The big button on the front is how Hue does their local security. It’s for authentication of the Hue and third-party apps. If you can see the bridge and bulbs, but can control them, then it’s because they’re not authorized. Pressing the button and doing a “Refresh bulb discovery” in the Hue Integration app will typically fix the issue.
Might help even if you can find you bridge or devices. In fact, that is what Amazon tells you to do when Hue devices are not immediately discovered. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to push that button more than once to get discovery to work, with many different hubs and apps. The issue of discovery not always working is more likely a Philips issue than a Hubitat one, since I believe they used the official API in developing their App.
It’s never a bad idea to reboot the Hue Bridge and try again from the start.
I'm not trying to blame anyone - just saying that I've tried quite a few smartphone apps for Hue when I first got it - all of which needed to discover the Hue bridge and get authorized by pushing the button - and I never had any problems with that. When I couldn't get Hubitat to discover the Hue bridge, I tried discovery using Amazon's Alexa app (without an Echo) and that worked just fine.
Had you not already paired this bridge with you Amazon account? If so, it’s already authorized. If you bought a new bridge, or opened a new Amazon account, you’d have to press the button again.
No, I hadn't paired it, so yes, I had to push the pairing button after the Alexa app had found the bridge (while Hubitat was also looking for it but couldn't find it). One difference in the process would be that Amazon requires users to do a cloud-based authentication first (log into Hue cloud account inside the Amazon app), then discovers the bridge and after that asks for local authentication - not sure if that makes a difference for discovery.
Let's start over with your Hue bridge discovery issue. You have said in this thread, that you don't have any apps installed.
Do you mean other than the Hubitat "Hue bridge integration" app? You need that. Discovery of the bridge isn't the same as a Z-Wave or Zigbee devices in Hubitat. Is that point understood? It's an important difference. If it's not installed, please do the following...
In your Hubitat UI, click on the word Apps on the left
Click the +Load New App button at the top right of the Apps page
Halfway down the list, choose "Hue Bridge Integration"
Follow the wizard from there. While you're waiting (Up to five minutes for discovery), walk over to your Hue Bridge a press the middle button once, just briefly. No need to hold it).
Let me know if you've been here before. If not, then we're now headed in the right direction. If you have and it didn't work, then let me next hear what devices you have (i.e. Modem/Router and who your ISP is, and connected devices to the ISP modem router).
Look at the layout from the perspective of internet coming into your house and traveling in a straight line from internet to device until you get to the end. I realize it doesn't exactly work like that, but it will help when troubleshooting to think of a logical progression from one, to the next (outside to inside).
It absolutely does. Best not to let frustration get in the way. We will get this working. Logic will prevail, if we take it one step at a time.
The discovery/integration of the Philips Hue bridge with the Hubitat Elevation hub has been tried dozen of times without success - the only results are a screen displaying the following message:
"Hue Bridge Integration - Bridge Discovery Failed!
Failed to discover any Hue Bridges. Please confirm that the Hue Bridge is connected to the same network as your Hubitat Hub, and that it has power."
The problem (as it is in my view a problem) is that the 'Hue Bridge Integration' app has a flaw and for some reasons does not want to recognize the Philips Hue bridge on my network. The Habitat 'Hue Bridge Integration' app is the only application so far that does not want to recognized the Philips Hue bridge - all other Amazon skills, Google Pay apps and Windows software that I have installed have not had that problem.
The Hubitat staff is trying to find out what could cause the problem (I thought I was the only one with the problem but we are now two with the same problem thus my consideration that the Habitat 'Hue Bridge Integration' app has a flaw.
The majority of users have been able to pair. I have seen users reporting issues, that were resolved. None of them drew the conclusion to my recolection that the software was "flawed" based on the result of their particular experience. So without knowing what the cause is, I think it more helpful that we take a different mindset, and methodically look at the components of the system.
So you have installed the Hubitat Hue Bridge Integration app and you get a failed discovery message. OK, then let's now please have an understanding of your network. Could you answer a few questions about your network equipment?
Who is your ISP? Rogers, Bell, Telus, Cogeco or other?
Do you have a modem only, with your own router connected or do you have a modem/router combination from the ISP?
If you have a modem/router combination device from your ISP, do you also have your own router connected to that?
Are there any other routers or network switches connected?
What is your network IP range (i.e. 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x or other)
Ray, Hate to see you go. But just wanted to follow up and let you know we found the root cause of this rare case and have implemented a fix that will allow Hue bridges to be discovered.
@Patrick Is there any way to access the Hue Bridge device and its child devices in a smart app? Or, alternatively, will refreshing the state of a single Hue bulb cause Hubitat to grab the states of all the hue bulbs (since it seems to be just as efficient as getting the state of a single bulb)? I'd like to implement a heartbeat app to improve the response time of my Hues.
The current polling rate is set internally, there's a few tweaks we want to make in discovery, so we can look at providing a user option in the app/driver (where ever it makes sense) to allow some user configurable options.
Are bulbs faster through the bridge? I have delays between bulbs, say I have a lamp with 3 bulbs, well I have 2 lamps in particular with 3 bulbs a piece, when I turn on the lights, 1 bulb at a time comes on, it takes a good 5-6 second for them all to register. When I use the osram hub its completely instant for everything everywhere. But I cannot use osram. So if I pick up a hue bridge, will it be faster?
It should be fast even if you don't manage them via Hue Groups. I have button controller setup to each bulb in a three bulb fixture, rather than a group and it still controls them all at once, very smoothly.
Bummer, I use hue lighting in my Home Theater and love to use slower transition times which using scenes allows me to do. I believe there was also a possibility that adjusting transition time in the hue integration driver might be added as it is supported by the API?
I know it's not what you're asking for, but Hue Scenes are natively supported by Google Assistant. So you could use Assistant Relay to get what you want.
