I’m quite new to this world. I don’t know if it’s a dumb question
Is there a way to merge those 2 zigbee networks in 1.
I have :
Hue hub
Hue switch
6 Hue Bulbs
the conbee2 stick
several sensors (temp, plug, …).
Today I have 2 zigbee networks with hue hub and conbee2. But It could be good to merge this in 1 network to take advantage of a bigger meshed network, as hue bulb can be used as router. On top of that my outside sensors of my conbee2 network are difficult to be reach. Maybe using bulbs as router it would work.
I know it’s possible to link hue bulb in the conbee2 network, but I still want to use the Hue app on my mobile, and if i’m not wrong, doing this we loose the ability of that.
No. Either you stick with your mixed setup or you move every device to Conbee and discard the Hue app. Actually I don’t see the benefit of the Hue app in your current setup, even with my “pure” Hue setup I use the app only to pair new devices and for firmware updates.
Using Zigbee2MQTT both actions (pair/update Hue firmware) can be achieved without the app.
Welcome!
There are some things in the Hue app from a lighting control aspect probably are cleaner than anything you could duplicated using Home Assistant automations and such. And you are reinventing the wheel. So by keeping the two separate zigbee networks, you retain Hue Labs and such. As well, you do have control of your Hue devices from HA via the Hue integration.
After playing around with 3 of the open zigbee coordinator solutions for Home Assistant, ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT and reading a number of experiences here on this forum, I am not sure I would recommend moving your Hue devices to one of the open solutions, rather I would recommend using their plug devices as ‘router/repeaters’ to extend and solidify your Hue zigbee network, the older Hue devices seem to cling to their older and less open zigbee protocols even after firmware updates. And that brings me to firmware updates for Hue devices, while these do not happen often, being able to receive them on your devices is not to be minimized. And while some on the forum are optimistic that Hue firmware will be able to be installed via the open zigbee solutions, I am firmly pessimistic that a complete, solid and supported by Hue solution for firmware update will ever be available on any zigbee network other than Hue hub based. On a reliability measure, after over two years of working with Hue and open zigbee solutions, I would give Hue (and I mean Hue with ONLY hue devices) a 99% reliability rating and my various ‘open’ solutions (including Hue hub with non hue devices) on the order of 85 to 90% reliability. And that 10 to 15 percent is significant when it comes to lighting, people (specifically significant others) can deal with quirks in some home automations solutions, but when it comes to lights, they had better work
To extending your conbee network, I would, like what I proposed for the Hue extension find some reliable plug devices, for example the Ikea plug ‘router/repeater’ devices to extend. Yes unfortunately you are paying to create two parallel network.
Keep an eye on these forums for improvements. I will try to be optimistic as I scratch my head to figure out why my Lumi plug on ZHA just decides to turn off every couple days…
I use deconz with Home Assistant with 60+ devices (approx one third is hue devices) for almost 4 years now, and it is rock solid, there was never any reliability issue for me.
This was not sufficient for me, it polls the state from the hub but devices pushing the state to the hub as the open solutions do is more reliable.
Why you need this when you have HA with 1000 times more possibilities? I don’t like to split my automations into multiple places, that’s what Home Assistant is made for
Same. Using Deconz since I got into HA and never had a problem relating to it.
Also, if you’d need an app you could use Hue Essentials which is better than the original Hue app anyways. I use it to create scenes which I then use in HA/NodeRed.
Oh and yes. Nobody who uses HA needs the extremely inferior Hue Labs
I don’t like to split my automations into multiple places, that’s what Home Assistant is made for 