I'm thinking about replacing the Hue hubs I've got with an HE hub instead just so that I can have my lighting on a hub which I can back up. I know lights should be left on their own hub, but I would really want my Hue motion sensors to be on the same hub as well so that lighting automation can be contained to one hub.
Since the Hue hubs can take any kind of Hue device, can I take that as a sign that I can put all my Hue lights and sensors on the same HE hub and they will play nice together?
Or is the device limitation Hue has on their hubs a sign that while the devices can be on the same hub, lights are so crap at repeating that they limit the maximum number of devices to reduce any issues due to this limitation?
The problem is Zigbee ZLL 1.2 bulbs do not play well with ZHA devices (sensors and whatnot) as the make bad repeaters and messengers. The exception to this are Sengled bubs (as they don't repeat) and Zigbee 3.0 bulbs. I would keep the Hue bridges and integrate them into Hubitat. Move the sensors to hubitat.
I believe the device limitation Philips has on their Hue hub is more a function of the amount of CPU and Memory resources available. The Hue bulbs and sensor devices are known to be of decent quality, and are very reliable, especially when used with a Hue hub.
I have about a dozen Hue bulbs connected to a Hue hub. This allows those devices to utilize features like native Apple Home integration, power on recovery state, etc... I also have a bunch of Zibgee Motion, Contact, Leak, and Temperature/Humidity sensors directly paired to my Hubitat Hub, including a Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor. This configuration has been extremely reliable and performant. YMMV, of course!
Just be sure to use different Zigbee channels on your Hue and Hubitat hubs, to avoid conflicts. Also, make sure your 2.4GHZ WiFi channel (1, 6, r 11) and channel width (20MHz) are configured correctly to avoid conflicts with Zigbee.
As an alternative, have you considered CocoHue and/or Advanced Hue Bridge integrations as a way to use your Hue devices while still connected to a Hue bridge?
As a side note, I have 12 Hue motion sensors linked direct to Hubitat.
They are all the "old" versions.
I recall reading something about the "new" ones not pairing well, or something.
Does anyone know the latest on that?
I currently have over 70 Hue lights split across two Hue hubs, using the built in integration to bring them across and this has been working great for years and years. I don’t use any of the features available on the Hue hubs, or at least I didn’t think so until @ogiewon mentioned power on recovery state. I don’t get many power outages here, maybe two a year if I’m unlucky, but that is definitely a mean feature. That may sway me back towards staying on the Hue hubs.
The reason I was looking at moving the lights to an HE hub instead was so that I can back it all up. I’m not looking forward to the day when the inevitable will happen and a Hue hub will die on me.
And if I then moved the lights to an HE hub I was also tinkering with the idea of moving my Hue sensors from my other HE hub to this hub so I would have a self-contained lighting hub. I’m well aware of the ZLL shortcomings but thought “if Phillips can do it, surely I can as well” And that was basically what I was hoping to get out of this discussion: can I do it if Phillips can do it?
But, as I said, my current setup has been working flawlessly for years (lights on Hue hubs and sensors on HE hubs), so maybe I shouldn’t gamble with a new configuration. Just a shame Phillips doesn’t offer backups of their hubs.
You can back up zigbee, but you will have to go through the pairing process all over again for all the devices. Once paired they will resume the state of the old device, which is cool.
I know, and I think I saw somewhere that on the C8’s, if you have the subscription with cloud backups, you don’t even need to go through the pairing process to get them back. However, I was referring to the lack of backup options on the Phillips Hue hubs.
And that was basically what I was hoping to get out of this discussion: can I do it if Phillips can do it?
