More problems with bulbs

Power & Lighting
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21

I enjoy using mine in my family room watching TV. I set the temperature and brightness to my liking. I have usually set for 25% brightness at 2700° Kelvin. When i want to clean and vacuum I set it to 100% brightness and 6500° Kelvin. I don’t have any reason to use the other colors.

I enjoyed when I walk into a dark room I can easily say Google, turn on the lights and enjoy it, likewise when leaving the room.

I use lights on physical timers elsewhere.

I heard one guy sets his bulbs to 1% brightness to use as a nightlight.

I have my bulbs on UPS so I don’t see any power out issues.

22

No.

23

@habib and @dave27 ,

I can see we disagree. That is not the problem.

Wyze stopped supporting these lights. If the lights were left in place, many people are still using them till this day. I believe @towelkingdom has her lights still working.

When I reset mine to use on my IOT network, they would no longer connect. Other people have also reported this. I can still use the bulbs manually without the app. Please understand the difference between longevity and sun-setting a product.

24

I will say that I have had my V1 bulbs since spring/summer 2020, and they are still going strong. I have them setup to turn on/off automatically in the rooms they are in with Home Assistant whenever a person enters those rooms. They have been running for at least 4.5yrs and are still going strong. So they can certainly last many years.

I think most people who get smart bulbs expect them to generally last 5+years with normal use even if the warranty is actually less. That expectation may or may not be realistic, but I bet most people anticipate it.

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25

Just don’t change the router SSID or password. I had mine since 2019 and they still glow but won’t work with the app.

Maybe I should still use them with an external timer and get my 10 years that way. :thinking:

26

I do still have mine, but you’re correct I’ve never changed the SSID or password.

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27

There are plenty of use cases for them, some find them more useful than others. Generally I’ve seen more people use them for the two scenarios I’ve mentioned but obviously some are far more into the home automation than others.

I’m just giving tongue in cheek responses (though I have started noticing LED bulbs and fixtures starting to go belly up, usually flashing/strobing, which is a failure of the driver and not the LEDs, and it seems to coincide with about 5-7 years from when they started to become commonplace). Expecting 10 year lifespan from anything these days is getting harder and harder, I had a microwave oven for 20 years and reviews on even the best new ones are that they’re good for 5. But they also cost a fraction of what the old one did.

Well that’s a problem in and of itself with IOT devices since the majority rely on external connectivity or at the very least an app. What if a company goes belly up and you’re heavily invested in their ecosystem? Even though the electronics are fine, the cloud that controls them is gone… And as you say, even companies that are still alive and well are working on shorter and shorter lifecycles, people being left with stuff that just doesn’t work/isn’t supported even though electronically and physically it is fine. Even if you find some way to make it work like using a bulb in manual mode, it is probably wasting energy searching for wifi and running the unnecessary electronics inside.

But given the relatively low price of these things, 5 year lifespan isn’t the end of the world. I’d be surprised if any IOT device was still fully functional 10 years from release, including expensive stuff like smart TVs, whose apps essentially are useless after a few years, maybe 5 if you’re lucky. But at least in that case you just toss a cheap Fire Stick or Roku and are restored to essentially full functionality, probably better.

28

I don’t think Wyze went out of business.

If you sun-set a product they should tell you and not leave you hanging.

I bought some early LED bulbs made by Phillips in July 2014. Two of them went out in October 2024. The third is still working 8 hours or more a day. I tried to buy the same model on Amazon but they want $24 a bulb.

I can understand that buying cheap products you take chances but when the product still works and the company no longer supports their product even when they are on the app menu is ridiculous.

I like Wyze cams as long as they simple, with no moving parts and are cheap.

No big deal, that I can agree on.

1 Like
29

I think we’re agreeing. These things SHOULD last a decent amount of time and be supported for their lifespan (or the amount of support should be stated up front).

When you buy a Pixel phone, they tell you how many years of updates are included. And of course they still work after that, but at least you know how long they plan to “support” it. A lot of this other stuff, it is a crapshoot. How hard is it for Wyze to support a legacy lightbulb, even if they don’t add new features and/or fix a new security flaw or something? Maintaining the basic functionality in the app shouldn’t be a problem. But like anything, the last guy who was familiar with that product’s architecture leaves, new guy doesn’t know to not change something server or app wize, and so long support. Or maybe they just skipped old products when designing the 3.0 app (but I’m guessing you’ve tried 2.5 with them)?

I’ve seen some cheap things from Feit, Commercial Electric, and a couple others stop working a year later, they still are in business and still have an app with their current product line working in it, but at some point either intentionally or unintentionally break it and since they outsourced the whole thing, nobody is able to fix it. Even amazon has depreciated a couple devices, one of which was a pretty important lifeline for a family member. They didn’t stop updating or supporting it, they deactivated it completely. They’ve done that with a few things. I guess that’s one of the reasons I don’t get too big into this stuff.

2 Likes
30

That’s impressive.

Not disagreeing, just being curious as I’ve had mine less than two years.

With Alexa I found that to be a bit late for my liking. For example I have two lights in the kitchen, the switch is right at the entrance and the dot is on the counter. I walk into the kitchen and I say Alexa, lights on. By the time the lights are on I am at the end of the kitchen stumbling in darkness. In my case it is faster to flip the switch manually. If I had the dot in the family room and asked Alexa to turn the lights in the kitchen, by the time I get in the kitchen the lights would be on. But in this scenario, I would need a dot in every room including the bathrooms. In my case, not practical.

1 Like
31

That is understandable.

Maybe try a Google Home device and see if it is more helpful. You could always return it.

Both of mine were gifts. I have one in the family room and one in the office. I like my lighting experience, but I also enjoy listening to weather, news, mapping info, spelling checks and listening to Sirius XM.

I haven’t ventured into Alexa.

32

I did not, and I second @towelkingdom’s recommendation about the Power Loss Recovery setting for your bulbs.

I recently picked up some Sylvania bulbs that I found at an unexpectedly good price, and I’ve been very pleased with those for the couple of weeks that I’ve used them. I got extras just to have them on hand because I don’t have an immediate application, but I set them up in their app so that they’re configured, tested, and ready to be deployed if needed.

I think the bulb itself can have a significant effect on performance. The first smart bulbs I used were C by GE (then they changed the name to Cync) dimmable whites, and I got used to the lag following my “Hey, Google…” command, but the bulbs would come on at their prescribed brightness setting when they did turn on. Then at some point there was a firmware update that added this brief “fade” effect, so the bulbs would have this gentle (maybe 1 second or less) fade on or fade off, which was nice and pleasant because it wasn’t like the immediate “pop” on/off of a typical LED, but it also added to the perception of a delay.

Then last year Amazon had some specials where they would bundle an Echo device with a Matter-enabled smart Wi-Fi color bulb, so I picked up a couple of those, and turning them on and off with my voice using Alexa was nearly instantaneous, so I was impressed. Since they had Matter, it was also easy to add them to Google Home. My understanding of Matter is that it also means at least some of the bulb’s control should remain local, without making calls out and back over the Internet, and that it supposed to account for a significant performance improvement over non-Matter devices.

I got my first Wyze bulbs (Bulb Color and Bulb Color (BR30)) after that, and they seem a little slower that my other color bulbs, but their performance has been acceptable.

My most recent bulbs (the Sylvanias) generally seem a little quicker to respond than the Wyze bulbs, but that varies, and I think network/Internet performance has a lot to do with that.

My experience with this is still fairly limited, but after I got the most recent bulbs and connected them to Google Home, I decided to link the Sylvania app to Alexa, and then I did the same with the Wyze and Tapo apps. I really wish I’d done this sooner, because I have a couple of Echo devices and a few more Google Home smart speakers (I’ve been using Google Home much longer) in different rooms, and now I have more ways to control the lights and other things. I just have to remember which wake word/phrase to use in which rooms. :grin:

1 Like
34

I know, but as I said the switch is conveniently located at the entrance of the kitchen.

I have three Echo Dots all of them were gifts. I have one in the kitchen, wife uses that one when she cooks (I don’t cook), I have one in my office and one at the cottage. All three are used mostly for music.

Maybe, but in my case, the kitchen is really small and by the time I say Alexa, wait for “her” to wake up and say “lights on”, it’s just faster to flip the switch.

That’s how my KASA bulbs work and I like it.

3 Likes
35

Yeah, totally. I’ve just gotten in the habit of talking to voice assistants (looking and sounding like a crazy person, probably!) while walking through the house so that lights are on when I get where I’m going. I’ve also installed switch guards to train myself and prevent accidentally cutting power to smart bulbs in areas where I have those. I’m still manually flipping traditional switches and using “dumb” bulbs in most places.

I don’t have any of those, but I thought it was cool when the Cync bulbs got it in the update. It’s a pleasing effect, but it does add to that perception of lag, I think.

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36

You made me chuckle :slight_smile:

On our recent trip with my wife I got into a “fight” with Siri. I raised my voice because “she” wouldn’t shutt up with directions. My wife almost peed herself laughing :rofl:

Not with this ones, when I hit the on button it turns right away slowly coming to a full strength and vice versa.

2 Likes
37

Good point. Kasa seems responsive.

38

Generally for bulbs and plugs, with the limited amount I’ve used them, the TP Link seem to perform well. I’m sure their cameras are good performers too, but the image quality seems pretty low compared to my Wyze cams.

I couldn’t resist a couple of the TP Link smart plugs with energy monitoring when they were like $3 on prime day (seemed good in theory to track energy use of some components, but I have a couple Kill-A-Watt meters that can do that). They’re still in the boxes, typical impulse buy. But I’ve set up their standard ones for several people and they work well. I don’t have any experience with the Wyze ones for comparison though. Even when they fell to like $10 for the 2 pack of indoor and $5 for the outdoor one on clearance, I just don’t have a use for them really.

1 Like
39

All my plugs and lights are TP-Link KASAs and they’ve been rock solid. Iv’e had the plugs for almost three years now, haven’t had any issues. TP-Link makes Tapo plugs and lights as well but from what I understand those are inferior to Kasa.

40

I found someone that agrees with my longevity statement… :grin:

Thank you for your patience. Rest assured that I have processed a replacement unit for you under Order # US-EAT2TACOS . That order will ship out of our warehouse to the shipping address below within 3-5 business days. It will take 3-7 business days.

For some reason, I feel hungry. :thinking:

41

Is that Wyze?

1 Like