I figured HUE was like the Blink cameras that have a 900 MHz hub. Nice, goes far, doesn’t conflict with other stuff in the home.
What’s wrong with these designers who come up with things like Bluetooth and Zigbee using the exact same spectrum as ubiquitous 2.4 GHz WiFi. And it’s not like you can disable 2.4 GHz WiFi, because other genius designers of things like cameras only support 2.4 GHz, or require 2.4 GHz for initial setup. At a minimum, they could provide a little instruction sheet telling people to change the Zigbee channel if they experience interference from WiFi, and to fill in gaps in the Zigbee mesh if the gap is more than 30 feet or so. And to not put the “bridge” or “hub” 1 inch from their router. But that would cut into sales, if people thought they would have to do more than just purchase these things and plug them in. Yes, since it’s a managed WiFi system, I’m going to remotely change the 2.4 GHz channel from 20/40 MHz and Auto to 20 MHz and channel 1, if the Philips system is on Zigbee channel 25, to provide maximum separation. Hopefully the Philips system channel selection is manual not dynamic. And I’m going to tell them to get the HUE bridge off the top of the router. In my initial ignorance of smart bulbs, I kept looking for them in the WiFi client table, and asking the customer how they initially connected them to the WiFi, was there Bluetooth setup or something? But no, they don’t connect to the WiFi. Also I expected the HUE bridge to show up with a hostname like HUE or Philips, but actually its hostname is its MAC address. Luckily an OUI lookup said that was a Philips MAC address. This was just telephone support, but it cost probably an hour of my time, maybe more including online research. I’m not sure I would have gone so far down the rabbit hole, but this is one of the free accounts for a farm where we use their grain leg as an AP and backhaul site. I would maybe argue it is NOT a WiFi problem, because the WiFi works fine. That’s what people on Reddit say, Zigbee is the fragile one that gets clobbered by WiFi. Probably because the design emphasizes low power, low complexity, low cost over range and robustness. Zigbee is too woke, it needs to adopt the warrior ethos, more lethality, no fatsos and beardos. Oops, brain fart. From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Bill Prince Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2025 10:12 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Zigbee and Hue - my journey of enlightenment Is it a WiFi issue? Yes. Is it YOUR WiFi issue? Who knows? Maybe you need to 'splain to them that you can fix YOUR WiFi issues, but you are not obligated to fix THEIR WiFi issues. or better yet, have a handout explaining the limits of your service call, and that if they have somehow created their own problem, that it will be charged at $XYZ/hour? bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 10/16/2025 6:42 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote: Silly me, I thought Zigbee used 900 MHz. That’s not wrong, but it can also use the same 2.4 GHz band as WiFi, and that’s what a Philips Hue Bridge does. I got sucked into this by a WISP customer with a leased WiFi mesh system and somehow their Hue lights also became my problem. I didn’t understand how smart lights work because I still turn my lights on and off the caveman way, with the light switch. Who knew I was insufficiently sedentary. Unfortunately, smart lights and home automation in general is marketed as plug and play, and consumers aren’t going to consult Reddit or Wikipedia, which is what I had to do. Turns out 2.4 GHz WiFi messing with smart bulbs is a common issue. And Zigbee doesn’t go as far as I thought, 10-20 meters depending on walls and stuff, and one of the recommended solutions is to put additional smart lights in the path since they form a mesh network. Also changing frequencies, like putting WiFi on channel 1 and Zigbee on channel 25. Sure, your typical Hue smart bulb buyer is going to do these things (not). Or they can call it an Internet problem when Alexa says some of the lights are unreachable. Yep, must be an Internet speed problem. (I’m going to guess Philips doesn’t have phone support for light bulbs.) This customer also reported their Hue Bridge device was placed on top of the main WiFi mesh router. That doesn’t sound like the best place to me.
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