Emulated Hue Bridge Controlling a Arduino Device

I would like to make a controller for LED strips using a ESP8266 (yea, I know I am the thousandth person to do this). I have a simple example using FauxWemo working but I would like to do something different and have it a little more controllable.

The Wemo protocol only supports on/off. I understand that the Hue protocol supports on/dim/off. That is why I would like to use the Hue protocol.

I have installed the emulated hue bridge in HA. Now it is trime to tackle the ESP8266 part of it. What type of messages does the emulated bridge send to the device? Are they simple REST urls? Is it something else? Do I need a special library to interpret a special protocol? I have had a difficult time finding specific information on the web, perhaps some kind person could point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Steven