The two main reasons I have replaced most of our smart bulbs with Hue. A close third is that they just work: No extra repeaters needed. Itās also nice to be able to control them from Siri/HomeKit/Hue if Hubitat is offline.
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How do you like them? Iām potentially looking for replacements to my hue lights
If youāre filling the house with them, would you still recommend them?
Maybe??? Personally, a while back I decided to make an architectural decision with my home automation hardware devices. My goals/requirements these days are:
- Local Control
- Native integration with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Hubitat, and Home Assistant
- Intuitive manual control
I want all of my devices to be as compatible with other systems as possible, while still providing the users/visitors in my home with ease of use and manual control.
To achieve these goals, I installed Lutron Caseta Switches, Dimmers, Fan Controllers, and Pico Remotes throughout my house. Every light switch is now 'smart' and control LED 'dumb' bulbs in all hard-wired fixtures. Caseta is compatible natively with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Logitech Harmony Hub, Sonos, Hubitat, Home Assistant, SmartThings, Node-RED, etc...
For all table lamps and floor lamps, I have installed Philips Hue bulbs. Some a just dimmable 2700K warm white bulbs, while others are color RGBW bulbs. These genuine Hue bulbs can also be configured to handle a power outage/restoration as the user sees fit (i.e. On, Off, or Last State.) The Hue bulbs make good Zigbee repeaters for other Hue Zigbee devices. However, I would not pair them to my Hubitat hub directly. Rather, I use the Hue bridge to get access to all of the advanced features, and because Hue bulbs are not recommended as Zigbee repeaters on a Zigbee HA mesh network, like Hubitat's. Philips Hue is compatible natively with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Logitech Harmony Hub, Hubitat, Home Assistant, SmartThings, Node-RED, etc...
I use Pico Remotes throughout the house to provide manual user control for the Hue bulbs in the table/floor lamp fixtures. Some Picos are wall-mounted alongside existing Caseta Switches/Dimmers, by simply adding a new wall plate with one extra opening to hold the Pico. Not wall cutting required! 
Hubitat handles the Pico incoming commands and sends them to the Hue bridge. It works incredibly reliably and quickly.
Thus, my lighting systems (Caseta and Hue) are now pretty darn bulletproof. Both are best in class solutions, are extremely reliable, fast performing, and are compatible with a large selection of other systems. I was able to upgrade my old Hubitat C-3 hub to a new C-7 Hub without having to re-pair any of my lights.
I do have a fairly decent sized Hubitat Zigbee mesh network that handles all Motion Sensors, Contact Sensors, Leak Sensors, Door Locks, etc... Keeping the smart bulbs off the Hubitat mesh has been a good thing, IMHO.
As for Sengled bulbs, I never had any issues with them when I did have them on my Hubitat Zigbee mesh. However, I only ever had about 10-12 smart bulbs, and I do have about 8 Zigbee outlets acting as Zigbee mesh network repeaters. If you do decide to use Sengled bulbs, please make sure you have 1 Zigbee repeater device for about every 6-8 non-repeating devices.
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Castes unfortunately doesnāt work for me. Idk what it is, Iāve even had an electrician come look, but dumb bulbs flicker a lot and change brightness a lot, especially in the winter. Smart bulbs donāt, so I had to go to smart bulbs. Hue is my current choice, but I was reading a post from 2018 that apparently hue bulbs take up to a minute to reflect in hubitat when controlled elsewhere (and if itās controlled outside of an automation, itāll be controlled through HomeKit)
A minute lag is too much, so although the post was from 2018 ans maybe outdated, Iām preparing for the possibility that Iāll need to replace my smart bulbs. And they will need to be bulbs.
I think the front runner is innoveli z-wave bulbs at the moment though.
There are two Community Hue Integrations that alleviate the built-in integration's polling updates for external changes to Hue bulbs. Check those out, as they make use of a new event driven API from the Hue bridge.
Also, if you do go down the Sengled or Inovelli route, all changes to those bulbs will have to be made via the Hubitat hub. If one simply does the same with Hue bridge + bulbs, then the problem is alleviated as well. Thus, IMHO, the polling really is not too much of an issue. Just make sure Hubitat is used to always control your Hue lights and you're good to go!
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Because hubitat exposes zigbee and Z-Wave devices to HomeKit now, that wouldnāt be a problem. Iād control through HomeKit which would send the command to hubitat which would send it to the bulbs.
Iāll look into those integrations though, thanks!
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Iāve been using CoCoHue for several years now and really like the additional functionality it provides. I would also recommend Hue bulbs if you want lights that just work. I previously had a mix of Osram and Sengled bulbs and the added time, hair loss, and extra repeaters needed to get them to work reliably wasnāt worth the minimal cost savings. You can save a lot by buying them in 4 packs on Costcoās website.
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I saw on either CoCoHue or Advanced Hue Bridge integration that it only sends 10 commands per second, which gave me pause. I am sure its fine, but I don't want to cause issues or slowdowns with that (my house is already fully hue)
At the end of the day there is only one thing I care about functionality wise: The new Hue API.
Thatās per Hueās documentation. Itās not something that I have ever noticed in normal use. I also have a stupid amount of Hue lights, but use a lot of group devices for them. A group command uses Zigbee group messaging, from what I understand, it would only be a single command to control a group of lights.
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I define scenes in the Hue App and call those from HE using CocoHue. It opens up the possibility to activate the scene from outside HE if I want to. I assume it would have a similar effect in reducing the number of commands sent to the Hue bridge.
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Fair enough. Iāve never been a fan of using scenes for automations. I barely use scenes at all. I have a total of 3 in my current setup. I just prefer calling the bulbs directly. But thatās just what Iām used to and prefer personally
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And there's nothing wrong with either option, whatever suits your setup, preference, use cases,.... etc.
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Thatās part of the reason if I do switch them Iām considering innoveli. Theyāre z-wave and I suspect (and hope) they behave better as repeaters. (Obviously for my z-wave network not my zigbee network)
Bulbs seem to be pretty chatty, and I think that I read the same was true for z-wave bulbs. Zigbee is usually more tolerant of chatty devices since it has a lot more bandwidth. It probably depends on how many you plan to add.
Around 30.
Iāll do some more research and consider my options though. Donāt need to rush to a decision.
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This has probably been mentioned but I would always consider using a smart switch instead or maybe both..
The rabbit hole happens when you realize you really need to keep your smart bulbs powered so end up doing things like using a switch guard to prevent people from inadvertently turning things off OR using a smart switch in "Smart Bulb" mode...
I am doing the latter for 8 recessed and 2 table lamp Sengled bulbs in our den. It's been working great but I have had a couple of recessed bulbs fail (start flickering at higher level, not changing color etc) over the years.
I was using Inovelli bulbs in our bedroom for the sconces but had some trouble with my mesh and they were not completely reliable - the picos operating them would sometimes work, sometimes not. I'm not really sure it was the bulbs though - more likely my ZW mesh was a little wonky. Am now back to using Sengleds in the sconces and have not had any trouble.
For me personally, Iād like to use smart switches. But the power in my house was wonky. Even had an electrican look at it, couldnāt get a solution. Especially in colder months, my lights flicker and randomly change brightness. Because smart bulbs modulate their own brightness, they seem to be immune to the issue. I probably plan to get zooz smart switches and put them in smart bulb mode long term though.
- I would recommend solving your electrical issues first before installing a bunch of smart devices. They can be very sensitive to such fluctuations. Also recommend a whole home surge protector as well. Make sure your HE hub is on a good UPS.
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