I’ve recently had an interesting challenge with my Hue and GE Zigbee bulbs that I’d like to share with the community. For those who are fans of manual control, like my wife and I, there’s a unique workaround that might be helpful!
For years, we’ve relied on Pico buttons to toggle lights around our house, but we also love the old-school manual switches. The issue arose when manually turning on a Hue or GE bulb from the switch caused the lights-off command to fail. After some research and experimentation, I discovered that the bulb’s state wasn’t updating correctly in Hubitat.
Here’s what I learned:
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Manual vs. Automated Control: When you manually turn on a bulb, it doesn’t always update the system’s state. This means that automated commands like “Lights Off” might not work as expected.
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Polling Solution: I found that enabling polling through the Z-Wave or Zigbee apps helps keep the bulb’s state updated. While I’m still exploring the optimal polling frequency to avoid system overload, this has been a reliable fix.
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Workaround for Immediate Control: If you need to turn off the lights immediately after manual activation, a simple toggle command first (even if it doesn’t seem to do anything) ensures the state is correct for subsequent commands.
This journey taught me the importance of system state management, especially when mixing manual and automated controls. I’d love to hear if others have encountered similar issues or have additional tips for maintaining accurate bulb states!
Thanks for reading, and happy automating! 