (bulbs dim up from off to max brightness when turned on).
At the moment, all bulbs are back and connected to the Philips Hue Bridge, which didn't solve the problem.
When it comes to flows and apps, I've just started and wanted to configure the lights before doing anything advanced. Because of this, I only have two flows. Both flows are for the remote (which is now paired with the Philips Hue Bridge) - one flow for pressing the "on" button, and another flow for pressing the "off" button. That's it.
I only have two apps installed. One is the "official" Hue app, and the other is the "Philips Hue ZigBee" app. I previously also had the "official" Innr app, but I haven't installed it since I made a factory reset of Homey and paired all bulbs with the Philips Hue Bridge.
Just yesterday i saw on facebook someone with the same problem, en also with the 2 apps. The one with Hue directly connected to homey and also the one with using the bridge.
For some reasson the do not work together.
https://www.facebook.com/Domoticahuis/?hc_ref=ARSMhwFbYdSnvLCzlmUeRG-7EBZ_30awWDBfEUoMSK9vxPisyJjEyyh9eo38OpnpMiM&fref=nf
I suggest 1 make a github isseu for the problem you have , https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/new
and 2 just deleting one app to test if it works then.
I'll remove it (and the motion sensor that is paired directly to Homey) and only use the "official" app and give that a try.
I also want to point out that I did some testing this morning. The Hue dimmer switch (that I call "remote") instantly turns on the lights when it is configured through the Philips Hue Android app. But when it is configured through flows with Homey (still paired with the Philips Hue Bridge though), it takes 3-6 seconds from a keypress until anything happens with the light. And when configured with flows, bulbs can also stop half-way and be dimmed.
When controlling the bathroom lights (two bulbs next to each other), and the remote is configured with flows, then sometimes both turn on/off (after a 3-6 second delay), but sometimes only one of them does (which one is different from time to time).
If I should only use one of the apps, which one would you recommend? Is it better to pair everything to the Philips Hue Bridge or directly to Homey?
Using the app WITH the philips bridge, you could have some delay, because homey is polling the bridge and so it could give a delay btween +/- 1-6 seconds. Otherhand you can stil using the the scenes from the philps bridge.
sidenote : only notice delay sometimes with switching the lights off. Switching on Always directly.
I also have a motion sensor, and I read that Homey polls it every 7 seconds or so, which adds a long delay when coming home for example. I don't know if that's the current case, but that's what I read.
Anyway, just to be safe, I made another factory reset of both Homey and the Hue Bridge and have now disconnected the Hue Bridge. I'm currently pairing some of my lights to Homey and will only use the "unofficial" app.
Since that seemed to work without issues, I then had three more lights, but they are Innr bulbs;
So far, all the lights are working and there's next to no delay. One of the two Innr lights in the bathroom (farthest from Homey, around 15m when walking) seemed to lose connection once, but only once during a 3 minute session of pressing on and off on the Hue Dimmer Switch).
After this, I paired the Hue Motion Sensor to Homey and made a quick flow to make sure it worked. It did, although I haven't put it in the hallway yet, as I've only tried it in my living room for testing.
Other than that, I also tried another flow for the Innr RGB bulb. Changing to a random color, on and off, and resetting color works without delay as well.
So far, so good, I think, though I'll have to do more testing before being sure it works properly.
I didn't specifically check for it, but when I did a factory reset this last time, it said channel 6 in the Hue app on my phone. I don't know if it was on channel 6 the previous times or not. Either way, the Hue Bridge is now disconnected.
Right now I'm only having issues with the Innr bulbs, which unfortunately is the farthest away from Homey. Could it be because of them being too far away from Homey? As I wrote in a previous post, those Innr bulbs are about 15m away from Homey when walking. Going through walls is shorter, perhaps around 10m. Walls are thin and made of "plaster" (if that's what it's called, I don't know the English word).
Since I don't have a flow to the bathroom yet, I can either control one light at a time through the apps, or tell Alexa to turn on/off all lights by voice. All lights except the one farthest away from Homey turns on/off.
Both Innr bulbs in the bathroom lose connection from time to time. I don't know why, but they are placed (as I've said before) the farthest away from Homey. I took one of those bulbs and put it in my livingroom which is where I have Homey.
With that bulb being closer to Homey, it started working. The second bulb still in the bathroom still doesn't turn on/off, or does sometimes. The time the two bulbs were down seemed very random. It could be until next try, but it has also been down for over an hour (well, it took an hour in-between two tries and none of them worked).
Edit: sigh Now with one of the Innr bulbs close to Homey, I've started noticing a very long delay on the Innr bulb sometimes. Not all the time, sometimes. Longest delay I counted was 9 seconds. This is when using Alexa to turn on/off all lights.
I feel like this issue only happens to the Innr bulbs. But I'm not sure, because Hue bulbs also became unresponsive yesterday, along with the Hue Dimmer Switch that also lost connection.
Those (Hue bulbs and Dimmer Switch) have worked just fine since my last factory reset and while only having one Hue app installed on Homey.
Either way, I have used the remote, app and the Windows program as well. All give the same random result; that it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't.
It might be range issues, but I checked the range map, and each light is connected directly to Homey. There is no routing going on that I can tell (except the remote and motion sensor), at least not for the range.
Maybe it is the Innr bulbs that have a lot worse range than the Hue bulbs, and perhaps they don't connect through the other Hue bulbs. Maybe they're on the edge of what Homey can reach and therefore lose connection from time to time.
I haven't tried pulling the power to the Innr bulbs while they are unresponsive, but I'll try it next time I notice this happening.
I have no other routers (though the Hue lights should act as one), but worst case scenario I might be able to move Homey and place it in the middle.
What's making this so hard is that everything is working now (with bulbs moves), but it also worked for quite a while just before I switched places. I can't sit and press buttons for hours on end.