Hue Bridge Integration

If I install the Hue Bridge Integration app, does that mean that I will need internet access to control my Hue devices? So I no longer would have local control?

No, HE will control Hue over your local lan.

I was without internet for almost a week a few months back due a bad storm that came through. All of my Hue lights worked just fine through HE the whole time. The Hue integration is local.

Even if Hubitat did use the cloud for this (and as correctly stated above, it doesn't--though you will need your LAN to be up), it wouldn't affect what you already have. The Hue Bridge exposes a documented API in both local and cloud versions that any developer can use without affecting other apps, each of which have their own authentication to the Bridge.

The Hue Bridge integration on Hubitat works well in my experience, by the way, so hopefully it's the same for you!

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So good to know it’s local!

Right now, I only have a couple of Hue motion sensors and a Hue Play connected directly to Hubitat, without a Hue Bridge.

What advantages will a Hue Bridge give me?

This is best summarized in the documentation, How to Build a Solid Zigbee Mesh - Hubitat Documentation

Avoid adding Zigbee lightbulbs to your hub in combination with other Zigbee devices, since the lightbulbs will try to act as routers, but unfortunately they only perform this role properly with other lightbulbs. The exception we have found are Sengled Zigbee lightbulbs, which do not try to take on the role of repeating other Zigbee devices. Zigbee light bulbs do not have issues routing among themselves, therefore a good alternative is a separate Zigbee network via a compatible bridge such as the Philips Hub Bridge, or a second Hubitat Elevation hub with only Zigbee lightbulbs paired to it. This will avoid this issue of bulbs attempting, and subsequently failing to repeat signals for other devices, by establishing two separate and stable Zigbee networks. NOTE : Devices on a separate Zigbee network cannot repeat signals for devices on the main Zigbee network.

You can also find a lot of posts on this forum (and others) on the subject. Basically, if you have a Hue Bridge, you can keep your Hue bulbs on a separate network and avoid the above problems. If you don't have any non-lights Zigbee devices, then you'll probably be OK either way. Do note that the Bridge integration exposes only lights, so you'll need to keep the motion sensor on Hubitat to use it.

This rumor seems to have been circulating a lot lately, and I'm not sure where it came from, but it's not true. It's still usually a bad idea for the reason above, but it's still not true. :slight_smile:

I stand corrected. I am aware of not putting zigbee bulbs on hub other than Sengled but I guess I am misinformed about the Hue Zigbee protocol. Thank you for correcting that @bertabcd1234. Is this because HE does speak ZLL also?

This has nothing to do with zll or zha, it has everything to do with many bulbs, irrespective of them being zll or zha are just bad repeaters and can cause communication issues with other devices in general.

@mike.maxwell I do understand about the bulbs being bad repeaters and that is why you don't want them on the same network. I was just unaware that you even "could" connect HUE bulbs directly. This was the part I was asking about. I don't want to spread misinformation.

This post may answer some of your questions, but in general, ZLL devices are capable of joining ZHA networks: Zigbee HA vs. Zigbee LL - Connected Things - SmartThings Community

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Thank you @bertabcd1234. I am still learning much about these things and I will look at the link you posted. I do like helping but I also want my information to be correct. Thanks for pointing out my error.

Yeah, disconnected my hue bridge almost a year ago and have those 20 hue bulbs and another 10 of various brands running on a separate HE.

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I read the link form Robert above and it was pretty helpful in seeing the differences and similarities between ZLL and ZHA. I think I have a better understanding albeit still fairly elementary of the two now.

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