Hi Team.
So i am slowly slowly moving over from Smart Things to HA. Its a slow but steady process and the end goal is to remove the Smart Things hub. Now I also have Hue Hub which uses mainly Hue bulbs but i do use Ikea GU10 in our kitchen. So the Question is do i keep the Hue Hub or do i do away with it?
Just looking for pros or cons? My Hue System works well right now.
If it works don’t mess with it. The Hue integration with Home Assistant is solid. I doubt there will ever be a way to upgrade Hue device firmware unless the device is attached to a Hue Hub.
Agreed! The Hue hub integration with HA is very solid and works well.
I’ve moved everything smart to HA over the last months BUT my Hue-universe (40 bulbs and switches).
Simply because (like @dproffer and @Mats789 said) it’s so well integrated into HA and because it just works great.
You can control any bulb and switch from HA but in case HA goes down your lights are still available from the Hue app & hardware. Did not have a hiccup with the Hue hub once.
If you start fresh I would probably put everything into HA but having an already grown Hue-system it has been too much effort to re-pair all bulbs and switches, recreate all groups, scenes and switch controls for me…
The only thing I don’t like about Hue is their talking home attempts but some firewall rules fixed that for good.
zigbee2mqtt provides updates to Hue devices.
While I generally agree that if something works then it shouldn’t be changed, Hue hub is cloud based. From some POV it’s enough reason to change it.
It works without internet connection but you have to be on the same local network
That is good news that Hue is now providing a public repository of the OTA firmware to all other zigbee coordinators to do OTA updates. One of the very unsung abilities of the Smartthings hub was it’s ability to do OTA firmware device updates for many companies, Samsung had this working several years ago, but when I moved away from Smartthings, Hue was about the only company that did not at that time have a OTA repository. I hope the zigbee2mqtt implementation is strong, I have been using ZHA for over a year and have yet to see it successfully complete a OTA firmware upgrade of a device, only errors.
I was under the impression that the Hue hub has local network apis to allow home automation systems like Home Assistant to control Hue devices without going to the cloud. I believe this function is a requirement for devices to connect to Homekit, and I thought Hue’s implementation of their Homekit interface was the same as is provided to Home Assistant. I’m not sure it is still true, but it used to be that if you added a non-Hue or Hue Friends device to your Hue hub, you could not control that device from HomeKit (nor could you do OTA firmware upgrades to these devices).
HA Hue Integration is fully local and can even be on a separate VLAN. No cloud required at all for that!
@maxym It‘s not cloud based. Within Hue you can enable cloud to remotely control it through the Hue app but this can be disabled.
Still Hue will collect telemetry and wants to report every light or button press to Hue but it still works fine when that’s cut off by a firewall rule.
@Mats789 Can be on a separate VLAN but you might need some mDNS repeating and firewall rules to allow the traffic to pass.
All my IoT stuff is on an IoT-VLAN, UniFi Protect on its own Security-VLAN, the HA-Server in a server-VLAN and all is integrated just fine and accessible from iPhone/iPad in a client-VLAN.
I can update my Hue devices (lightbulbs and hue dimmer remotes) just fine with zigbee2mqtt.
The only reason to keep using the Hue bridge when using HA is if you:
If you don’t use the Hue sync/effect options and you want to use other Zigbee devices: ditch the bridge, install zigbee2mqtt and get a Zigbee usb coordinator.
I have both, a Zigbee CC2652P coordinator with Zigbee2MQTT and 34 zigbee devices (door/window sensors, temp/humidity sensors, smart switches & buttons, shade drivers) and a Hue bridge for all lighting (bulbs, lightstrips, lamps, dimmer switches, motion sensors from Hue) on a different channel.
Maybe one day I move all Hue stuff to the CC2652P but for now I‘m too lazy to repair & recreate everything from the Hue universe.
And all the Hue stuff can be used in HA automations due to the good integration.
Communication between Home Assistant and the Hue hub is local. The documentation states the integration’s IoT class is Local Push.
Simplest way to confirm it is to disable Internet access and attempt to control a Hue light from the Lovelace UI (it will work).
Thanks for all the solid replies chaps. OI really appreciated the time time taken. Ok i think i will stay with the Hue Hub as to be fair its been solid. Maybe when my feet have been under the HA table for some time and im more confident with the platform will i take a look at other options. I have spare bulbs i can play with.
Thanks again.
Thanks for your info on your experience with Hue devices and zigbee2mqtt. I am about to re-add a zigbee2mqtt setup to my environment after migrating away from it to ZHA about a year ago. Will be interesting to explore, I do think as I follow the various forums that zigbee2mqtt seems to lead the open zigbee projects.
One thing that I am following is the Lutron Aurora dimmer device. I have, and have explored it with both Hue and ZHA. As I read from others and my experience, this device currently is a ‘roll of dice’ with various coordinators, ZHA, zigbee2mqtt other than the Hue Hub. I am hopeful that this will get worked out with the various open zigbee coordinators over time. That said, if I were a not so techie person in the home automation world, it would be rather frustrating if my ‘two jackson’ device ‘kind of worked’ with either ZHA or zigbee2mqtt… where as it works solid (my experience) with the Hue hub. IMHO, same kind of logic works for other Hue and Friends of Hue devices, if you are spending the kind of coin on this devices, you would want them to work and get firmware updates (which seems to happen more when a product is new today) right away, not in x months or years… it is a ‘wild west’ for home automation today, that said, IMHO, if you but a Hue or Hue Friends device, buy a Hue hub to CYA…
Have fun, this is a good use of drinking wine… it continues to be a wild west in the home automation space, good to have a ‘B plan’ at all times when you make changes. Especially if you are ‘inflicting’ this hobby on a ‘significant other’. I’m still paying for the time I added Ikea bulbs in the bedroom hallway to my Hue setup and they decided to randomly flash on and off a couple times in the middle of the night…
