> Theres an AI for managing all this

 



 

From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Steve Jones
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2025 10:38 AM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Zigbee and Hue - my journey of enlightenment

 

We are actively in process of building out a smart home support package because 
of all this nonsense. Dumb shit constantly. Like setting certain roku remotes 
on the counter next to the wifi router decimating the 2.4. Theres an AI for 
managing all this

 

On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 10:13 AM Bill Prince <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

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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