Wyze Bulbs Disrupting Wi-Fi

I reset my home network earlier today, but my Netgear R7000 would not broadcast 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi for more than a few seconds at a time. The 5 GHz network was fine. After several more attempted resets, I turned off my four Wyze Bulbs (which are on the latest firmware), and after the next reset the 2.4 GHz network came online normally and remained stable.

It appears that the Wyze Bulbs are disrupting the network as they try to restore Wi-Fi connectivity after a network outage. This may be unique to my setup (a Netgear R7000 operating in Access Point mode), or it could be symptomatic of a larger issue with how the bulbs try to re-acquire Wi-Fi. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

The Wyze Bulb is an otherwise outstanding product, but a problem like this makes it extremely difficult to recommend the product to others.

UPDATE: This behavior may have been triggered by an issue with my Comcast internet connection, but I’ll need to do more testing this weekend to make a final assessment.

How many devices do you have connected to the R7000? I used to have one, and after I connected 28 devices to the 2.4Ghz network, the radio would croak. The Netgear documentation said 32 devices maximum. I upgraded to an Amplifi HD with two mesh points, and my problems went away.

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that limit, but I have everything that can get on 5 GHz assigned to its unique SSID. I am nowhere near 32 on 2.4. Because Netgear is unable to release stable firmware updates for this product, I’ve actually been looking at Ubiquiti.

In this case I really do think it’s an issue with the bulbs, similar to the MDNS packet flooding issue that Google had with their Chromecast devices in 2018.

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7634752

If you’re looking at Ubiquiti, I have a Ubiquiti UAP-LR and I love it. Paired with the free controller software you get historical logs showing all connect/disconnect/retry events, client signal strength, bandwidth, etc. Gave me a 10-20dBm boost in signal strength everywhere in my house, easy to add as an AP to an existing router, and cost less than $100.

I had to downgrade my R7000 firmware to make it stable initially. Then they kept making matters worse. I kept a copy of the best working firmware on my PC, and ended up downgrading to it every time I tried to upgrade.