Philips Hue Switches go unresponsive very often, how to get them stabilized?

Hardware
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Hey there,

I’ve invested various Philips Hue switches back when some big discounts happening.
I own many Motion Sensors, Rotary Knobs, Dimmer Switches, Buttons and Wall Switches. I have no Hue lights at all (I use other brands with the help of HA), but I got a Philips Hue Bridge to connect them all.

I am pretty happy when they are working. I set up many scripts and automations around HA which really goes smooth on operation - most of the time.

The problem is, every few months at least one Hue switch suddenly go Unreachable, won’t come back with a Bridge soft-reset, switch soft-reset or sometimes not even with switch hard-reset.

Last time was the final straw as all my Dimmer Switches and Wall Switches all went unreachable at once. Other switches (motion sensors, rotaries etc) kept working well, but I had to apply a hard-reset to my Bridge as none of the lost switches able to connect back. And now I have to re-pair all switches one by one.

So, I decided to ask the community if there are some suggestions with getting the switches more stable. Like, would adding Hue Bulbs to this mesh help?

Or should I think about investing on some other Bridge? I’m tracking conversations about Zigbee but couldn’t wrap my head around which one should I pick.

My HA on Docker runs on my QNAP NAS, so putting a stick on seems to be very, very tricky even if I disregard the server is in a remote corner of the house. So I would like to steer away from stick Zigbees.

Is there anyone out there who’s also suffering from Hue dropouts?

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Sounds like the Hue bridge is encountering interference. You’ll probably want to change channels on it to avoid WiFi or other types of interference. It can only do channels 11, 15, 20 or 25. Depending on which WiFi channels are in use, you’ll want to get it away from that. You might also want move the hub away from other equipment.

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If you are looking at some zigbee tips, and yes Hue is a custom zigbee implementation, look at this list for some help.

The Home Assistant Cookbook - Index.

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I don’t think any of these are routers, so you haven’t actually got a mesh - the bridge will be trying to connect to all of them directly. This will make the network very vulnerable to interference as there will only be a single route for messages to take to each device. Also, there is a limit to the number of devices a coordinator can connect to.

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Probably - certainly it’s the thing to try first as it’s the simplest.

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Are these Zigbee?

Go for one of the ethernet based ones (UZG-01 for example), ditch the Hue hub and install Zigbee2MQTT. Then add more routers (bulbs for example) to Z2M and you should be good.

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Oh, so there’s a concept of ‘Routers’ then!

I’m guessing they have to be always-on devices like lightbulbs, and not button-battery powered devices like all the switches I’ve listed.

So what happens when a Router disconnects from network?

I have a Hue GO light gifted by a friend, but since it also has an internal battery, I move it around instead of keeping it plugged in, and goes out of power very often for days. What’s the possibility these switches picked up that Hue GO as the router, and go astray when the Router out of power?

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I surgically separated my Wi Fi signal from Zigbee when I first became aware of the dropouts. Currently there’s enough space both in terms of bandwidth and physical distance to prevent interference. But good advice for anyone who’ll visit this thread in the future, thanks!

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Battery powered devices are rarely (if ever?) router capable. One way to solve the “always on” problem and physical switches is to add a zigbee switch / dimmer behind the physical switch. That way you retain the function of the old switch, can use the existing non-smart bulbs and also control your lights from HA. Saves you a lot compared to buying many Hue (or other) bulbs too.

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Sadly, I have no neutral wires at my home. That’s why I went with battery powered switches.

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Other known good routers are the IKEA repeaters, they can plug into USB. TRÅDFRI, Signal repeater - IKEA

Not sure if you can use those in the Hue hub, but I would anyway recommend moving to another coordinator so you can add the stuff you want.

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This may not be helping, but I’d say it’s unlikely to be the cause of the problem. Zigbee works best in a building where every light and plug is a router, blanketing the whole place. It’s the mains-powered devices that make the mesh - battery-powered sensors just hang around the edges.

The number of routers you need will depend on the size and structure of your building, as Zigbee signals are weak by design, not good at penetrating walls and obstacles. If it’s any help, my house is a three storied Victorian building - small rooms and thick walls. I have three or four routers in every room, nine in one room.

The number of sensors you have is not particularly relevant - it’s the density of the mesh that counts.

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To chime in on what @Stiltjack says, my 1988 three story house + detached garage has a good mesh with 48 routers and 29 end devices (battery powered). Same network across both buildings.

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Lots of good advice here:

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Alright, all these info have been immensely helpful, thanks everyone!

I’ll try with plugging in few Hue-router-bulbs as that’s the quickest solution for now. I’ll report how it goes for the future reference.

But what I learned today will totally help with how will I proceed for the next devices I’ll get. Thanks!

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I have 50+ Hue bulbs and they are solid routers. It should help fix your situation mesh. I ditched my Hue hub for two SLZB-06s. Their antennas are strong and it’s easy to convert one to a router with a firmware flash via their UI.

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Having Hue Bulbs installed definitely helped with both stability and discoverability. Thanks again everyone!

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I’ve also been having trouble turning my Hue lights on and off since about the beginning of the summer. Until then it worked perfectly (Conbee + Intel NUC + HA). Where I don’t need dimming (only on/off) I disabled automation in HA and set it directly in the Deconz/Phoscon interface. What is set via Deconz works immediately and the first time… What is set in HA reacts for example the third time…