4 ms·

I have a couple dozen Hue lamps, and they regularly “reset” to full bright white, presumably after a flicker in power that is otherwise imperceptible. It happe

I have a couple dozen Hue lamps, and they regularly “reset” to full bright white, presumably after a flicker in power that is otherwise imperceptible. It happens on average once every couple of weeks, and is quite annoying! I wish the lamps had a nonvolatile memory so they’d return to their previous color and intensity... (I still love them and am happy I have them rather than regular LEDs though.)

TeMPOraL 9y ago
This has been suggested many times and, as far as I can tell, Philips decided the current behaviour is best safety-wise (consider e.g. if your last preset had 1% intensity).
- tjoff 9y ago
  Then reset it after three on/off cycles within 3 s, or something. But surely the controller iwll sort this out when it gets back online a minute later? So that everything comes on (annoying enough) but switched off within the minute? If not that is just outrageously bad and imo ruins the product completely.
  - toss1 9y ago
    Three on-off cycles in rapid succession is exactly what you get in non-urban electrical systems when a tree falls against a wire. The local breaker detects the short to ground and cuts out, then resets after a few seconds on the chance that the tree has continued it's fall to the ground. If there's still a short, it repeats, and after the third or fourth short->cutout (depending on the local utility settings), stays off on the assumption that the tree is well and truly hung up on the line and will need a crew to fix it. It's pretty common occurrence in many locales where I've lived.
- criddell 9y ago
  But it's the least smart thing to do. They could at least put an option in the setting to maintain settings after brief power outages. We had a power flicker last week in the middle of the night and suddenly our bedroom lights were on 100% and our Echo was loudly complaining that the internet was gone. At 3am.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    Which is why smart things are dumb. You can't just program features, you have to program context. And context rapidly becomes non-trivial. So you either have a dumb object that no one expects to act intelligently, or you have a smart object that tries to act intelligently but fails because it's not as smart as a human, and humans are random anyway. For smart lights you need "Return to previous state, and then see if the state was on a timer. If it was, wait until you get an NTP answer (i.e. the Internet isn't down) and set up the state requested by the timer." Which is fine unless the previous state was a party, it's now daylight, and all the bulbs are still different colours. Or someone was adjusting the lights and accidentally set them to 1% instead of 100% when the power went off. Everything becomes an edge case. The most useful solution requires an intelligent default with timer support, with some awareness of what's happening in and around the house. And it still has to allow for user overrides, because some people - like my partner - sometimes want the lights on during the day, even when the room is bright.
    - criddell 9y ago
      I think you are over-thinking things. I also have analog switches and dimmers in my house. If I have the lights at the lowest setting when the power goes out, that's where they are when the power returns. If everything was on full when the power goes out, then that's where things will be when the power returns. Why should smart things work differently than what a lifetime of experience has lead me to expect?
- falcolas 9y ago
  To me, this is the right thing to do. Safety aside, it "does the expected thing" if I flick the switch off and back on again. And lights coming back on at full intensity after a power outage? Pretty common in analog houses as well. Who thinks to turn off a light that isn't on?
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    In analog houses, restoring the power means "lights come back as they were prior to outage". No state is lost, no matter how you spin that.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
Agreed. I have been woken up from a power outage this way. We should be able to specify the default behavior when the power to the bulb is turned off. Maybe if you flip it on and off quickly within 1 second it will turn off. Or if the power is turned off to the bulb and the bridge is still on, the. Assume it was turned off. It’s not hard to come up with an OPTION for people to choose. I hate that there’s no choice, but I love my Hues.
akvadrako 9y ago
I suppose they aren't designed for places with unreliable mains power. The auto-on behavior is just a good first approximation of the behavior most people want.
- Parcissons 9y ago
  The system works- but it fails due to the surrounding system. Perfection is archieved! And the lawyers deemed it suitable! Box and ship it.
- gerdesj 9y ago
  If you are going to deploy "things" that don't work the way that a traditional device does then you might want to completely mitigate the behaviour or put up with it. A UPS or multiple UPSs are indicated here. You could go the whole hog and install enough UPS for the whole house and a backup generator.
  - JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
    Yes let's install a whole house UPS so the light bulbs work right...

TeMPOraL 9y ago

This has been suggested many times and, as far as I can tell, Philips decided the current behaviour is best safety-wise (consider e.g. if your last preset had 1% intensity).

tjoff 9y ago
Then reset it after three on/off cycles within 3 s, or something. But surely the controller iwll sort this out when it gets back online a minute later? So that everything comes on (annoying enough) but switched off within the minute? If not that is just outrageously bad and imo ruins the product completely.
- toss1 9y ago
  Three on-off cycles in rapid succession is exactly what you get in non-urban electrical systems when a tree falls against a wire. The local breaker detects the short to ground and cuts out, then resets after a few seconds on the chance that the tree has continued it's fall to the ground. If there's still a short, it repeats, and after the third or fourth short->cutout (depending on the local utility settings), stays off on the assumption that the tree is well and truly hung up on the line and will need a crew to fix it. It's pretty common occurrence in many locales where I've lived.
criddell 9y ago
But it's the least smart thing to do. They could at least put an option in the setting to maintain settings after brief power outages. We had a power flicker last week in the middle of the night and suddenly our bedroom lights were on 100% and our Echo was loudly complaining that the internet was gone. At 3am.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  Which is why smart things are dumb. You can't just program features, you have to program context. And context rapidly becomes non-trivial. So you either have a dumb object that no one expects to act intelligently, or you have a smart object that tries to act intelligently but fails because it's not as smart as a human, and humans are random anyway. For smart lights you need "Return to previous state, and then see if the state was on a timer. If it was, wait until you get an NTP answer (i.e. the Internet isn't down) and set up the state requested by the timer." Which is fine unless the previous state was a party, it's now daylight, and all the bulbs are still different colours. Or someone was adjusting the lights and accidentally set them to 1% instead of 100% when the power went off. Everything becomes an edge case. The most useful solution requires an intelligent default with timer support, with some awareness of what's happening in and around the house. And it still has to allow for user overrides, because some people - like my partner - sometimes want the lights on during the day, even when the room is bright.
  - criddell 9y ago
    I think you are over-thinking things. I also have analog switches and dimmers in my house. If I have the lights at the lowest setting when the power goes out, that's where they are when the power returns. If everything was on full when the power goes out, then that's where things will be when the power returns. Why should smart things work differently than what a lifetime of experience has lead me to expect?
falcolas 9y ago
To me, this is the right thing to do. Safety aside, it "does the expected thing" if I flick the switch off and back on again. And lights coming back on at full intensity after a power outage? Pretty common in analog houses as well. Who thinks to turn off a light that isn't on?
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  In analog houses, restoring the power means "lights come back as they were prior to outage". No state is lost, no matter how you spin that.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

Agreed. I have been woken up from a power outage this way. We should be able to specify the default behavior when the power to the bulb is turned off. Maybe if you flip it on and off quickly within 1 second it will turn off. Or if the power is turned off to the bulb and the bridge is still on, the. Assume it was turned off. It’s not hard to come up with an OPTION for people to choose. I hate that there’s no choice, but I love my Hues.

akvadrako 9y ago

I suppose they aren't designed for places with unreliable mains power. The auto-on behavior is just a good first approximation of the behavior most people want.

Parcissons 9y ago
The system works- but it fails due to the surrounding system. Perfection is archieved! And the lawyers deemed it suitable! Box and ship it.
gerdesj 9y ago
If you are going to deploy "things" that don't work the way that a traditional device does then you might want to completely mitigate the behaviour or put up with it. A UPS or multiple UPSs are indicated here. You could go the whole hog and install enough UPS for the whole house and a backup generator.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  Yes let's install a whole house UPS so the light bulbs work right...