I required some advice or experiences from other Philips Hue & Zigbee kit users.
I’ve just added a Conbee II USB stick to my HA setup - no problems at all - working great! . I do have a lot of Philips Hue lighting, and this works seamlessly with the Amazon Alexa devices scattered around the house, and works flawlessly with the Philips Hue phone app. It also works well through the Hue Integration in HA too, and “She Who Must Be Obeyed” also uses the Alexa voice commands to control the lighting and has got used to it over time.
Having now setup the ConBee II I have a few questions:-
Is there any advantage to be gained by migrating everything over to ZHA from the Hue integration?
Am I just creating a load of work for myself by re-pairing everything to ZHA?
By using ZHA instead of the Hue Integration would this break the Amazon Alexa & Hue Hub skill and ruin the Wife Acceptance Factor along with it?
Thank you in advance for any advice or experiences you can offer.
I’m in a similar boat - running Philips Hue from the beginning, and added Conbee + deCONZ later, and still use both.
I have only had two cases where I migrated a Philips light bulb to the Conbee stick:
Improving mesh network: After I paired an IKEA battery-powered switch to the Conbee it was struggling reliably connecting to it. The Philips Hue bulb was already located right next to the IKEA switch, so migrating the light bulb to the Conbee stick extended the mesh network and now the switch is working very well.
Remote control light bulbs from different vendors from same switch: In one room I was using a Hue light bulb with a Hue switch, and then added a lamp with an IKEA light bulb that I wanted to remote control from the same switch. Of course you can bring all that together with automations in Home Assistant, but I decided to migrate the Hue devices in this room to the Conbee and configure the simple on/off control inside deCONZ.
The only main advantage I can think of is the fact that hue bulbs act as a mesh repeater and therefore having them scattered around the property helps create or maintain a strong network. However if you plan your new zigbee network correctly (and I assume like most it will probably grow as you add more and more devices over time) then this benefit is reduced somewhat.
I have full control over every hue device via hue and/or HA when using the hue hub, I therefore also have lights that still work and can be controlled if HA is out of action for any reason.
Personally for me this would be a big fat yes. Also creating scenes in hue is quick, simple and straightforward yet in HA not so (in my opinion).
Yes and no. Initially you would loose this skill as there is no longer a hub. But you could then add the devices back by exposing them to Alexa via the HA skill instead.
Both are very valid points, and good to know too, as I will be extending the amount of kit that uses Zigbee & HA. Mainly buttons and smart switches to control the Hue bulbs initially.
Great point about using a nearby Hue bulb and using it to offer greater reliability over the Zigbee mesh network.
Thanks for the detailed response. Very kind of you.
The current Zigbee network has just grown ad-hoc from a Philips Hue Hub and a couple of bulbs to every bulb in the house (except kitchen downlighters) being Hue or Hue compatible. I can control them all via HA and the Hue Hub too, so a similar setup.
I have to concur, the Hue app is great for scenes etc
I have already done this, and it doubled up the number of devices that Alexa now sees due to the Hue Skill showing Philips stuff as well as HA now showing stuff. It also ‘broke’ some of the voice functionality too - I can no longer voice control the group ‘Kitchen Lights’ via Alexa - this is something I’m going to have to spend time sorting out and is an Alexa / Hue / HA issue that I need to resolve - prob too many duplicate entries showing in Alexa as it is seeing the same devices from both the Hue Skill and HA
Thanks for the contribution I think I will, for the moment, keep both the Hue set up and the ConBee II setup running in parallel. So far, and it is early days using both, it seems to work fine - however, in the Home Automation world, if it ain’t broke… then continue tweaking things until it is
. I do have a lot of Philips Hue lighting, and this works seamlessly with the Amazon Alexa devices scattered around the house, and works flawlessly with the Philips Hue phone app. It also works well through the Hue Integration in HA too, and “She Who Must Be Obeyed” also uses the Alexa voice commands to control the lighting and has got used to it over time.
