Do I have to have a Hue Bridge to use bulbs?

Can I just buy a Phillip Hue bulb and it works with Smartthings, or do I have to buy the bridge unit also? Is there any color changeable bulbs that with directly with Smartthings?

as i understand it you can use the bulbs with out the bridge, but you need a dev firmware (Freely available by asking).

Thanks. I will ask politly. Thanks again.

Note that SmartThings integration with Hue leaves out a number of features the bridge (and its API) is capable of, including transition times (one of my favorites), groups, scene sharing, effects (flashing, color cycling), and of course third party apps like Hue Disco.

Ditto: Though there are pros and cons, I run my Hues (and GE Link bulbs too, actually) with a Hue Bridge (and SmartThings connects to the bulbs through the Hue Bridge Labs SmartApp).

Besides having direct LAN access to the bulbs via any Hue compatible mobile app (there are dozens in the Android, iOS, and Windows stores), there is a slight chance that bulb firmware may be updated by Philips and that may require the Bridge.

The disadvantage: The Bridge and it’s joined bulbs will run a separate ZigBee network than the SmartHub and all its ZigBee devices. This means that they cannot share the extended range advantage of one large mesh (and, perhaps, there can be some small amount of radio interference between the networks, but there must be a lot of 2gz noise around anyway).

Hue Bridges are cheap, work with GE Link bulbs too, and likely the new Cree ZigBee Light Link compatible bulbs.