Running a Galaxy Note 9 and I have a Philips hue bridge and echo dot.
When searching the smarthings app to connect to my bridge i can’t find my bridge. I’ve done some looking but my question is do i need the physical smarthings hub to achieve this?
I have a samsung curved 49" TV which connect to smartthings fine.
if so id rather go Echo plus and fire stick route than get the smartthings hub
The answer is yes, for a weird reason.
Although the ST hub does not communicate directly with the hue bridge, it uses something that smartthings calls “superLAN connect,“ Which means both devices have to be connected to the same local area network before your SmartThings account will recognize them.
Phillips does offer a cloud to cloud integration to partners, so technically an ST hub isn’t necessary, but because Samsung wanted to create an integration that would be able to work even if the Internet is unreachable, Samsung chose an integration path which does require a physical smartthings hub.
There are a few other brands which work the same way with SmartThings, including Lutron.
It seems like they should have offered us a choice of either integration depending on our own particular set up (hub or no hub), but they just haven’t so far. Maybe they will in the future, but they haven’t said anything one way or the other.
BTW, I would definitely call SmartThings support and ask them about this issue.
Once they realize they have Samsung TV owners who want to be able to use the Phillips hue lights they already have working with echo with the SmartThings app without having to buy a smartthings hub, they will probably move the feature up the priority list. 
But the Samsung TV and the Hue Bridge are (likely) on the same network!
All SmartThings needs to do is allow the TV to act as a Hub with at least LAN (IP) based device handling (if not also ZigBee & Z-Wave).
SmartThings promised that TVs would be usable as Hubs ages ago (via a USB stick for ZigBee and Z-Wave) … but deferred or aborted that plan.
Agree with all of the above, it’s just that it doesn’t work that way now. Personally, from both an engineering and a marketing standpoint I definitely think it should. There’s no reason that somebody who already owns an echo and a Phillips hue bridge and then buys a gazillion dollar television from Samsung shouldn’t be able to use the three of those together.
But right now, LAN devices that allow for local operation require a ST hub if you want to use them with the SmartThings app.