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I have bought 4 Philips Hue smart bulbs with an E14 socket.

I have tested each of the 4 Philips bulbs separately in a single socket fixture, and each bulb individually is working, detected by/connected to the Hue bridge and controllable.

On my living room ceiling I have a spot bar with 4 sockets.

Currently, it is equipped with plain LED bulbs and everything is working fine.

If I switch those plain LED bulbs for the smart ones, only one of them (from the direction I'm viewing it, the "leftmost" one) is working. If I switch the bulbs around, it is always the leftmost one that continues to be working, so the issue seems to be tied to the sockets, not to the bulbs.

I have also tried mixing plain and smart bulbs, to no avail.

Some examples of what I have tried:

plain - plain - plain - plain => glowing - glowing - glowing - glowing
smart - smart - smart - smart => glowing - dark - dark - dark

smart - plain - plain - plain => glowing - glowing - glowing - glowing
smart - plain - smart - smart => glowing - glowing - dark - dark
plain - smart - smart - smart => glowing - dark - dark - dark

empty - plain - plain - plain => dark - glowing - glowing - glowing
empty - smart - smart - smart => dark - dark - dark - dark

smart - empty - empty - empty => glowing - dark - dark - dark
empty - smart - empty - empty => dark - dark - dark - dark
empty - empty - smart - empty => dark - dark - dark - dark
empty - empty - empty - smart => dark - dark - dark - dark

I have a bit of experience with electric installations, but I cannot figure out what might possibly cause this weird effect. Is the wiring inside the spot lamp weird? But all the plain bulbs are working fine, aren't smart bulbs supposed to work in the same way and be fully compatible?

I'm out of ideas of what I could still try or how I can make all the bulbs work, so I'd be happy for your input.

If it is important, my location is Europe, so we're talking about 230V.

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  • When they don’t light up, are they still available in the Hue app?
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 18, 2023 at 15:01
  • No, only the one that lights up is reachable. It is like they don't even have electricity.
    – sina
    Commented Jan 18, 2023 at 15:29
  • If you just use one single smart bulb (no other bulbs at all, neither smart nor plain), does it still only work in the single socket? Is there maybe something in the fixture that prevents you from screwing the bulb fully in the other sockets?
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 18, 2023 at 16:06
  • A single smart bulb still only lights up when it is in the leftmost socket. I've added the results to the post. I've inspected the sockets and visually they look the same. Also, if there would be something inside that blocks me from fully inserting the bulb, shouldn't the plain bulbs have the same issue? It also doesn't feel odd or anything like that to screw the smart bulbs into the three non working sockets.
    – sina
    Commented Jan 19, 2023 at 9:03
  • 1
    I thought more of the socket being somewhat recessed and the body of the smart bulbs possibly being slightly larger that that of the plain ones, so it would have been the body which would have blocked. Can you post a picture (or several) of the fixture and of one each of the bulbs (smart and plain)? The only reason I can think of is the bulb not touching the contact at the bottom of the socket for some reason, but maybe a picture will yield other ideas.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jan 19, 2023 at 9:23

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