Philips Hue will force users to upload their data to Hue cloud

If like me you’ve just ditched the Hue hub but kept the bulbs and switches you might find the blueprint I just uploaded useful, it mimics, as far as I can, the behaviour of the switches when attached to the hub by cycling around scenes within a given area (as well as some things the hub didn’t do like double and triple click actions for the switch buttons). There aren’t any of the fancier things like dynamic scenes or entertainment areas, but I never used those in the first place, and because it’s now cycling between HA scenes rather than hue ones I can include my tasmota smart plugs in the scenes to turn on other non-smart lights.

Blueprint is at Switch scenes using Hue Dimmer Switch attached directly to ZHA, hopefully it’s useful to people who are not me :slight_smile:

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Well, I’ve switched away from ZHA (with ZBDongle-E) again. After almost a week of fiddling and trying to get it stable it just wouldn’t stay stable. Every few hours it would crash with no obvious culprit to point to.

Have now moved everything to Z2M (with ZBDongle-P) and put some more effort into setting up and optimizing Z2M and it seems to be rock solid now. Let’s see if it will be stable for at least a week without reboots…

Also exchanged the USB3 extension cable I had with a USB2 extension cable for the Zigbee dongle and it makes a positive difference in the LQI/signal quality.

Pretty sure that a USB2 extension cable is recommended, not USB3. I would suspect that this was your original problem (noise) and that zha would be more stable too.

Yeah, I haven’t tested it with ZHA again. As for some devices Z2M has a more complete implementation anyway so I am going to stick to Z2M for now.

Just posted it here for anyone else trying to move away from the Hue Hub.

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I think you need to check the box that says “I understand all the above” for the delete button to be available.

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Indeed - I didn’t see the checkbox at first (very faint). Now successfully deleted. Bye, bye Hue (and Signify)

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17 posts were split to a new topic: Zigbee Direct

Article from NU.NL what Philips tells about requiring a account:

"Heb je verlichting van Philips Hue? Dan is het je mogelijk opgevallen dat je wordt uitgenodigd om een account aan te maken. Maar vrijblijvend is het niet. Binnenkort heb je dat account nodig om je verlichting te bedienen.

Nu kun je je Philips Hue-verlichting nog zonder een account bedienen via de Hue-app. Maar om het systeem beter te beveiligen, gaat verlichtingsfabrikant Signify alle gebruikers vragen om een Hue-account aan te maken, laat het bedrijf aan NU.nl weten.

Er is nu sprake van een overgangsfase. Mensen zonder Hue-account kunnen daardoor hun verlichting zonder account bedienen zoals ze gewend zijn. Maar ze worden uitgenodigd om een account aan te maken. Nieuwe gebruikers krijgen tijdens het instellen de optie om zich te registreren.

“Tot nu toe werd de eigenaar van het Hue-systeem geïdentificeerd op basis van de nabijheid van een Philips Hue-apparaat. Bijvoorbeeld door hem of haar tijdens de installatie op de knop van de Bridge te laten drukken”, legt woordvoerder Dominique Zaman uit. “Wij zien echter de noodzaak om dit proces veiliger te maken.”

Daarom wordt het binnenkort verplicht om een account aan te maken, vervolgt Zaman. “Daarmee kunnen we de eigenaar van het Hue-systeem op een veilige en betrouwbare manier identificeren.”

Signify belooft dat niemand voor verrassingen komt te staan

Wanneer het verplicht wordt om een account te hebben, kan Signify nog niet zeggen. Maar gebruikers hoeven volgens Zaman niet bang te zijn dat ze hun verlichting thuis plots niet meer kunnen bedienen als ze bijvoorbeeld op vakantie zijn. De verandering zal volgens de woordvoerder niet van de ene op de andere dag ingaan.

De verlichtingsfabrikant belooft Hue-gebruikers stapsgewijs te informeren, zodat niemand voor verrassingen komt te staan. Ook nadat gebruikers een Hue-account hebben aangemaakt, blijft de app lokaal communiceren met de Bridge of een bluetoothlamp. Signify is niet van plan om deze offline modus te verwijderen, onderstreept Zaman.

Hue-accounts maken het volgens haar mogelijk om in de toekomst nieuwe functionaliteit toe te voegen aan Hue-systemen. Zo werkt Signify aan een optie waarmee je andere gebruikers op basis van hun Hue-account toegang kunt geven tot je Hue-systeem."

They say it will be required in near future. Toake system more secure. Also the say the local use of communication (offline modus) will stay in the bridge. No plans to remove that.

Believe the bottom option for ‘share extended diagnostics was new? I just happened to check this view and they were enabled on all of my 3 bridges….

Good catch @Mariusthvdb, was the case as well on mine.
the bloody cheek…

Anyone still using the hue hub, but blocking internet access notice a degradation of service?
Mine just stops working completely after about a month. I have to power cycle it and then it works fine again…for about a month.
Only noticed this behavior after blocking internet access. Was fine for years prior.
Coincidence??

Might wanna check for a firmware update, that sounds like the firmware I had before the last. I also block & sink.

Has anyone been able to confirm if Hue Essentials will still work instead?

I’ve been saying this for yeas!!! But all the reddit fanboi’s wouldn’t listen, then went on to say I brought an IoT device so I shouldn’t expect it to work without internet.!!

Yes, mine has been rubbish since I isolated it from the internet years ago. Recently the app updated on my phone and I can’t even open it without been forced to accept their ^&^*& terms and conditions.

I just used the Signify webpage to demand deletion of all my data.

I’m starting the process to migrate everything from my Hue Bridge to my Zigbee2Mqtt network.

Ideally, someone could put Z2M on the hue bridge would be nice - so far my googling suggests people have gained root access, but literally nothing more.

Yes, I’ve delete the Hue App off my Android and Hue Essentials still works.

Not sure if this is what you’re referring to? diyhue.org

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Sorry, not referring to diyHue. Referring to Hue Essentials operating with the Hue Bridge, without a Hue account or android Hue app.

A downside of using Hue Essentials is that the scenes you create there, are not available in Home Assistant. If the scenes are created under the official Hue App then, are selectable in Home assistant…

That is interesting. I literally just created one with the Essentials App. Reloaded the HA Hue integration, and could see the scene - however; it is unavailable with this error code below;

This entity is no longer being provided by the hue integration. If the entity is no longer in use, delete it in settings.

Tip! If thinking about moving your Zigbee based Hue devices away from the Philips Hue Bridge you should check out this community guide on migrating from Philips Hue Bridge to Home Assistent’s bilt-in native Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) integration. This guide have been updated several times to improve it since the original posting to help make moving as easy as possible, and there are also discussions there about additional aspects of migation when want to move devices away from the Philips Hue Bridge, Hue app and the Hue integration to consolidate all Zigbee devices via the ZHA integration: