I have made a rapid skim through this long thread. Apologies if I accidentally repeat any points made by others.
The attraction of Hue products to me is that they are Zigbee certified devices. As such they should operate with any suitable Zigbee coordinator. If the device has features that are described in the Zigbee Cluster Library and the other Zigbee specifications then it should just work.
This ideal situation is somewhat muddied by manufacturer specific features. Some manufacturers, Danfoss being an example, provide specifications for these features and, just as important, a theory-of-operation for the device. This allows for them to operate with ZHA, zigbee2mqtt and other choices of software.
Back to Philips Hue. I have recently obtained a Philips Hue Secure Floodlight Camera. The specifications for the camera state Connectivity protocol: Zigbee, WiFi (2.4GHz â 5GHz). I also checked the CSA Certified Products list which contains Hue Secure Camera 0124. There seemed a good chance that it was a Zigbee device that could be used without a Hue Bridge.
My hope was that it would be possible to configure the camera into an existing Zigbee network using Zigbee Direct over Bluetooth LE. Zigbee Direct is well documented and should be secure by design. Unfortunately, it appears that the Hue app and camera communicate by a proprietary protocol.
An interesting open question is can this device truly be Zigbee Certified if it can only join a network with a Hue Bridge coordinator?
The camera also uses WiFi for cloud storage of video and OTA firmware updates which may be difficult or impossible to use without a Hue Account. However, it should be relatively straightforward to restrict what the camera can do on my WiFi and LAN.
The lack of Zigbee Direct support seems like a missed opportunity.
Interesting points, however I am not sure I agree/understand some of your statements.
âZigbee certified devices. As such they should operate with any suitable Zigbee coordinatorâ .
From my experience, while staying 100% within the âguardrailsâ of the Zigbee endpoint and cluster specs will more than likely get you some functionality of the device, it is not a guarantee that you will get full function. IMHO, this can make it even more frustrating for end users than âworks or notâ.
'This ideal situation is somewhat muddied by manufacturer specific features. â
The Zigbee spec from day one as I understand allowed for âmanufacture specificâ functions to be defined for a device. And, as I understand, unfortunately this option did not include any metadata function to help a coordinator or other device âfigure outâ what the device can do. So you are left with having to have some type of coordinator âhackâ where the coordinator can be taught by a bit of âshimâ code how to interact with the manufacture specific functions of a device, not very end user friendly.
â specifications for the camera state Connectivity protocol: Zigbee, WiFi (2.4GHz â 5GHz)â
I am pretty sure you are never going to see a video stream on a Zigbee network. So, as does all other security camera manufactures, the Hue camera will do there video stuff on 2.4 and 5 GHz wifi. It is a kind of interesting âmash upâ Hue is doing as it appears that the cameras will include a zigbee radio. A bridge solution I guess.
âThere seemed a good chance that it was a Zigbee device that could be used without a Hue Bridge.â
Back to my point #3, and this product, well yes then this will just be a wifi based security camera like all the others out there. However, it will have no way to control zigbee based devices, such as lights, unless with having a zigbee coordinator such as a Hue hub. I struggle with the added value of this, maybe I am missing something new.
â Zigbee Directâ
My understanding is that this is mostly a new device âonboardingâ function that should make adding new devices easier. Does it add anything beyond this âonboardingâ?
Also, I was un aware of any Hue hub for sale today that has a bluetooth radio, or is this something that connect via your phoneâs bluetooth and then a wifi api to the hub?
âHowever, it should be relatively straightforward to restrict what the camera can do on my WiFi and LAN.â
From my experience with security cameras, especially new ones, it is a pipe dream that you will not need firmware upgrades for a period of time after the camera is released. Will there be a way to get this firmware from Signify without an account on there service is an interesting question, however at the price point for Hue device, seems like an interest quandary for the target buyers. And having a Signify account does not really seem like a non-starter for what I perceive as their target customer.
The whole Hue account thing, as I have written about in other posts, really seem like a dumb 'chicken little shout from many of this who are âup in armsâ about this. The argument that Signify is going to snoop on all my sex life at home by watching how I turn on and off my lights is pretty weak argument, in this day and age of how much info we willing share with cloud providers. It will be interesting to see if Signify offers a option to connect their cameras via, arguably, the most private cloud based video service recording server, that being Apple HomeKit offering. Or is this just a revenue stream play by Signify. I get it, if it is a revenue only thing, however, that would be a non starter for a lot of folks. However again, this is a company that seems to successfully sells USD 80 to 500 light bulbs and fixtures, in a world of AliExpress.
â The lack of Zigbee Direct support seems like a missed opportunity.â
Iâm really missing out on how Zigbee Direct is going to be the greatest thing for Zigbee since sliced bread. Can you expand on this point?
Zigbee Direct provides a standard way for Bluetooth LE capable devices (eg. laptops, mobles, tablets) to configure and communicate with a Zigbee network. Maybe not the greatest thing for Zigbee since sliced bread but a useful tool to have.
In the case of the Hue Secure Cameras there is no mechanism to configure them into an existing Zigbee network besides using the Hue app on a BLE capable device. A factory reset doesnât put them into Zigbee pairing mode but just sets them to broadcasting BLE adverts. Does that make it any clearer?
I thought the Zigbee in these was only used so that you could use the floodlight as just a light. Technically it should be possible to pair just the light with any Zigbee Coordinator that supports the standalone Floodlight, they probably only changed the ID of the device.
Are there even any devices that support ZigBee Direct? From what little I have been able to gather, the specification only became available at the very end of 2022, and even the FAQs say âZigbee Direct is a new feature of the Zigbee specification and not a fully productized version of the specification.â
So your 1st hand experience, to my responses above, leads me to speculate that indeed this is a revenue play by Signify. Can you confirm that âHomeKit Secure Videoâ is not available for these devices?
I was a very early adopter of of Hue in home automation, maybe one of the first few. However, I have been hard pressed to continue to purchase their products as their price points have increased. I am âabby normalâ from their target market I am pretty sure, a techie.
I still would recommend their system and products for some people, just not me.
It is an interesting inflection point for Zigbee in general and Signify specifically, with Matter/Thread increasing it functions, availability and price reduction.
It is becoming an increasingly hard recommendation of Zigbee systems for new install in this new Matter world. A frustrating two or so years ahead I think.
Talk about being able to talk from two sides of your mouth, CSA is in an interesting position.
Excellent question! ZBOSS has ZigbeeÂŽ Direct Features so the potential is there. I am not aware of any physical devices claiming support but I havenât looked very hard.
HKSV is not supported currently. It has not been announced if it will ever support it. It currently also doesnât support normal HomeKit functions, as you can use cameras inside HomeKit without HKSV, which still runs locally.
Only the Floodlight itself will be available in HomeKit.
From the Hue Secure lineup the Contact sensors are supported in HomeKit and recently also in Matter.
Some other brands, like Netatmo burned their hands with this, as they promised it for their doorbell and outdoor camera. In the end it was not possible to get it stable on the doorbell and it was added to the Outdoor camera a few years after launch. The doorbell does work in HomeKit but not with HKSV. Their cameras are quite old now.
Netatmo doesnât work without an account at all by the way, even when paired with HomeKit which works 100% local you need the original app to pair and the original app doesnât do anything without an account.
Yep, I have the flood lights themselves as flood light, they work well for that. For cameraâs Iâm using wired Unifi PoE cams with 100% local use, no accounts needed and storage is also local.
Iâve used Netatmo in the past and the missing HKSV on the doorbell was useless. Also the detections inside HKSV arenât as good as Unifiâs own system⌠and cameras on just WiFi just arenât as stable.
There are (unofficial) ways to add any normal (PoE) camera to HomeKit with HKSV and it works better than the official implementations from different brands⌠but for consistency you really need 24/7 recording, which is simply not possible with Cloud Storage.
So as long as the Hue cameras have no support for anything local, it is completely useless to me.
For the standard consumer, it might be just what they needed. And in the market itâs competing in, it does make sense as a product.
Yes, a true 100% local home security camera DVR with AI intelligence âboxâ would be a very nice option for useful home monitoring. I am thinking, like you, Iâve futzed around with friggit, doods, opencv, google AI chip CUDA and other stuff, however it takes a lot of hands on to keep running and from my experience the UI âpresentationâ of what happened or is happening with âimage detectionâ smarts is lacking.
If Signify can offer this as a cloud service for a reasonable monthly price, I think a good percentage of the Hue target market would buy. Back to my soapbox on the BS about Signify stealing all my life. To all of the folks that are whining about this, come on (like me) how many of you have accounts that are sending your data to countries that are far less âfriendlyâ than a bunch of Dutch x tulip growing folks homed in the EU
That said, I did have a fun few minutes recently watching three racoons play slip and slide on my Starlink dish from a Eufy camera (I know I know bad choice Dave!). The Starlink support folks enjoyed the videos as well as they sent me my the replacement dish
I would so like to draw a 3D box around something like the Starlink dish and have this âsmartâ DVRâ do something when animals (pets), aka Rocket Racoon and friends, entered the box. Same goes for Rocket J. Squirrel and the bird feeder .
I donât think âZigbee certified deviceâ is a thing. Anyone can put the name on their box, as long as the product has something vaguely Zigbee about it. And so, of course, they do. (Z-wave on the other hand is certified - manufacturers have to pay a fee to use the name.)
Well, there seems to be a Zigbee Alliance Certification Policy. I didnât read it for details. But, did find it with a simple Google search. Zigbee Alliance Certification Policy
