Strange - Amazon smart plugs

[RedvGreen]

Hi all, last night I noticed that all 7 of our Amazon smart plugs were blinking red and refusing to turn off by command. I reset half of them (bottom on side held for 12secs) and they’re still unresponsive today. The non-reset ones are still unresponsive.

Any ideas why they’ve all disabled/turned slow-blinking red?

 

[the-evaluator]

It could be an outage on the Amazon side, I've had a similar thing with my TP-Link plugs. Can you see if the plugs are still connected to your wifi?

 

[RedvGreen]

I can’t at the moment as I’m out, but I can’t communicate with them at the moment via the app.

 

[SimonR]

Probably Amazon cloud getting ready for the Black Friday bombardment and then all of the new devices wanting to connect.

 

[jpaul]

This article would suggest that the hub listens to the Amazon cloud to get it's orders .. so, guess I would like to know what you should do when going away, say -
is there no concept of, a failsafe off, if connection is lost.

I'm currently setting up some sengled brand zigbee bulbs/hub, and am trying to figure out how they work too, so had been using Hue documentation to help
http://www.hueproapp.com/support.php

1. Can I use a port other than 80 to connect remotely?
   The Hue bridge cannot change the port it is listening on (ie. port 80) unfortunately. But there is a way around this problem. You can configure your router to listen on a different port externally and route it to port 80 internally. Most routers support configuration for an external/internal (or source/destination) port. Try configuring your external port to a number between 1024-8000. After this, check to see if you have configured your external port correctly by visiting www.canyouseeme.org and entering in the same external port set on the router.
   
   If the test results succeed, then it is working! Manually enter your IP address using this format: [external ip]:[external port]. For example: 1.100.101.255:4450
   
   If the test results fail, then there is something misconfigured. Double check through your settings on your router. If you need additional help, contact support via the Contact page.
2. Why can the Philips Hue app connect without port forwarding?
   
   The Philips Hue app is able to use their private "portal" service. This portal service is able to communicate with any Hue bridge connected to the open internet. So the Philips Hue app communicates with their portal, then the portal delegates the message to your bridge. Currently third-party Hue apps (like Hue Pro) are not able to use this portal service. However, Philips says they will soon open the portal to other apps as well.

edit lol https://www.howtogeek.com/293341/what-happens-if-my-philips-hue-lights-go-offline/

As you can probably guess, if your power goes out in your home or apartment, your Philips Hue lights will go out with it. At that point, a smart light bulb is no more or less useful than a regular bulb—after all, regular bulbs would go out too.

However, when your power comes back on, every single one of your Hue light bulbs will turn back on, whether or not they were turned off at the time of the power outage. They’ll also revert back to the default soft white color temperature, no matter the color state they were in when the power went out.

This means that if the power goes out in the middle of the night and turns back on, expect to be woken up by your Hue lights blinding you. Unfortunately, there’s no way to prevent this from happening, but luckily, your power doesn’t go out all that often anyway.

we have a power cut maybe every month.

 

[RedvGreen]

In the end I had to totally reset and re-add all the smart plugs to Amazon app, and reset all the names, routines etc. Quite a mess on really!

 

[Entai]

edit lol https://www.howtogeek.com/293341/what-happens-if-my-philips-hue-lights-go-offline/

As you can probably guess, if your power goes out in your home or apartment, your Philips Hue lights will go out with it. At that point, a smart light bulb is no more or less useful than a regular bulb—after all, regular bulbs would go out too.

However, when your power comes back on, every single one of your Hue light bulbs will turn back on, whether or not they were turned off at the time of the power outage. They’ll also revert back to the default soft white color temperature, no matter the color state they were in when the power went out.

This means that if the power goes out in the middle of the night and turns back on, expect to be woken up by your Hue lights blinding you. Unfortunately, there’s no way to prevent this from happening, but luckily, your power doesn’t go out all that often anyway.
we have a power cut maybe every month.

we have a power cut maybe every month.

Looks like that is old hat now.

I installed a dozen Phillips hue bulbs, and various accessories over the weekend thanks to black Friday.

While testing them out, I found a setting in the Hue app where by after a power outage when the power returns you can set what colour and brightness each bulb returns with, whether it be the default setting, the setting you had prior to the outage, or a custom setting purely to be used when power returns.

So very easy to set some of your your bulbs up so they do not come on full bright when power returns, therefore you will not be woken and blinded in the middle of the night for instance.

 

[jpaul]

So very easy to set some of your your bulbs up so they do not come on full bright when power returns

interesting will you try it too, and pull a few plugs ?
If I was going to leave hue stuff running, for security lighting say, or going on holiday, had also, even, thought of using a smart switch for my coffee machine breakfast warm-up, I'd like to know what might happen.
... I'm not a fully paid up prepper.