Why a smart light bulb isn’t working, plus a T-mobile puzzle

Q: I bought a smart light bulb that’s made in China to try out with Siri. I downloaded two apps, Smart Life (recommended in the directions) and Yeelight. They have a similar approach, and both say that after doing the various tasks the bulb will flash. That doesn’t happen. I have tried it in several sockets with the same result. Do you have any suggestions?

— Ron Kessler, Seattle

A: The first thing to try is to manually reset the bulb. Consult the instructions because the steps vary among brands.

In addition, be aware that smart bulbs are designed to work in standard light fixtures connected to standard outlets that have a ground wire. Some homes built before 1980 don’t have ground wires. If that describes your house, the smart bulb won’t work, at least not without rewiring.

Q: My wife and I have T-Mobile as our cell-service provider, and we use T-Mobile CellSpot signal enhancer in our two homes — one on Bainbridge Island and the other is in Southern California.

Internet is provided by Cox in SoCal and Xfinity on Bainbridge. I am in the process of testing the T-Mobile home internet service, and it works reasonably well in my South California home. T-Mobile also charges me just $25 per month compared to more than $60 for Cox.

The problem is that CellSpot conflicts with our internet service T-Mobile 5G Gateway, so we can’t use them at the same time. Any workarounds? 

— Carl Grimes

A: Those two devices operate on different frequencies, so I don’t see how they would be directly interfering with one another.

But if your phone is set up to make calls using Wi-Fi when it is available, you might be making calls using the 5G Gateway instead of the CellSpot. That might cause the performance decline you’re experiencing. Disable Wi-Fi calling on your phone and see what happens.

Note: Readers responded to a recent column about the inability to find a printer on the local network, offering workarounds. One suggestion was to assign a fixed IP address to the printer. The downside of that, as the reader noted, was that you might have to reinstall the printer after assigning that IP address. Another reader suggested downloading the driver from the printer manufacturer instead of using the driver provided by Windows.

I also have come across something to try before going through the hassle of reinstalling the printer: Turn the printer off, wait a minute or so, then turn the printer on. No guarantee this will fix the problem, but it did work for me yesterday when I ran into a missing printer. Give it a try.