Belkin WeMo Bulb, radio died (or maybe not; recovered)

[mr23]

The radio in one of my WeMo lights died. Bulb still lights full on. It's just a few days old.
Other WeMo bulb still works, with Almond+
I moved it to within 5 feet of the Almond, no difference. Deregistered, rebooted, power cycled, no response from bulb.
Returning for a replacement.

-Chris

[LGNilsson]

Are you sure? Did you try resetting it?
http://www.belkin.com/us/support-article?articleNum=116178

[mr23]

Are you sure? Did you try resetting it?
http://www.belkin.com/us/support-article?articleNum=116178

Thanks for the link, that did recover communication.
It still gets very hot, cannot hold onto the base. My first lamp does not, it is lukewarm in comparison, could hold it as long as I want.
In fact, I just measured it with my IR camera. It's right about 30F hotter than the other one. I don't expect it to live at that temp.
A replacement is on the way.

[LGNilsson]

The WeMo bulbs are amazingly light for LED bulbs with what appears to be a fairly traditional design, so I'd imagine they'd get a bit warm after a while due to lack of thermal compound. That said, I'm surprised you're seeing that huge difference, assuming both where at the same dim level. LED bulbs tend to get quite hot after about 15-20 minutes of usage, but they don't tend to get past a certain point, but you could very much burn yourself on some of them if you're not careful, but then again, the same applies to incandescent bulbs...

[mr23]

The WeMo I have are coolest with low dim level setting.
I may not have had the first/good lamp set up as high or as long as the other, it feels hotter tonight.

I might have to do a more controlled experiment... wrt temp.

The 'replacement' lamp showed up today, nice quick response by Amazon. Only the one 'bad' lamp radio lost communication, so far. I'm definitely still returning it. Eventually we may know more about them for reliability, failure modes, recovery, etc.

[LGNilsson]

Well, this is new to all of us, including the manufacturers, but we've been using a Sylvania/Osram bulb for about a year now with no problems at all. Admittedly that's a PAR30 bulb, so it's a little bit different when it comes to head dissipation. The biggest reliability issue shouldn't be the ZigBee part, but rather the component choice for the power board. This applies to all LED bulbs though.

[adammiarka]

Well, this is new to all of us, including the manufacturers, but we've been using a Sylvania/Osram bulb for about a year now with no problems at all. Admittedly that's a PAR30 bulb, so it's a little bit different when it comes to head dissipation. The biggest reliability issue shouldn't be the ZigBee part, but rather the component choice for the power board. This applies to all LED bulbs though.

Hi Lars

Is there a list of compatible Zigbee bulbs?  I currently have a mix of Wemo LEDs and Cree Connected bulbs and was thinking of purchasing an Almond+.   Do you have the ability to group light bulbs for on/off operation?

[LGNilsson]

So far everything we've thrown at the Almond+ has worked when it comes to light bulbs.
WeMo, Cree, GE, Osram/Sylvania and even stand alone Philips LUX bulbs, as long as you're aware that you can't reset them if something goes wrong. Note that the pairing process might differ slightly though, as it appears that the Cree bulb needs to be off, start the pairing process on the Almond+ and then switch on the bulb. With all the other bulbs I've tested, it doesn't really seem to matter much in which way you do it.

Scenes isn't done yet, but it's coming. In the meantime, you can create a rule for turning them on/off, for example, if one bulb is on (turn it on in the app), then switch on the other bulbs.

[adammiarka]

Makes sense.  Thanks Lars!   Almond+ should be arriving today.    Will starting connecting some of the things I have around the house such as Z-wave door/window sensors.    I'll most likely do a short post on ZatzNotFunny once I have things working.   I've been doing other write ups in regards to Wink, Staples Connect, and Wemo.   Adding Almond+ will be a nice addition.