Philips Hue - With or without bridge?

Axel111

Hello!

This week I will finally receive the key of my house, and I’m planning to order loooots of Philips Hue lighting, and possibly some Innr strips.

I have been reading many topics on this forum, and searched a lot of information. A lot of people face problems while using Hue together with Homey, both with or without using the Philips Hue Bridge. I already own the bridge (from a Philips Hue starter pack I got as a gift), but haven’t connected anything to it yet.

Can somebody give me an advise about the best way to connect my lights? Via the Hue bridge or directly via Homey?

I would like my lights to quickly respond to motion sensors (that still need to be bought too), but I would also like to use Hue apps from the Apple Appstore. From reading other topics, this seems to be a challenge. Besides that, I would like to use the Phipis Hue Dim Switch.

With all of the above, my best guess would be to connect my lights to the Philips Hue Bridge, but use different motion sensors then the ones from Philips, so my lights respond right away. What do you guys think about this?

All tips and tricks are more than welcome.
I am looking forward to your replies!

Axel

jorden

I would go for the Hue bridge.

I combine my 20+ Hue lights with the Hue motion sensor (which connects directly to the Hue bridge), with the Fibaro motion sensor and with a Neo Coolcam door sensor (both through Homey). All works very well and very quick.

Cuflee

If you also want to use the Hue apps I think you will need the bridge, they all connect to the bridge to work and will not work via your homey.

lubbertkramer

Here using Homey without Hue bridge and have the hue lights, hue strips and hue dimmer connected directly. as so far working good. Pro = bigger mesh and no delay for the motion detection because otherwise Homey is polling the bridge for information if thats important for you Downside is that Zigbee isn't completly stable at the moment, rewrite incoming as stated in the latest blog

Axel111

jorden said:

I combine my 20+ Hue lights with the Hue motion sensor (which connects directly to the Hue bridge), with the Fibaro motion sensor and with a Neo Coolcam door sensor (both through Homey).

Thanks for the replies everyone!

@jorden
Wouldn't it be enough just to buy the Fibaro Motion Sensor? So I would connect all my lights to the Philips Bridge for the apps, download the official Homey Philips Hue app, and activate my lights via Homey as well. This way I would get the advantages of both. Or am I wrong?

jorden

@Axel111 That could be enough for you indeed, depending on what you want to do. 

I have multiple devices for multiple rooms:
I have the Hue motion sensor in the hallway though, which doesn't reach my Homey but does reach the bridge (because all the Hue lights forward the signal as a "mesh" network). The Fibaro is in my living room, close enough to Homey. Same for the doorsensor, which is in the "Walk-in closet" and only turns on the light in that room. 

Herman2604

lubbertkramer said:

Here using Homey without Hue bridge and have the hue lights, hue strips and hue dimmer connected directly. as so far working good. Pro = bigger mesh and no delay for the motion detection because otherwise Homey is polling the bridge for information if thats important for you Downside is that Zigbee isn't completly stable at the moment, rewrite incoming as stated in the latest blog

Hi may i ask, or if anybody als knows how to, how did you set up the Hue Dimmer, i got On -Off working, but i would like to use brightness up and down as well.
The Hue App from athom has that build in if i read this right, but the HUE ZIgbee app does not has that functionality.

Kind regards, Herman
*** Delay That Order*** Got it working.