Wiz Lights Unavailable [Solved]

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I’m posting this in case it helps someone else. I am no longer having problems. I used to have problems where my Wiz lights would routinely become unavailable. They would be unavailable in Home Assistant as well as within the Wiz app itself. I have found the root cause in my case and posting it here in case anyone searches in the future for a solution.

My WiFi infrastructure at the house is all Ubiquiti equipment with multiple access points / hotspots around the house.

Initially I had two WiFi SSIDs, MyNetwork-5GHz and MyNetwork. The SSID for MyNetwork was tied only to the 2.4GHz channel and was used for mostly IoT devices including the Wiz lights. Within my Ubiquiti configuration both networks would run on all hotspots. Devices could roam from hotspot to hotspot as signals changed.

WIz lights hate roaming. This was the cause of the lights becoming unavailable.

My solution was as follows.

Leave the non IoT network, MyNetwork-5GHz running on all hotspots. Devices such as iPhones etc are happy to jump from hotspot to hotspot.

Create a new SSID using only 2.4GHz dedicated to each hotspot. I deleted the old WiFi SSID MyNetwork (the 2.4 GHz one). For the naming scheme I just put two letters in the SSID designating the hotspot. Examples: FP Front Portch, RP Rear Porch, MB Master Bedroom, MR Media Room etc.

My SSIDs now look like this

MyNetwork-5GHz (all access points)
MyNetwork FP (2.4GHz only, only runs on front porch access point)
MyNetwork RP (2.4GHz only, only runs on rear porch access point)
MyNetwork MB (2.4GHz only, only runs on master bedroom access point)
MyNetwork MR (2.4GHz only, only runs on media room access point)

Within the Ubiquiti Network setup using the access point groups I tie for example MyNetwork FP to only the Front Porch access point. and so on.

Reconfigure each Wiz light to use the closest / best access point / hotspot. For example the Wiz lights on the rear porch are now configured to use the WiFi SSID MyNetwork RP

Since doing this I have not had a single Wiz bulb become unavailable. I have also noticed improved WiFi connection “score” (a Ubiquiti term) for some of the other IoT devices I have.

I am are that this is very Ubiquiti specific but more than likely the concept would work for any WiFi hardware vendor when you have multiple access points.

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I got excited when I saw the title of this post. Sadly my lights are on a single AP and still show in the wiz app when unavailable in HA. A power cycle on the light fixes this but I’m almost having to do this daily. Not sure why it has gotten so much worse lately(it could just be me).

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You are not alone. Tried two different devices with different SSID but getting disconnected about every day. Starting to get annoying.

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Probably a network problem. I have 4 Wiz lights here since the beginning when the integration in HACS came out, then I just switched to the native Wiz integration in HA and I never had and I don’t have a problem with the lights disconnecting. i have one network same SSID for 2.4/5G

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I think this is a great suggestion. I have this exact setup (Wiz lights, UDM Pro and Ubiquiti access points). I configured the WIZ lights integration back when it was in development it was it was awesome. Recently in last week or so, I started seeing some lights just go unavailable - power cycle would solve for a day or so. I believe all this started happening after I updated firmware on my APs in the last week.
The symptoms felt like when I had an old cheap router that couldn’t handle more than 32 or so connections and bumped my lights off.

So I am going to actually configure my lights to lock to the closest AP and lock the IP address.

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Well I have been fiddling with this for a couple of weeks now and it’s CLEARLY a Wiz and Ubiquiti AP issue and definitely nothing to do with HA. I know this because I have WIZ lights that are not integrated into HA and they have the same issue of becoming unavailable. If I had to guess it’s an update from Ubiquiti that I applied in the last 30 days or so (I hadn’t updated before in months and I have auto-updates off). After updating I noticed the lights becoming unavailable - it wasn’t frequent, but now it’s almost daily. I have 30 WIZ lights on smart switches so, one here and there every 1-2 days becoming unavailable. I have to cut power and turn back on to get it back online.

I’ve tried all the above suggestions, checking my SSID for 2.4ghz and 5ghz to different names, binding to the closest AP, fixed IP. That seems to help (it feels more responsive) but doesn’t eliminate a bulb here or there becoming unavailable. My workaround at the moment is that since I’m using smart switches on all them, the button press for on/off on my smart switch (Inovelli z-wave in smart bulb mode), I run an automation that checks the connected lights and if any of them are status=unavailable, I cut power to the lights, wait 500ms, then cut power back on. That resets the lights connection and then I can issue the WIZ bulb command I want to turn on/off the lights.

I guess this would be no big deal if I cut power to the lights to turn off, but I like Smart Bulb mode and keep the lights powered and just control the on/off state at the bulb itself. This was working great from March to September of this year (before I last updated my Ubiquiti APs). So clearly something changed there, but no other device connected to my APs are having issues. I suspect they do a better job of managing connects/disconnects internally than the WIZ lights.

I am going to try an open a ticket with both WIZ (although I know there response will be to unplug and plug back in - which is useless) and Ubiquiti and see where this goes.

Annoying…

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I’ve just bought a Philips Wiz bulb and I am having exactly the same issue with it in my Unifi WiFi network : the bulb looses the connection every day and doesn’t connect back. Bulb firmware is 1.28.0.
I tried to lock the bulb to the AP near it, but no improvement.
Very annoying. Hope Unifi and/or Wiz will work together to solve the issue.

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I did some tests by reverting back to an older Unifi (AC-Pro) firmware. So far, here are my observations with my Philips Wiz bulb (firmware 1.28.0) :

  • Unifi AP firmware 6.2.49 (2022-12-14) : Wiz bulb losing connection (don’t work more than 1 day)
  • Unifi AP firmware 6.2.44 (2022-11-01) : no problem after 4 days

So, I will remain on 6.2.44 firmware. Hope the next Unifi firmware will not cause the regression again.

[EDIT]
Unfortunately, Wiz bulb has finally lost connection with Unifi firmware 6.2.44 also, but it was after almost one week, clearly much better than with firmware 6.2.49.

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To add to this discussion, I have been struggling with an installation of wiz bulbs as well and have figured out a few things but have almost run out of diagnostics.

For my first network running multiple Unifi AP’s but having the bulbs connected to 1 AP, I was getting random disconnects and even failure to pair with some bulbs, setting static IP’s fixed these bulbs and they have been completely rock solid since that. (Almost a month) The network is 1 SSID for both 2.4/5ghz

However, in a different location, I am running a Netgear R7000 with DD-WRT and am PLAGUED with disconnects almost daily. I have tried many different versions of firmware, new and old with the same symptoms, even flashing over to FreshTomato. All other devices on the network function fine, but these damn wiz bulbs just refuse to stay connected! They don’t all drop at once either, just randomly going offline.

I have found that keeping them active as in activating them once a day or so keeps them online longer so maybe setting up a small automation to turn them on and off might keep them on as a workaround (albeit terrible)

I’m not sure why but these are the ONLY smart devices that absolutely struggle to connect and diagnose. Even the cheap $1 Chinese smart chips for switches don’t throw any issues like these, I’m almost at the point of getting rid of them but it’s so frustrating that they work fine in one setting and not in another! Am going to try a different AP to see if maybe that fixes it but it doesn’t make sense why these bulbs are the only devices having issues.

Just trying to add some diagnostic data to the thread as well as following to see if anything changes.

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Hello there,

Still struggling with my Wiz bulb disconnecting from my Unifi installation, I tried several configurations and I may have found the one that seems to solve the issue, at least so far (still no Wiz bulb disconnection after 1 week).

I decided to create a dedicated Guest WiFi hotspot for my IoT (and Wiz bulbs) devices. The guest profile is mainly to have client device isolation, but I am not certain it is absolutely needed (my first configurations with this guest profile only setting didn’t prevent the Wiz bulb to disconnect after 1 day…)

The setting which probably makes the difference is the “Minimum Data Rate Control”, usually set to “Auto”, that I disabled Auto and set to the minimum (1 Mbps). I would presume that this way, the Unifi doesn’t disconnect the bulb even if the connection is very poor (which is often the case, the quality connection of the bulb varying constantly from “Excellent” to “Poor”).

Here is a summary of the WiFi IOT WiFi network used by the bulb (and my other IOT devices) :

WIFI_settings
WIFI_settings945×843 45.6 KB

I will tell you if my bulb disconnects in the coming days (or weeks…).
Let me know on your side if it solves the problem if you use the same configuration.

PS : using now the latest firmware version of the Unifi AP, i.e. 6.2.49 (2022-12-14)

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No Wiz disconnection since the new setting above : problem solved ! :white_check_mark:

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I’m going to give this a shot on my unifi network. I have up and just configured my smart switches to kill power to the bulb which effectively resets. Hot tired of my wife complaining about the bulbs not responding.

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Well after making the changes suggested by malonip I can say the results look good! It’s only been about a day (over 24 hours) but I usually have several light disconnect by now. I have 7 lights and a light strip that I am leaving on during my test. All are available.

I’m sure there was some update that occurred last summer as prior to day last July as prior to that everything was rock solid. So seems like unifi made low bandwidth and low activity devices get kicked off the network. I still think wiz can do a better job of reconnecting. I have a bunch of different devices on my network and this is the only product that does this. I even have esp32 devices that act right (wiz is based on esp I believe so there is no reason)

Anyway I can’t thank you enough. I had resorted to cutting power via my smart switches. I should be able to go back to my intended use case of keeping power and control the on/off state at the light.

Thanks again!

P.s. I should add that make sure to cut power to the lights after making the changes on your unifi AP. Wait for AP to reboot after the settings change and then recycle power to the lights.

It’s worth mentioning all the above suggestions are very good (splitting the 2.4g and 5g wifi names, binding lights to the closest AP, etc) are all good suggestions and should be considered best practice.

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So after about a week of playing with this fix, here are my results thus far.

I first only made the minimum data rate control change in my existing wifi network (didn’t move to a guest network) and actually forgot to bounce the power on lights to force reconnection and reboot the AP. I still hit the “unavailable” issue after a day or so (albeit it seemed to stay connected well over a day, prior to that, I would at least see one of my lights go unavailable within a 24 hour period).

So my next go round was to restart the lights and the AP (which I should have done in the first place). About the same results, although it seemed to last almost 2 days before going unavailable. At this point I decided to mimic malonip’s exact setup (i.e. moving the lights to a guest network with the minimum data rate control setting adjustments). This appears to be working. This is now going on day 5 and all lights connected, responding quickly, etc. etc. This is the longest it’s stayed stable in almost a year (before whatever change went into UnFI that caused these lights to get kicked off).

I’m not really sure what’s special about the guest network other than I have nothing else but these 7 WIZ lights in it. I’m going to let it run a while longer (a solid 2 weeks) before planning to move my other lights over (I have probably 50+ throughout my house).

I have my HA wired into my UDM Pro and need to figure out how to allow it to communicate directly with the lights across the guest network isolation boundary. I’m sure it’s possible, I’m just a bit of a UniFI noob so I’m not sure how to go about it.

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Hey all,

I joined the forum so I could also report apparent success for an Asus router model RT-AX86U.

I don’t use Home assistant, or own any unify products. However, was having this same issue with the Wiz lights ( in my case, mainly the a21 model) while my a19s were more stable.

I created a guest network with no access to the intranet and a limit of 2 Mbps up and down. I also didn’t put any spaces in the guest SSID name, and made it a much shorter name. Anyway my lights have been connected for one week without issues now, AND if one disconnects, it seems to now reconnect on it’s own, so I haven’t had to power cycle any bulbs.

I’m wondering if it’s a combination of things. Bulbs have very basic wifi hardware compared to other devices, and I’ve also read depending on the quality of the chipset / firmware, etc different elements can be in play.

For example the 2 biggest changes here outside the guest network are, a Shorter SSID without spaces, and the data limiter. Either way, just wanted to report this solution seems to have helped in different circumstances and different hardware from the initial thread posts.

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I’m having the same issue. My lights are offline and re-pairing them only works for 10 minutes. Does the guest network fix still work?

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Not sure if this will help you, but maybe it will help someone…

I have multiple access points in my home and was able to resolve this issue by “bind”-ing the bulbs to a specific access point. This feature available on my ASUS router. It was just a couple of clicks for each bulb and was easier than dealing with the bulbs in a separate network.

I noticed that the bulbs were roaming between access points. This shouldn’t be a problem, but seemed to confuse them. I’ve had no issues since I made this change (knock on wood!).

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