I recall reading in the hubitat documentation that it is best to keep hue bulbs on the hue hub when possible - as opposed to direct ZGB pairing to hubitat.
In contrast, while researching the best way to pair a hue motion sensor, I read on the forums that it is best to pair direct to hubitat.
As my hubitat ZGB network continues to grow and my hue hub approaches its soft limit— I am wondering if I may be better off migrating my white ambiance hue lights to hubitat.
I run a very layered circadian rhythm lighting rule with motion triggers, and while messing with it yesterday I noticed things got off when trying to fine tune @ the 1 min polling rate.
I do have color lights/bulbs allover my living room which I can justify keeping on hue hub for the videosync functionally - but if responsiveness and reliability under layered rules are a priority,would I be better served migrating those white ambiance overhead lights to hubitat?
Are there any best practices when running multiple adjacent zigbee networks? Should each network be on a different channel? Does it matter?
I am running ikea tradfri, hue, Aqara, and now hubitat. Tradfri is on it way out of my house, hopefully Aqara as well.
Edit: for context, the hue lights in question are the hue enrave ceiling light fixtures that connect to mains power.
I have about a dozen of the generation 3 bulbs (the ones with bluetooth) that are Zigbee 3.0 directly paired to my hub and they appear to be solid repeaters in the Zigbee network. I believe the advice for Hue bulbs dates back to the older generation that were ZLL and not 3.0.
If you do want to pair them with Hubitat, you may want to try my Hue driver available from HPM ([RELEASE] Philips Hue Zigbee Driver (not using Hue Bridge)) While I've not tested specifically with the ceiling light fixtures, I see no reason why the color temperature driver would not work. The main advantages are push updates (no polling for the Zigbee 3 generation) and support for level and color temperature staging while off.
@RxRated The issue is the older zigbee zll 1.2 bulbs. They do not play well with zigbee ZHA devices (sensors and what have you) as they make horrible repeaters/messengers. The exception are Sengled bulbs as they do not repeat or using Zigbee 3.0 bulbs. Now you don't have to use another Hue hub, you can use another Hubitat as well (and use hub mesh). Isolation is the key or you can buy another hue hub on ebay for $25 bux.
I came across another one of your comments on a different thread and it gave me some context to understand where to research from, thank you. I am still not quite sure I understand the nuance of ZLL vs Zigbee 3.0 but takeaway being that having ZLL and zigbee on same hub is not ideal as far as having those devices work together?
Hypothetically speaking, if the overhead light fixtures in question (hue enrave) were zigbee and not ZLL, that changes things, yes?
Not that I have found a reliable way to verify anything beyond the "zigbee certified" logo in the hue product manual.
Edit: for more context, I am using hue motion sensors (Sml003) paired directly to hubitat and the enrave light fixtures paired to hue hub and brought in to HE thru hue integration. Would love to minimize latency between sensor event and light response.
I think you just answered my question by connecting the dots for me. On the hue devices, the Bluetooth ones are generally zigbee gen 3 and NOT ZLL right?
I haven't been able to find anything about whether these light fixtures are ZLL or zigbee 3.0 but they do have Bluetooth support!
Gen 3 was released in 2016 with Zigbee 3 support, then in 2019 they released an updated version that was nearly the same but also added Bluetooth (sometimes referred as Gen 3.1 or Gen 4).
So, if you have Bluetooth then its definitely a Zigbee 3.0 version and probably also with anything Hue you can purchase today that was made after 2016.
Zigbee 3 combined the best features of Zigbee Light Link and Zigbee Home Automation which for some (unfathomable to me) reason were two totally different specifications (technically called profiles) of Zigbee 1.2.
The original Hue bulbs would talk Zigbee Light Link profile to their own hub and a badly implemented version of Zigbee Home Automation profile if you put them on non-hue hubs. This is where they got their bad reputation as they worked well using the Hue hub using their native Light Link stack but not on the Home Automation stack. Isolating those ZLL devices to their own channel and hub (or using the Hue hub) is the best way to keep things working well.
I had some of the original Hue bulbs and it left me with a very bad experience so much so that I didn't even touch Hue again until last year when I saw they finally had "75" and "100 watt" equivilent versions and was pleasantly surprised to see the improvement in color and a proper Zigbee 3 stack. Now I'm very happy with my Hue bulbs on my Hubitat hub.
I found that if you monitor eBay you can generally get good deals on unopened bulbs. I also learned if you buy open boxes from eBay or Amazon you are likely to get a different cheap bulb in the box. It seems people buy them on Amazon, swap out the bulb and return them at which point they get sold as a warehouse deal. Often they put the cheap white-only hue in there since it looks so similar.
Zll is Zigbee Light Link and ZHA is Zigbee Home Automation. Zigbee 3.0 is the updated version in ZLL from 1.2, ZHA applies to sensors and what not. So if it doesn't say Zigbee 3.0, keep the bulb on a separate mesh using a hue bridge or another hubitat.
