Philips Hue - do you use HA for lighting automations?

Hardware
1

Dear all Philips Hue users:

Do you use Hue or HA for your light automations? I refer to the simple ones such as motion trigger light on then turn off after x minutes and configuration of dimmer switch what each button does.
I ask because I currently have those in Hue and now considering to migrate to HA, benefits are obvious, reusable logic for different rooms, better control of colour temperature during the day etc.
However one thing stops me is the dependency to HA (or reliability) - Hue automation works rock solid, HA is running on a mini PC and during downtime automation fails.
I wish that there is a way to do automation in HA and fallback to Hue if HA is down, but don’t see how it’s possible.
What’s your suggestion?

2

As you can see, you can…Just link the bridge to HA. But i would only automate in HA

3

Thanks I’m aware it can be done and in fact I already use HA for some more complicated automations for wake-up and energy cost based lighting etc.
The question is rather I should be HA for critical automations - not to say HA itself is not reliable but it’s running on a PC and it could fail some day due to the complexity

4

I use everything in Home Assistant. I don’t even own a Hue Bridge. But I own LIFX lights too, and I still use Home Assistant for all my automations because sometimes I mix 'n match.

Mix 'n matching in the same room

For instance, the lights on my PC area are LIFX A21, but I have Philips Hue A21 on my lamps in the same room. Why both? Because the LIFX ones are color and the Hue ones are more reliable over time. Less likely to have issues.

Also, I bulk buy lights, but I get them at different times. I had some failures in those lamps, so I swapped them with whatever I had at the time (Hue).

Mix 'n matching in a fixture

I don’t like mix 'n matching in fixtures, but in my Entryway, one of the IKEA bulbs went bad, and I didn’t have any replacements on hand, so I used a spare LIFX Mini.

Interaction with other devices

Point being, if you do everything in Home Assistant, if gives you more power. You can also hook into other devices too like turning off or dimming lights when watching something, but bringing them back up when paused.

Took me a while to get outta the LIFX system for scenes and schedules, but it was well worth it when I did.

I have half my lights as Zigbee and half Wi-Fi now. The colors match up so well you can’t tell. I like that I can buy from any manufacturer based on price, availability, and reliability (I only bought those color 800 lumen IKEA lights because they were $10 each).

Magic “always what you want” state

Last piece: Home Assistant does some magic when turning on or off lights. If it doesn’t work the first time, it keeps trying for a while until it happens. LIFX lights will sometimes get stuck, so unless you ask them a few times, they might not respond. I don’t know what the timeout is, but I think it’s around 5-10 seconds, and I don’t have issues with lights staying on or off anymore.