ZHA and Philips Hue Bridge

jpdraye · May 22, 2021, 7:04am

Hi All,

As part of my installation I have a Raspberry PI 3 and Conbee2 as Zigbee adaptater.
And I was using ZHA for integration of my zigbee some detectors and everything was working well.

Recetently, I added to 10 Philips Hue spots in the kitchen and a philips hue bridge. I would like to use the philips hue bridge as a bridge for other zigbee devices… And there I am stuck.

On ZHA, I did not find a way to integrate the Philips Bridge. So, I did a try with Zigbee2mqtt and using the mosquitto broker with the conbee 2 as adaptater but there I have 502: Bad Gateway error when starting Zigbee2mqtt. Error log :

pm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /root/.npm/_logs/2021-05-22T06_55_13_461Z-debug.log
[08:55:14] INFO: Handing over control to Zigbee2mqtt Core …

[email protected] start /app
node index.js
Zigbee2MQTT:error 2021-05-22 08:55:41: Error while starting zigbee-herdsman
Zigbee2MQTT:error 2021-05-22 08:55:41: Failed to start zigbee
Zigbee2MQTT:error 2021-05-22 08:55:41: Check | Zigbee2MQTT for possible solutions
Zigbee2MQTT:error 2021-05-22 08:55:41: Exiting…
Zigbee2MQTT:error 2021-05-22 08:55:41: Error: Failed to connect to the adapter (Error: SRSP - SYS - ping after 6000ms)
at ZStackAdapter. (/app/node_modules/zigbee-herdsman/dist/adapter/z-stack/adapter/zStackAdapter.js:94:31)
at Generator.throw ()
at rejected (/app/node_modules/zigbee-herdsman/dist/adapter/z-stack/adapter/zStackAdapter.js:25:65)

Can you help me answering the below questions :

1/ Can I integrate Philips Bridge with ZHA?
2/ If the answer to question 1 is True, is it better to use ZHA or Zigbee2mqtt?
3/ Can I use a Conbee2 usb key with Zigbee2mqtt?

Hope someone can help me to slove those queries.

Kr,
JP

jpdraye · May 22, 2021, 7:27am

I found a good post on that type of error :

Thx @ antivirus68 for the solution!

I added the below to my config as well and it works :

serial:
adapter: deconz
port: >-
/dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2403571-if00

jpdraye · May 23, 2021, 10:55am

All,

I need your help.
Altough, I cant connect to the Zigbee2MQTT, the system did not retrieve the Philips Hue Bridge.
Do I need to flash the device?

Thx for your support.

Kr,
JP

koying · May 23, 2021, 11:06am

No (as far as I know)

Conceptually, the Hue bridge is the same as you Conbee, so you effectively have 2 parallel zigbee networks running.

You don’t actually need the Hue Bridge, you can pair the Hue lamps directly to your Conbee.

Or you can pilot the Hue bridge with the Hue integration, then your Conbee is not used at all for the Hue part.

DerekO · May 23, 2021, 2:36pm

You can’t do that, but you can add Hue using the Hue integration and then devices added to the bridge will appear in HA. The question would be why would you want to do that if you already have another Zigbee bridge that can do that for you anyway…

jpdraye · May 24, 2021, 6:42am

Hi DerekO,

I was thinking to use the Philips bridge to extend and increase the Zigbee network for other none Philips devices. My current installation (Rpi and Conbee 2) is in the attic and I was looking to a way to increase the signal. I assume that I should have Zigbee bridge for that no?

Kr,
JP

koying · May 24, 2021, 7:43am

Zigbee is a “mesh” network.
It means most devices (lights, switches, but tipically not sensors} act as “repeaters” and effectively extend your network.

So.you don’t need a hue hub to extend your range, you need to install zigbee bulbs

DerekO · May 24, 2021, 9:13am

In addition to what @koying said, Zigbee mesh networks can only have one co-ordinator, such as a Hue bridge, cc2531 USB stick, Conbee2, etc. You can’t have more than one in a zigbee network.
Just extend your existing Conbee2 Zigbee mesh using more powered devices (sockets, etc). Ikea do cheap repeater devices that work great for this too.

Hedda · May 24, 2021, 1:53pm

No. See https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha/#compatible-hardware The ZHA integration only supports direct communication with Zigbee coordinator radio modules/adapters compatible with zigpy. Understand that the different zigpy libraries use serial communication to talk with the compatible Zigbee stack firmware running on those chips (microcontrollers with radio), so you can not integrate any proprietary gateways/bridges into the ZHA integration unless you could first hack the gateway/bridge software and firmware to enable direct serial communication with the microcontroller chip inside them that runs the Zigbee stack. A few inexpensive proprietary gateways/bridges has been hacked to enable this, but no one has yet hacked the Philips Hue Bridge for this purpose, (and do not expect that anyone will and it would be very little to gain from it due to firmware and microcontroller chips used in them as well as their higher price).
You can not integrate any non-hacked proprietary gateways/bridges in Zigbee2MQTT either for the exact same reason that you can not integrate them into the ZHA integration.
Yes but ConBee/Raspbee (deconz serial protocol) only has experimental support in Zigbee2mqtt.

You can not use Philips Hue Bridge as a Zigbee router (a.k.a. range extender/signal repeater) for any other system. Philips Hue Bridge is a “Zigbee coordinator” and there can only be one Zigbee coordinator per Zigbee network. Philips Hue Bridge also uses closed proprietary firmware/software.

If you have a similar use case where you for practical reasson want the format of gateway/bridge (Zigbee-to-WiFi or Zigbee-to-Ethernet proxy server) a then better just to buy one other other inexpensive proprietary gateways/bridges that have already been hacked, or just buy one of the already available open source gateways/bridges. Hacking is only worth it if it is cheap or more powerful.

Tip is to use Conbee with either ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT and then buy and add two or three “Zigbee router” devices (a.k.a. range extender/signal repeater), like ex. the “IKEA Trådfri Signal Repeater”.

werty1st · September 2, 2023, 5:52am

I would like to use the Hue Bridge because the Hue App is useful to configure the switches, PIRs and also control’s the colour loop animations. Additionally I want to use window contact sensors that are not hue compatible without a second ZigBee network.

It seems to be possible to root a Hue bridge.
My plan is to root the hue bridge an extract the network key. If that is possible could I add the key to HA and conbee to join as a ZigBee router?

emiel · October 12, 2024, 9:20am

My belief is adding the Hue bridge into your system makes things more complicated and causes more issues than it solves. I’ve tried it for a while, but having two separate networks is far from ideal.

Suppose you have a bunch hue bulbs connected to the Hue bridge and you want to control them together (let’s say brightness), make a group of them and send a ‘set’ (if you’re using Zigbee2Mqtt, not sure how that works with ZHA) command to the group.

Now, when you introduce another bulb that’s in your living room that is not connected to the Hue bridge, but instead to the Zigbee stick connected to your machine running HA, you cannot add that bulb to the group you created for the kitchen lights. That’s where things get less convenient, at least in my experience.

the Hue App is useful to configure the switches, PIRs and also control’s the colour loop animations.

I don’t know about the colour loop animations (don’t have colour Hue bulbs), but setting up animations wiring up buttons to lights is no rocket science. Home Assistant is not opinionated and it seems everything you need can be done in at least 32 ways which seems to make the learning curve a bit steeper, but still.

If you’re even thinking about rooting the Hue bridge, I think you better spend that time properly setting everything up in HA and stick to one single platform.