Hi Guys, I'm on a journey to get rid of the unnecessary... such as the Hue Bridge. Now, it seems not so easy to do. I already connected all my Motion Sensors and dimmer to HE (those are all working solid so far). But the big junk are the bulbs. I have in mind to stay Zigbee only (I don't want to charge my Wifi network with bulbs and Z-wave is problematic because of the different market frequencies). I read Slengled is a good option, but hard to get where I live. Yeelight seems fine too... but wifi as I mentioned. What about Osram Smart plus or the Innr stuff? Do they work without a bridge Other suggestions are very Welcome. PS: Maybe someone with experience can write Smart bulb guide since this is a never dining topic.
Honestly I suggest you to stay with the bridge and the bulbs on it, you already have it and it works great for bulbs only, it uses ZLL, HE uses ZHA and all zigbee bulbs with the exception of Sengled will start to repeat and mess with your mesh. I believe you can add the Osram to the bridge too.
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As @vjv says, keep your bulbs on your Hue bridge. I went down a similar path as you and I have since reversed that.
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Agree with both above, I'd like to get rid of mine, but the thought of the pain which would ensue stops me.
I was actually well on my way. I only had 4 lights to go, but then my mesh started acting really odd and I traced it to the Ikea bulbs. As soon as I threw them back on my Hue hub, my mesh stabilized again.
The ~.5 second delay (and other Hue issues) are worth it, imho, compared to the instability of bulbs running in the ZHA profile versus the ZLL profile.
If your only concern is getting rid of the Hue Bridge, I'd second the advice to just keep it. It works well, and, as mentioned above, you definitely would not be able to reliably use your Hue bulbs directly on Hubitat unless you either don't have any other Zigbee devices (Zigbee bulbs are bad repeaters; Sengled is one that doesn't and would work, but I imagine you'd have to replace a lot of bulbs) or want to get a second Hubitat hub just for Zigbee bulbs (in which case you did not gain much).
If you have a lot of bulbs, I think you have the right idea to avoid Wi-Fi bulbs for the reason you mentioned. If you don't move between different countries, Z-Wave isn't necessarily bad, but there aren't a lot of Z-Wave bulbs and I don't know how well the few that do exist actually work.
Do you need the functionality smart bulbs provide (e.g., color or color temperature modification, renter-friendly installation, etc.)? If not, you might consider smart switches/dimmers instead. The options are mostly Z-Wave, but regardless of which protocol you choose, you can pair them directly to Hubitat and avoid the problems most bulbs pose.
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I wonder if the HE is superior in any way than the Hue hub with regards to speed or range. Other than that, can you think of any other benefits one could gain from using a 2nd HE hub for a Zigbee bulb mesh instead of a Hue bridge? I have been wanting to do this, but haven't yet found enough reasons to justify the extra purchase (other than uniformity).
The benefit is you can use a much wider range of bulb types, all on a single hub and they'll be happy, routing to other bulbs without issue. For example, you can combine OSRAM bulbs, Hue and IKEA Trådfri on a second HE hub. With Hue Bridge, only the Hue and Trådfri could be used.
Only in USA in Europe you can't.
I believe it's otherwise, only in EU in US you can't . I was unable to add Osram to my Hue bridge.
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I have several Osram on my bridge, although they’re a pain in the backside.
Correct. Osram in Europe is Zigbee LL, whereas in the US it is Zigbee HA
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I have several Cree on my Hue Bridge as well.
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Yes. They are Zigbee LL so they work. Good point.
I was unable to join them at all and after speaking to their support they said only hues lamps work on there bridge. It also wasn't that I hadn't set up the lamps, as soon as I did a search on hubitat they joined straight away.
Strange. I have one joined to my Bridge. About 6 months ago, removed it for a test, re-joined right away once I reset it.
What bridge do you have and where are you based? Was it a Osram lamp?
Oh, my post just before was regarding Cree, so I thought that’s what you were talking about. No OSRAM will not work in Canada or the US because they are Zigbee HA
But I'm in the UK and they also don't work even though in the UK Osram are ZLL.
That might be a firmware issue. I believe the bulbs in the UK and Europe received an update for compatibility with the Hue bridge, but the US and Canada never received that update.
