Recently we had the power go out at night. This happens when the wind blows, or if it rains relatively hard, or if it snows, or pretty much anytime that it feels like it. This is the first time it’s gone out since I’ve had my Wyze Bulbs in however and I found that they do not “remember” their last setting. Just imagine how inconvenient this is at 3am, in the bedroom.
I can think of a whole host of reasons why you might not want to enable this by default, but as an option would be awful nice for those of us that live in the country where they haven’t upgraded our electrical delivery infrastructure, ever.
If it starts flashing it is back in pairing mode. My bet is your power “flickered” prior to failing. By that I mean an oscillation of on/off several times. This looks to the bulbs like a reset request. It’s annoying but hopefully will be changed in a future update or version.
No, it isn’t. It’s still paired. All I have to do is turn it off then turn it back on. And it’s back to normal. That can’t be a silent pairing mode, can it?
Edit – either leave if off or ON, but flashing is a terrible choice. It shows to people outside that there’s nobody home.
Welcome, @kboutelle.
Unfortunately, the criteria to set up and reset the bulbs is too simple, 3 on and off cycles within a relatively short period of time. Most power outages are not a single on and off sequence but many in short succession as the power grid attempts to maintain the power supply by switching to different distribution stations so the bulb is thinking that you want it to enter a setup sequence. This isn’t just the case for folks out in the country, it is universal.
There are many ways that this could be fixed (in the firmware of the bulb), but the many impatient users would complain about the additional steps during setup and reset if the change is not done understanding not only the logic of the customer but also the electrical grid. I would like to see Wyze implement a fix that understands power fluctuations and ignores them. I’ll go through the extra setup and reset steps for a more reliably functioning product.
Do you mean a rapid on off sequence or the slow increase/decrease in brightness?
I’ve 3 on a track light fixture. Turn the switch on, 1 comes on at the last setting, the other two at full brightness.
Slow switch between full-on daylight white and then dimmer yellowish (3000K) color.
You can test this if you have a spare Wyze plug.
Edit – more testing and I’m getting inconsistent results. Sometimes I see the flashing I’ve described, sometimes I get full-on. Maybe it depends on how long the outage is?
At any rate, the bulb remains offline and I see no way to make it connect again.
Sorry, I mean a spare Wyze plug, to simulate power outage. I have a plug-in lamp socket that I used in a previous project. Very convenient when I’m testing close to my work area. I’m too lazy to stand up and go to the wall switch.
Depends what you mean by “back to normal.” If you turn it off and on after it’s in pairing mode, it will stay solid, (Until you do it 3 more times) but it won’t re-pair again, until you go through the pairing process.
Does it eventually come back online, or does it stay offline until you pair it again? If it stays offline, that means it’s not paired anymore, regardless of whether you can get it the light to shine solid or not. As I mentioned before, you can get the light to shine solid, even when it’s unpaired.
That’s the key phrase, in my opinion. Haha. A few others have mentioned this, too. There are reasons it works the way it does now. (So that the bulb is still halfway-usable with a wall switch, and so that you aren’t stuck in darkness if your internet is down.) But it would certainly be nice to customize the option after the bulb has been paired.
For practical purposes, the built-in default should probably remain as it is, to ensure that they’d remain usable in the event of a prolonged internet or Wyze service outage. (So that, worst-case scenario, you can power-cycle 3 times to unpair the bulb and use it as a normal dumb bulb again until service is restored.)
That’s a weird way of defining “unpaired”, is it in the bulb set up guide, or anywhere in Wyze documents? I don’t know, if someone says the bulb is “unpaired”, I would assume that the app should not list it at all with its known devices. Very confusing terminology.
But I really don’t like the fact that it flashes after power is restored. One, if it happens in the middle of the night, that is very painful to the eyes. And second, if that happens when there’s no one home, the thieves will know.
When it’s manually unpaired (That is, it has been physically reset by power cycling three times) it loses the ability to connect with the internet in order to communicate the fact that it has been unpaired with the app. From the app/server’s perspective, it’s the same as if someone had flipped the switch, or unscrewed the bulb, or there had been a power outage. The app may still think it should have the ability to communicate, but that’s meaningless from the bulb’s perspective.
I understand, but if you arrive at the point where it’s blinking between cool and warm hues, that means it has been manually unpaired. Whether you or your power company caused that is irrelevant.
For this scenario, “reset” might be a less confusing term than “unpaired,” but the fact remains that you need to pair it again if you’ve gotten to that point. Regardless of what the app thinks, the bulb no longer has the ability to connect to the internet at that point and is therefore no longer paired.
You’re not getting my point. Look at it from a normal user. There was a power outage, the user did nothing else. He checks the app, it says it’s offline. How will he know that it was unpaired?
We may be power users and might eventually come to that conclusion after a few tests, but a normal user wouldn’t do that.
You said it started blinking after power was restored. That’s how you know.
As for the app, you won’t be able to tell the difference between “unpaired” or “no power” or “no internet” in that scenario. It’s not possible for the app to know that.
I think your average “non-power user” is gonna figure it out once their lights stop working. Might have to hit the support pages, but if they set it up once, they can do it again.
Haha. A few others have mentioned this, too. There are reasons it works the way it does now. (So that the bulb is still halfway-usable with a wall switch, and so that you aren’t stuck in darkness if your internet is down.) But it would certainly be nice to customize the option after the bulb has been paired.