I’m totally stuck and am in desperate need of some help. I have Home Assistant installed within a Docker container on a Linux NAS. I was planning on moving things to Home Assistant in a controlled manner, but Philips have somewhat thrown a spanner in that. LED strips controllers are my problem area. I have lots of Philips Hue lighting around the house and had lots of RGB+WW led strips connected with 9 x Gledopto 2AR8F-GL-C-008 controllers. About 2 - 3 months ago, I ran in to an issue with these (thanks to Philips) and they are no longer controllable using the Hue bridge. I bought a Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Pro, but this won’t connect with most of the controllers (2 only despite all being the same make and model) and won’t connect with home assistant. I need a hassle free way forwards. I am happy to replace the 9 x controllers, but not the RGB+WW strips themselves. Some rooms, like the entertainment room have a mixture of Philips bulbs and RGB strips. Not being able to turns lights on and off is driving me insane. I love Shelly stuff, but the RGBW2 doesn’t look like it will work with RGB+WW strips. If I do need to buy something to replace the Hue bridge, noting that the Sonoff Bridge Pro didn’t work, then it does need to not require a physical connection to the hardware running Home Assistant. I’m pretty much prepared to do anything at this point to get the lights working again. Any ideas please?
Welcome!
If your Hue and ‘Friends of Hue’ certified devices are working fine with the Hub hub, I would leave those alone (at least for now). Add your Hub bridge into Home Assistant, I think you will find the interaction between Home Assistant and the Hue bridge pretty solid.
For your Zigbee devices that are not Hue certified (IMHO, this is a hard love and hard coin lesson for you. Was it’s Philips/Signify that was ‘wrong’ or perhaps did someone ASSume something based on reading on internet, just asking for a friend? 
)
As was recommend by others here, have a look at the Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA systems to control the larger universe of Zigbee devices that you do not have on your Hue bridge. I think you will find that with Home Assistant as the central ‘station’ between all of your devices, Hue, non-Hue Zigbee and many more you can create a useful, fun and robust home automation system.
Based on my experience with both Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA (as well a number of others), I find Zigbee2MQTT to be the best open source Zigbee system. Do your research on this forum and Zigbee2MQTT github forum as well as Youtube and other source before you make your choice. And do make sure you vet your sources, there are a lot of opins without facts and first hand experience as all well know. I think you will find some smart and helpful folks on this forum with N=1 experience and the scars to show for it. No reason for you to duplicate all the wrong paths others have gone. I’m sure you will find new ‘wrong’ paths that you can share as you adventure forth.
Again, if your Hue (supported by Hue) stuff is working, don’t mess with it. May be in the future you might find a reason to move some or all of your Hue devices off the Hue hub to a Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA system, but that is most likely far in future if as I ask, your current stuff is working. And if you do move things, the worst method is a ‘rip and replace’ in the home automation world, the much better path is a paced move for one system to another.
Good hunting and much success with your home automation adventures in 2024 and beyond!
What exact model of Sonoff Zigbee Bridge do you have? I found it matters a lot after testing several models.
Thanks for responses. Lots to digest above. I don’t know the exact model of the Zigbee Bridge I’m afraid as I have returned it to the vendor, it fundamentally didn’t work.
Am going to try a Gledopto WIFI RGB+WW controller. It seems to be compatible with Tuya Smart app. I have some curtains that are currently controlled by the Tuya Smart app that I was already intending on moving to Home Assistant. This will mean that I am replacing all 9 Gledopto controllers with WIFI enabled devices, which will cost £180 in total, but this path should remove the need for yet another “bridge” and because the controllers are identical in size, I know I won’t have any issues in terms of installation. So long as I can control all the lights in rooms that have a mix of Philips and none Philips devices in, then I’ll be happy. Philips have shot themselves in the foot in a lot of ways, as it’s far easier to replace the Philips Hue lights with alternatives, than it is to replace any of the RGB strips.
There are several things you need to be aware of. First of all, there are some very common causes for Zigbee problems, such as not using an extension cable to connect the coordinator to usb, channel choice and lack of zigbee routers. Fortunately there are also comprehensive troubleshooting guides. Two links below.
One thing in particular relating to the advice above: if you keep the hue bridge for all other zigbee stuff, then you have two separate zigbee mesh networks that do not talk to each other, but may interfere with one another (if they are on the same channel). It also means there may be too few zigbee routers in each mesh network.