No, the hue bridge is needed
Hi, I am looking at picking up the Hue Sync box. Can i just confirm that i need to use the Hue Hub all the time with this? I moved everything Hue along time ago from Phillips to HA. I just want to confirm this Hub business first. really dont want to have to use the Hub and maybe what ultimately stops me from buying it.
Yes, you need the hue syncbox, hue bridge and hue lamps to have it working as is also indicated on the product page Hue Play HDMI Sync Box | Philips Hue US
Thanks mate. Was hoping with HA it would do away with the hub. Its not the end of the world for me to plug it back in. Was just hoping to not have to as everything is under HA
Hi - first of all, thanks for your great work, @Michel. I really like having my Sync Box integrated with Home Assistant!
There’s one thing that I wasn’t able to figure out myself for a while now and I hope someone could help me with this. Randomly while watching the Sync Box is doing its thing, it will suddenly stop working for a moment, stopping the Light Sync as well as displaying an image/playing sound. I noticed that most of the events when this happens starts with such a log entry:
“Sync Box HDMI4 status changed to Plugged”
HDMI4 being the port which I am connected to all the time and nobody is touching it. It is as if the HDMI cable is being pulled for a brief moment. It then takes about 10 seconds before the Sync Box starts working again.
Today I also noticed that once throughout the day all entities became unavailable for 12 seconds, not sure what could have caused this, but this seems to be unrelated to the other problem I described. The first problem sometimes happens randomly, sometimes maybe once in 2-3 hours, sometimes a couple of times during a single hour.
Would be cool if anybody could help me fix these issues.
Thanks!
What TV do you have?
Are you using Dolby Vision by any chance?
That is not a integration system, it could be an issue with the sync box and TV combination.
You could go through Hue support to troubleshoot the issue.
I had an issue with my sync box and TV and ended up solving it by getting a HDMI splitter to just send a 1080p copy of the signal to the sync box, while the TV kept getting 4k Dolby Vision. Only thing that fixed it for good.
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@cromelex Could you share which splitter? I continuously have issue with Dolby Vision content and even thinking of selling the sync box due to this
HDMI works great most of the time, but sometimes there are incompatibilities between devices. The post of chromelex has some good tips, I have nothing to add there.
For the entities becoming unavailable that means that a request to the box failed for some reason. The entities will stay unavailable until the box responds again. Occasionally it just happens that the box does not respond for a short period of time. I guess the box is busy doing something else at that time or there is disturbance in the Wifi or something.
This is the splitter that I am using:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0997SQWNS
It supports both 4K 60Hz, Dolby Vision and HDMI-CEC.
I’ve had it for close to a year and it’s been flawless.
Do check the listings in detail, if in doubt contact the seller and they can assist and picking the right one for your use case
I initially bought a slightly cheaper, smaller box, only to realise it didn’t support HDMI-CEC (which I need as I use a Nvidia Shield remote to control the TV).
I’ve set the signal out to the Hue Sync box down to 1080p, and it’s been flawless.
(In fact, my automations are working so well that I’ve been postponing migrating to the new version of the integration just to avoid doing the rework).
Great. Just ordered the same one.
Currently I have Google TV >> Audio Receiver>>sync box>>TV
Where did you put the splitter in your case? Directly after your nvidia shield or after the receiver and then split to TV and Sync box?
In my case my Audio Soundbar has Arc, so I have Nvidia Shield>>splitter>>TV>>Soundbar(via ARC).
Then the splitter is sending the second signal to the Sync box
Thanks. Received it today. Tested, but did not work for me in my setup (Google TV>AV Receiver>splitter). It does not passthrough dolby vision correctly unfortunately.
Hi,
TV: Sony KD-65XH9005
Dolby Vision: Yes and No… meaning the problems occur for DV and non-DV content. Tried DV compatibility mode on and off, both with the same results.
“Hue support to troubleshoot”? Sorry, but how and where?
I have a splitter installed for my PS5 and that works very well, ideally I would not have to install another one for my Android TV box. 
But I may have to…
Watched a few YouTube videos, my issues may be cable related… just to be sure, I ordered two new cables, one for Android TV Box → Sync Box and one for Sync Box → TV.
They should arrive tomorrow, I’ll test them and will report back.
Maybe not a coincidence, but my issue was on a KD-55XF9005. In the end I had Sony replace the motherboard off the TV under warranty but even that didn’t fix all the issues.
I got in touch with the Phillips support for hue on
support.philipslightinguki(at)signify.com
In the end the splitter fixed it for me so I didn’t pursue it further with them.
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Give it a day and try to make sure you reconfigure all the bits to make sure the DV is on… Restart all the devices etc.
Hopefully it’ll work, it should support Dolby Vision without issues, assuming it’s the exact same hardware splitter
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2nd evening with new HDMI cable - my issues seem to be gone. 
Thx everyone.
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I keep getting the ‘connection failed’ error when trying to add this to my HA installation. All on same network. Any ideas?
Thanks
“Connection failed” is usually a network issue or mistyped info.
Could you create an issue in the Github repo linked in the first post and provide as much of the info requested in the template?
@Michel, Thanks for your great contributions, but I can’t find any integration for the Philips HUe Sync Box in the Home Assistant?
What am I doing wrong?
The Hue Bridge works great.