Connect Phillips Hue to Hubitat

I just got my Hubitat today. I noticed that it does not have a USB port, and no USB stick was included. I think I must have a newer version that doesn't have or require USB stick.

But my main problem is that when I go to Auto Discover my Phillips Hue lights, it just searches forever with the message "Looking for devices". What do I have to do to hook up my Hue lights to Hubitat?

Correct. US/Canada customers purchasing the newer C5 hub will not need the external Zigbee/Z-Wave USB adapter that was included with the C4 hub. Both radios for North American owners are built-in.

First, if you have a Hue Bridge, that is going to be a much better way to add your Hue lights. Install the built-in Hue Integration app. Connected directly to the hub, Hue bulbs try to repeat Zigbee signals and they can't do it, so things go really bad with other Zigbee sensors and devices you try to add later.

If you're going to try to just add them directly (again, I don't recommend it for overall reliability with the Zigbee mesh), then you need to reset them first. If you don't have a Hue Bridge, then you'll need a Hue Dimmer to reset them so they're in pairing mode. Hue doesn't have a sequence to cycle power the bulbs for pairing mode like other vendors do.

A refurbish Hue Bridge is just $40. I would personally go with that if you don't already own one. Much better integration and you then have the benefit of everything the Hue bridge can do, all the third-party apps (for which there are many) and full compatibility with the lower cost IKEA color bulbs, which aren't anywhere near as good at color at the Hub bulbs, but they are inexpensive when you just want some basic accent color.

2 Likes

Ok cool. Thanks for the clarification. Good to know that my new C5 hub has the Zigbee and Zwave radios already built in.

Since I posted this I found out how to connect my Hue hub and that works beautifully!

However my original thought was to reset the hue bulbs and connect them to HE directly. Because I wanted to get rid of the lag inherent of the Hue hub reaching out to the cloud for every command I give it.

But now that I've played around with the HE interface, I realize it doesn't give you as much control as the Phillips Hue app. So I may end up sticking with that, and only using HE to control my Hue lights if / when my Internet goes out.

Thanks

Pretty sure Hue app does not reach out to the net when you are turning lights on and off. The only time it would reach out is for firmware updates.

Also I think it's best practice to have the hue bulbs connected to the hue hub, and on a different zigbee channel to your HE network.

1 Like

As the above poster mentioned, it does not do this. Hubitat communicates to the Hue bridge over the Hue HTTP(S) interface, entirely over your own LAN. Even in-app control on the Hue mobile app does this (or effectively the same using whatever interface the SDK exposes)--in fact, unless you sign up for and leave My Hue enabled, you don't get access from outside your own LAN at all.

So, the good news is you're good in that regard. :slight_smile: My only concern with this was rate-limiting (e.g., if turning on a bunch of bulbs at the same time or using the "Start level change" and "stop level change" commands in Hubitat to begin and end the dimming of bulbs with button presses and releases, i.e., effectively dimming while held). The Hue docs recommend <10 commands/second to avoid this. I'm sure the real limit is higher, but in any case, I haven't noticed any problems with this. You also won't be able to use the Zigbee group broadcasts (something you can optionally do in the Groups and Scenes app), but that doesn't bother me (might be able to eliminate the "popcorn effect," but this is minimal for me with how fast everything generally happsn for me anyway).

1 Like

Should be no popcorn effect if you toggle Hue Groups. I get what you’re saying about the rate, but it think that’s outside of the OP’s issues and requirements at this stage.

@bluethundr, you want to ideally use the Hue integration to keep them on their own Zigbee network, free from the potential to interfere with other Zigbee devices you add by trying to repeat the signal.

There is no reason you cannot use the Hue bridge normally when the Hue integration is active. In fact other device can also integrate with it at the same time if you want. Hue is local, except for the remote access. That’s why you have to press the button on the bridge to connect. That’s how the local authenticaton is done.

For me, I had to rediscover the Hue bridge using the Hue app in HE. Part of that process involved HE telling me to press the button on top of my Hue bridge. Until I did this, any attempt to capture a Hue scene just resulted in returning the same settings each time. After successfully rediscovering the bridge, though, it works great!

There are references to the Hue Bridge and the Hue Hub.
If i have an established Hubitat home (mainly w a security slant) - and wish to be able to add controllable multi-color lights. is Hue the best choice or one of the best choices?
If so - am i best served by buying the Hub and the Bridge and say the lightstrip
perhaps this: Hue White and color ambiance Lightstrip Plus base pack 719015548 | PHILIPS ( it has a bridge and appears to also require the hub. :slight_smile:)
Just trying to make it easy for Hubitat to turn on lights and change their colors based on conditions/triggers.
Thanks!

"Hue Hub" is what Philips is calling the "Hue Bridge" now, likely because its purpose has been expanded (Zigbee Light Link, the protocol Hue uses, doesn't need a "hub" like Zigbee Home Automation, which Hubitat uses, does, but many people have always called the Bridge a Hub due to similar appearance). The hub/bridge is also a sort of gateway between the Hue Zigbee network and your LAN where Hubitat resides, so it's what lets Hubitat communicate with your Hue network. (Hue bulbs could also directly pair to Hubitat as Zigbee devices, but unless bulbs are the only kind of Zigbee devices you have, that's usually a bad idea due to their poor repeating ability for other devices).

In my opinion, Hue makes some of the best smart bulbs out there. They do color and whites very well (some have weaknesses in one or the other; Hue has downfalls too like a lack of high-lumen bulbs, but that's not a problem for me). They aren't cheap, however. The product you linked to is particularly not-cheap and will also require the Hue Bridge/Hub to work. Sengled has a cheaper LED strip that could pair directly to Hubitat without problems, but I find its whites lacking for anything other than the default warm white. You're likely to get different opinions here, but mine is to go for Hue if you can afford it and don't mind the extra "hub." If you only want a lightstrip, though, you have other options, including some DIY ones.

@keithwinnfl I use the sengled color bulbs. Their colors are equal to hue and better than most others I have. They are relatively cheap and they don't mess with the mesh. I have the hue bulbs but they are over-priced IMO, but if I had to choose a second place it would be hue.

2 Likes

I finally got rid of my Hue hub this weekend. Transferred all my lights from Hue to HE and the ones that were actually Hue bulbs, I replaced with Sengleds. I couldn't be happier now. :slight_smile: One less hub in the house. Yay!

Just curious: did you have non-Hue bulbs on Hue then, or did you just mean that you replaced all your Zigbee bulbs with Sengleds? (Since Sengleds can't pair to Hue, I'm asking because it sounds like you may have had others, and Hue bulbs aren't the only ones that have been known to be questionable repeaters for non-lights. I'm sure you're aware, but I just wanted to make sure you weren't setting yourself up for possible trouble.)

I don't want to fill my house with hubs/bridges, but the Hue Bridge is one I've learned I don't mind having--even after trying a second (or fourth, I guess...) Hubitat hub dedicated to them. If Sengleds work for you, however, that's great! I don't think I would mind them as much if I hadn't already started down the Hue path first and had a point of comparison (minor differences in behavior prevent me from mixing them in the same fixtures, for example--and I don't like them enough to go replacing everything).

I had Hue bulbs and Ikea bulbs on my Hue Hub. I transitioned the Ikea bulbs over to HE and replaced the actual Hue bulbs with Sengleds.

I actually didn't mind the Hue hub (or ecosystem) all that much, by itself. But, with multiple things hitting the Hue Hub externally (HE, Alexa, GH, NodeRed, and a few apps I wrote myself), it was causing a few of my routines to slow down. For instance, my hallway light triggers off a motion sensor directly attached to my HE. The bulb was on Hue. There would almost always be a 500ms to 2 (sometimes 3 or 4) second delay in activation. It drove me nuts.

I started sniffing my network and sure enough, it was the Hue bridge that was causing the delay due to excessive network traffic in and out of the hub. I tried moving it to one of my ProSafe switches thinking maybe there was an issue with the switch it was on. Same behavior. So, I figured having all my bulbs on HE would be better, both for performance and also my internal network. Going with Sengleds was just an easy call for me as Best Buy has been running a sale on the two pack white bulbs ($15!!!) for awhile, so I cleared them out. :smiley: Plus, now my bulbs have the added benefit of being on my strong Zigbee mesh as opposed to their own mesh.

So far, my bulb performance has been exceptional. Granted, my mesh is still healing after adding about 10 contact and motion sensors over the weekend, but my rules are firing nearly instantly now and I haven't had any HE slowdowns since I did made the transition.

I think people have reported these to work well, but it's hard to tell without someone like Mike having a Zigbee sniffer to tell us for sure if he sees anything odd. :slight_smile: Hopefully they work well directly paired for you!

And interesting issue with the Hue Bridge. I have a few things connected to mine (Alexa, HomeKit, two Hubitats [one at--shock, horror gasp--a 10-second polling interval], and a couple third-party apps that shouldn't do anything unless I tell them to) and haven't noticed any slowdowns, but that's probably fewer things than you. In any case, best of luck!

1 Like

@Royski (I'll never stop tagging you lol) and I are pretty equal in terms of Ikea bulbs ( BTW, I went to Ikea this past weekend :stuck_out_tongue: ) connected directly to HE. I also keep an Ikea Gateway on hand to update the firmware on all my Ikea bulbs as the older firmware is just trash. Like, really horrible trash that a junior dev wouldn't even write. Usually I can tell just from looking at XBee when an Ikea bulb is going to cause issues as it starts flooding the controller with junk messages.

In total, I replaced 38 Hue bulbs with Sengleds and I have 24 Ikea devices (bulbs, drivers, signal repeaters and now puck dimmers). I have a XBee that I use from time to time to measure my Zigbee mesh. All in all, I'd say my mesh is about as solid as it can be. I have multiple repeaters both inside and outside of the house and rarely does anything drop off my network. :smiley:

I had mine at 1 second because the WAF was factored into the dashboard showing up to date on/off conditions for bulbs. 10 seconds would have driven her insane lol. :wink:

2 Likes

I've got 30+ Ikea Trådfri bulbs connected directly to my HE hub and my experience so far has been very different.

Are your Trådfri Bulbs working well repeating other zigbee devices or are you somehow forcing them not to do so? Someone told me in another thread that they are garbage repeaters.

Could this be an issue with the bulb firmware? Before switching from ST to HE, I got an Ikea hub and updated the firmware on most bulbs, but not all since the process didn't work all that well for me.

Right now, I'm considering getting a Hue Hub and connect all my bulbs through there, but I'd really prefer not doing so if there is another solution.

(I'm also considering including a couple of HUE outdoor lights, so maybe a Hue Hub would be needed for that reason if nothing else?)

They are. :smiley: Bulbs should never repeat unless they are on a ZLL mesh.

I thought the same thing and also updated the firmware on all of mine (this was months ago though). It seemed to help with the chattiness of the bulbs, but not enough to consider them "stable" IMHO.

That's one solution OR get yourself a second Hubitat hub and host all your bulbs on that (even perhaps the Hue ones) and nothing else. That way, the bulbs can be as chatty as they want and repeat and not really cause issues. I have seen that bulbs that do repeat, when by themselves, work much better than in an environment where you have other devices competing with them.

2 Likes