Is there a way to use the syncing feature on the TV lightstrip without the Hue Sync Bridge as that will literally be the only thing it would be used for?
No, the Hue Sync box needs the Hue Bridge to control the Hue lights.
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Is it expected that lights remain on even after the hue sync box is turned off?
I have noticed that when a light has been turned on by the sync box, itâs state in HA remains âoffâ until the box itself is turned off at which point itâs state is turned to âonâ a few seconds later.
The end result is that the light that the sync box was controlling remains on after the box has been turned off. Calling the âturn light offâ service immediately doesnât work because the trigger seems to happen anywhere between 1-20 seconds after the hue sync box is triggered off.
Additionally, and this might not be related to the integration but rather the box itself, is there a way to smooth out on/off states based on changes from the media player?
Iâve noticed that when the media player switches states, the box might turn off. This occurs when it could be switching from Dolby Vision content to SDR content, or turning on a screensaver. Iâm guessing the state change from âplayingâ to âidleâ instead of âpausedâ is what triggers the box turning off.
Not a 100% sure what you mean, but I think there are 2 things here.
First is what actually happens to the lights when you stop syncing. The syncbox does not control that behavior it is controlled by the bridge. In the configuration of the Entertainment Area in the app you can select what should happen when syncing stops. Default is âstay-at-last-colorâ, but you can also select âturn offâ or specify a scene to activate.
Next there is the state reported by the bridge for your lights. The bridge does not update the fast light changes when syncing, so it needs to catch up when streaming has stopped which might take a bit. I guess that is what you are seeing.
I am a bit surprised that just calling the âturn light offâ service does not work immediately after stopping syncing. I guess you were trying to call it from state change of an entity in the syncbox integration. If that is the case you might want to try and trigger if from the Entertainement Configuration sensors offered by the Hue bridge integration. Maybe there is some timing issue and the reports from the bridge itself should be more accurate for doing actions on the lights after stopping syncing. You can find these sensors on the bridge device in Home Assistant.
Yeah, the box seems to stop syncing (I assume that is what you mean with it turning off) if there is some kind of interruption/change in the HDMI signal. It is pretty annoying. I tried automating around it to restart syncing when it stops, but it is complicated to get it right and still be able to stop syncing when you want it.
I would suggest to mention it to Philips Hue customer support, more people complaining might result in it getting fixed at some point.
Thatâs the main issue, but I think your suggestion to look in the hue app and change the behavior of stop sync is going to be the final solution. But the reason calling âturn light offâ doesnât work is because, even while the sync box is working and the lights are syncing, the state of the lights reported to Home Assistant is âoffâ. So when I call âturn light offâ immediately after syncing stops, the service just tells a light which is in an off state to turn off, which does nothing.
If you look at the screenshot above you can kinda see the order of operations that happens after syncing stops. The sync box is turned off, my switch turns off because the box powers off, three seconds pass, and then the light turns to an âonâ state from an âoffâ state.
I can look into saying something to hue about the syncing, but they donât seem keen on keeping the device up to date. HDMI 2.1 would be much more welcome.
Wanted to share something simple I did that could be useful for people like me who use the same sync box preset for almost everything. Here is a template switch I created that monitors the state of the hue box, and turns on the box with defaults, and turns off the box when toggled off. I have this paired with my TV turn on and off automations, and expose it to my frontend as an easy manual toggle.
- platform: template
switches:
is_hue_syncing:
unique_id: hue_sync_template_switch
icon_template: phu:sync-box-alt
value_template: "{{ is_state('switch.sync_box_power', 'on') }}"
turn_on:
service: huesyncbox.set_sync_state
metadata: {}
data:
power: true
sync: true
intensity: moderate
mode: video
input: input2
brightness: 30
entertainment_area: TV area
target:
device_id: [[DEVICE_ID]]
turn_off:
service: huesyncbox.set_sync_state
metadata: {}
data:
power: false
target:
device_id: [[ DEVICE_ID]]
A potential limitation that I have not tested include what happens if the box is turned on from the official hue app with different states. But for me this switch has made it easier to integrate the box into automatons and into the frontend.
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I mean no disrespect in this question. Iâm just trying to understand so I can set things up the best I can.
I was running two hue bridges as well as aqara and, for awhile, an ikea hub. All separate zigbee networks.
I have consolidated all of it into z2m. Except for the lights I want controlled by my Hue sync box. They are still running from the Hue bridge and I use the Hue integration to get these couple lights into HA.
I would love to move this last piece to z2m but there isnât a reliable way to still use the sync box, at least that Iâve come across.
So if you have to use the bridge to make the sync box work, what value is being added by having this integrated into HA?
Yes, you have to have the lights attached to a Hue hub for it to work with the Sync box. As for value, you can change settings for the Sync box via HA, beyond that, thereâs not a whole lot of value added.
Gotcha. I basically just leave the lights behind the TV in sync mode so thereâs not much interaction with the app. I forgot people might want to do more than that lol.
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Thank you for this work! I just changed out my receiver to a newer model that allowed me to mirror the main HDMI out to a second interface so I could take the sync box out of line with the TV (removing the 60hz limitation). The box still detects the video signal, but because an output is not connected, CEC was not automatically turning on the box. This integration made it easy to create automations to turn sync on/off based on the TV power on/off.
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I have a similar setup but I need to start (by automation or manually) everytime video stops/starts eg goes to the main screen of for instance netflix (using Google TV). Ideally I would only like to sync in case of specific content (eg movie) but canâ'f find enough info in the attributes of the media player (Google TV) or the LG TV.
First of all, thanks for this. I was expecting this to work out of the box with the Hue integration, but apparently not.
This plugin is working perfectly though.
For anyone wondering (like I did), this works well with the new 8K Sync Box. Just installed it without any problems. 
And a question:
Is there a reason for that, like performance, or did you just expect them to not be used by everyone?
Thanks for the kind words. I indeed need to update the readme to mention the 8K box and I see that in the startpost some stuff is also missing, will try to update soon.
I donât recall the exact reasons for all disabled sensors.
But I am pretty sure I noticed that another integration had the IP one disabled so followed that.
I think the rest is mostly to avoid cluttering the logbook with stuff people are less likely to be interested in.
For example the Wifi one can be quite spammy if you are around a threshold between 2 values so it will keep changing back and forth and that cluttered the logbook. And I really only added it for myself to see if there was something werid with my Wifi connectivity so did not want to bother other people with it (connectivity issue turned out to be the router not the box).
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