Are Hue lights Zigbee or other communications format that is natively supported my HE and therefore don't require the HUE hub? If so, how do you pair them?
You can pair Hue lights (and now accessories) with HE hubs. There is a convention for pairing Hue devices with a Hue bridge, but I believe that is largely for shielding HE from older Hue devices that mess with the Zigbee mesh. If you have more recent Zigbee 3 devices is could be worth trialling pairing your Hue devices directly with HE rather than with a Hue bridge. Otherwise, yes, a bridge will provide a better outcome.
My bulbs are all within a year or two old.. How do you put the bulbs in paring mode?
Good question... been a while for me... If you have a Hue switch handy you can likely do it using them.... I'd be trawling the trusted manual of the Internet.... Then when that fails posting here... 
I'm speaking from memory here so I may get this wrong.
I moved house at the beginning of the year.
My HUE Light strips were paired to a HUE hub.
When I re-installed at my new home I went into the HUE app and deleted them. My HUE hub was turned on at the time.
I then deleted them in the HUE app and depowered them. I put my HE hub into zigbee pairing mode, powered on the strips and the HE hub 'found' them.
Powered down my HUE hub and the strips are now paired and working via the HE hub.
I'm not sure if this helps or not but thought I would pass the info on anyway.
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I will try that - Thanks
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Did you get it?
I have a Hue bulb that comes out with the Xmas decorations. It was paired to the Hub I had prior to Hubitat. For the last 4 years, I tried to reset it and pair it to Hubitat with no success. This year it would not pair to the old hub, but unexpectedly paired to Hubitat. I started the afternoon trying to get another device paired to Hubitat, gave up, tried to pair this Hue Xmas decoration bulb, gave up, and went back to the first device. Apparently the Hue bulb was still in pairing mode when I put Hubitat in pairing for a second time!
What I did to try to get the Hue bulb in pairing mode/reset
- inserted it in an xmas decoration
- turned the switch controlling the decoration on and of 12 times fast
- turned the switch controlling the decoration off for 5 seconds, then on for 8, then off for 2, and repeated the on for 8, off for 2 so I had 12 rounds. Did this several times. It never paired to the old hub, but sure paired to Hubitat....
Yeah I just gave up for the time being.. I am not that proficient with HE and thou everyone is trying to help, my lack of understanding hampers my ability to experiment.
AFAIK there’s no trick to getting hue bulbs into pairing mode, and @bobbles’ experience seems consistent.
If they’re not actively paired to a zigbee network, they should be in pairing mode when powered on.
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Suggest you try this:
- Turn the switch controlling the Hue bulb on and of 12 times fast
- Tell Hubitat you want to add a zigbee device. Turn the switch controlling the Hue bulb off for 5 seconds, then on for 8, then off for 2, and repeat the on for 8, off for 2 eleven more times.
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So I decided to try my Hue lights again yesterday..
Turns out it is very simple.. Connect your hue bulb to a hue hub, (It likely already is if you using it). Remove the light from the hub by finding the device and removing from the Hue App. That immediately puts the Hue bulb in paring mode..
Go to HE - Devices - Add New - Select Zigbee and the bulb should be recognized.. Make sure that once the device is added, you change the device type to "Advanced Zigbee RGBW Bulb"
Test - should be working and able to change colors..
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Where did you find this procedure?
Other brands have similar methods for resetting bulbs, but does that apply to Hue bulbs?
Glad to hear that worked for you!
It’s what @bobbles suggested, and it’s also consistent with the instructions from Hue in their support documentation.
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@marktheknife, Yep I did this process with 3 bulbs and it worked for each one... Literally took no time.
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Found it online somewhere specifically for Hue bulbs and it worked!
I don't have a Hue hub, and the bulb was previously paired with Abode. I was trying to figure out how to reset the bulb and pair it to HE; spent about 2 hours on it last year and got nowhere, but the above procedure I found this year worked!
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