Hue Bulb Replace

Posted on
Wed May 16, 2018 12:15 pm
ckeyes888 offline
Posts: 2417
Joined: Nov 26, 2009
Location: Kalispell, MT

Hue Bulb Replace

I have a Hue bulb that has become unresponsive and shows “disconnected” in the Hue app and Indigo.
Still looking around for the least painful way to replace it.
I assume I shouldn’t delete the original faulty device as that will delete a ton of other programming?

Any ideas on the best way to replace would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Carl

Posted on
Thu May 17, 2018 1:08 am
nsheldon offline
Posts: 2469
Joined: Aug 09, 2010
Location: CA

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Hi Carl.

To answer your question, the easiest way to replace a Hue bulb with a new one is to rename the old bulb using the Hue mobile app, then pair the new bulb with the Hue bridge (also through the Hue mobile app). Once you've verified the new bulb is working through the Hue app, go to Indigo and go to the Plugins menu -> Hue Lights -> Reload Hue Hub Config. This will detect the new bulb. Then double-click on the Indigo device associated with the old bulb, click the "Edit Device Settings..." button and select the new bulb from the Hue Device menu and click "Save" and close the device window. No need to delete the Indigo device and ruin all programming that depends on that Indigo device.

But before you replace the bulb, you might test to make sure it's actually a bad bulb and not something else like radio interference or a bad electrical circuit at the fixture where the bulb is installed. You can test for radio interference by installing the bulb in a fixture very close to the Hue hub and trying to control it. If that works, then the bulb is okay and it's either radio interference or a bad circuit. To test for a bad electrical circuit, take the Hue bulb out of the fixture and put a standard incandescent bulb (or known working generic LED bulb) in the fixture. If the generic bulb works, then you're left with radio interference (or plain old distance from the Hue bridge) as the culprit. If that's the case, a new bulb may not resolve the issue.

Posted on
Thu May 17, 2018 7:08 am
ckeyes888 offline
Posts: 2417
Joined: Nov 26, 2009
Location: Kalispell, MT

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Thanks a bunch Nathan. That will really help.

I've tried a number of things to communicate with the dead bulb with no joy.
It will just turn on to what appears to be the last setting it was at and that's it.

Carl

Posted on
Fri May 18, 2018 8:46 pm
ckeyes888 offline
Posts: 2417
Joined: Nov 26, 2009
Location: Kalispell, MT

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Nathan...got the new bulb replaced per your instructions, works great.

Thanks,

Carl

Posted on
Fri May 18, 2018 9:27 pm
nsheldon offline
Posts: 2469
Joined: Aug 09, 2010
Location: CA

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Awesome! Glad it’s all working.

Posted on
Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:27 pm
InsteonDiego offline
Posts: 48
Joined: Dec 07, 2016

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Hi Nathan -

I may be experiencing something to similar to Carl, but not entirely sure. I had a bulb that wouldn't firmware update. Hue support had me delete the bulb and then re-add it by searching. I named it the same as previously named. When I edit the device settings, the Hue Device dropdown shows -select and item - and when I select the desired device, it throws and error as follows:

Hue Lights Error Error in plugin execution UiValidate:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "plugin.py", line 450, in validateDeviceConfigUi
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 269: ordinal not in range(128)

Any ideas how to resolve? I am on the latest build .25

Edit: incidentally, it looks like the ID of the bulb changed. It used to be 1 and is now 7.

Thanks!

Adam

Posted on
Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:01 pm
nsheldon offline
Posts: 2469
Joined: Aug 09, 2010
Location: CA

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Hi Adam.

Looks like the plugin isn’t liking some special character in the bulb name. The plugin doesn’t handle non-ASCII characters well. Try renaming the bulb in the Hue app without using any non-English characters. Let me know if that fixes it.

Posted on
Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:25 pm
InsteonDiego offline
Posts: 48
Joined: Dec 07, 2016

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Interesting. I wonder if it's somehow the apostrophe in the name, however almost all of my devices have apostrophe's and the name is exactly as the name prior . . .

I'll try changing the bulb name and report back.

Posted on
Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:44 pm
InsteonDiego offline
Posts: 48
Joined: Dec 07, 2016

Re: Hue Bulb Replace

Sure enough, that was it. I removed the apostrophe, pulled the config from the hub and was then able to modify the light. I changed the name of the light in the HUE app following and all still works properly. Thanks for the rapid response Nathan!

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