The more recent generation Hue bulbs are supposedly Zigbee 3.0, true?
I'm not sure what Hue "gen" went from ZLL (or whatever) to 3.0, but if I have some confirmed-to-be-new-gen Hue bulbs -- shouldn't they be OK to pair direct to HE?
I have a unique use case where it would benefit me to do that, but I'd like to confirm I'm not missing a pitfall before I go down that rabbit-hole...
Thanks!
They are indeed Zigbee 3.0, but (despite claims that often get repeated here and probably will below...) I've seen no evidence that the Zigbee profile really matters here, just the fact that ZLL was dominant for this application at the time when any of this was objectively tested. It's possible they've improved the device firmware or hardware since this time, assuming one of these (my guess is the former) was the culprit, but without someone watching traffic with a Zigbee sniffer, we can't really say for sure.
That being said, anecdotally, I don't think I've seen any complaints for newer bulbs, including Zigbee 3.0 models. I don't remember anyone saying Hue specifically [EDIT: for new models being good I mean; older ones were ones that were seen "eating" messages for sure], but it's possible.
On a related note, are you trying to set up binding with an Inovelli Blue Series switch or something? That's the only use case that comes to my mind for now when you say this setup would be better for you. 
Binding with a Blue switch would indeed be a nice win - that was originally got me wondering about this a while back... And it would still be something I could do in this particular case (which would be a nice added bonus).
My main goal in this case would be to nip the wee bit of polling lag involved with using them from Hue -- normally, that's not at all an issue for any of my Hue stuff, but it becomes a snag once in a while in our bathroom motion-lighting setup (long story!). It's never been a show-stopper issue or anything like that, but I'm curious if I can nip it by pairing the bulbs direct to HE.
I think I'll give it a shot -- I've carefully documented the current setup here in case I need to retrograde 
Thanks Robert - as always, I very much appreciate your help!!
Are you using the built-in integration? Both of the community offerings that are currently maintained that I am aware of, one of which is mine, offer use of the new "v2" Hue API, which supports instant status...or should. It's still experimental on the Hue side, and I'm not sure the libraries on the hub side that read this data are working 100% as I expect, so there are still some oddities, but in most cases it still beats polling (which I'd still recommend supplementing it with for this reason, though).
Have been a long-time CoCoHue user - and I love it!
The lag only factors when the "off" bulb state hasn't quite caught up -- all "on"-related stuff is always instantaneously updated, but "off" stuff isn't for some reason, at least in my case... "Off" updates still depend on the polling interval. Maybe it has to do with the fact I'm using a Hue group, but I'm pretty sure I had all that setup properly (i.e., options ala bulb status update group status & vice versa and that sort of thing).
Once in a blue moon (and again - this is all very much a 1st-world problem!), that Off lag compounds with the motion-sensor cool-down such that it all ends up in a limbo status. Anyway, I'm going to experiment and see if I can solve for that.
Plus, binding that Blue switch in there to those lights would be a win, so assuming my first experiment goes well, I'll play around with the binding later too.
Thanks again!
Follow-up... Experiment seems to be a success! Those 2 Hue bulbs are working great paired direct and are showing as healthy participants in the mesh.
Added bonus is binding them to the corresponding Blue... Although I'm relying on a motion sensor to manage activations most of the time (instead of always using the switch), that binding is really nice peace-of-mind in case anything goes sideways with the hub...
In that worst-case scenario, binding's the only way to control those bathroom bulbs, and I just tested it by shutting down / unplugging the hub -- instantaneous bulb control (on/off/dimming) worked like a champ!
Man, this is all pretty darn slick!
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