Hue app confusion

[calansvc (Craig)]

So after days of searching, reading, installing, uninstalling, and screaming at my ST hub…I’m still no closer to triggering on/off, color, and brightness for multiple selected bulbs in my entire house… i.e. … triggering a scene.

What is the best smartapp for this? I’ve found discussions on 3 different apps that seem to overlap, branch, sometimes work, sometimes don’t etc etc etc.

1. HLGS
2. Hue (ReConnect)
3. Hue B Smart

Is there a “finished”, stable app that doesn’t take a PHD to install and get working? I fought with Hue B Smart for a day or so before throwing in the towel on that one.

[OBSOLETE] Hue B Smart (Smart and FAST Hue Lighting)

Ok, so I was able to add all my lights, groups, and scenes after including the Lux DTH files. But, none of this makes much sense. I now have all sorts of duplicate scenes (for example, I had one named “Dimmed” for each room in the Hue app… and now I have 5 named “Dimmed” just lumped together, along with all groups, bulbs, and other scenes. The scenes have a “PUSH” button, that appears to do nothing. Actually, I can’t make them do anything at all. The Groups have the exact same button as the bulbs, so I can’t tell them apart if they are named the same as a bulb. Also, since these were rooms in the Hue app, and ST has it’s own rooms… why do I need them? I pressed flash on one of the bulbs, and it started flashing. BUT… I couldn’t stop it no matter what. Even turning the light of…

My end goal is to trigger a scene with a virtual switch (which is in turn controlled from Google Home, IFTTT, phone widget, etc). The included SmartLights app is close, but can’t render proper whites, and is very limited. But at least it was easy to set up, and I got it to control multiple lights with one switch.

I can use the Hue app to create the scenes if needed, if I can find a way to overcome Philip’s PITA duplication of scene names and the fact that they aren’t deleted on the bridge. (I tried using the debug tool, but when I followed the instructions and plugged “http://http://xxx.xxx.x.xxx/debug/clip.html” into Chrome, I just got a bunch of scrambled characters.)

BTW - I’m a fairly experienced developer, but brand new to ST. This is so frustrating!

[stevesell (Steve S)]

Try this:

Create the virtual switch:

1. Log in to ide.smartthings.com
2. go to “My Devices”
3. Add device
4. Give it a name, and network id (can be anything just has to be unique - e.g., virtualswitch1)
5. Under type, select “Momentary Button Tile”
6. Select your home and location
7. Click Create

You’re done creating the button you will use to trigger your scene and done with the web site. You can use that “switch” as a trigger for SmartLighting, or other apps.

Does that help?

[Jimxenus]

I’ve had really good success using this DTH and Smart App
Instructions on how to install are in the first post.

[OBSOLETE][UPDATED as of March 24, 2016] Hue Lights & Groups & Scenes (OH MY!)

by: infofiend & claytonnj UPDATED as of May 4th: new abilities include 1. Creation, Modification, and Deletion of Hue Hub Groups and Scenes - directly from SmartThings – These features will appear on the Groups page and the Scenes page in the HLGS service manager (after inital installation). As of March 26th: new abilities include Color Temperature Slider Control from Bulbs or Groups Transition Time Slider Control from Bulbs or Groups Ability to update Scene settings directly from Scene device Scene devices can retrieve & display Hue Hub sceneID Group devices can retrieve & display Hue Hub groupID Bulbs and Groups have colorloop effect Claytonnj and I have created a Hue Service Manager that finds and installs (1) individual Hue Lights, (2) Hue Groups, and (3) H…

[calansvc (Craig)]

@stevesell Thanks, but I know how to create and use virtual switches…I use a BUNCH of them to talk between ST and Google Home, and they work great. The problem is the SmartLighting app itself; it doesn’t properly set the colors of the new Hue bulbs. ST support verified this in an email to me, but say they have no ETA on when it will be fixed.

@Jimxenus I think that was one of the ones I couldn’t get to work properly. Seems that their device drivers also had an issue with my new Hue bulbs, if I remember correctly.

I’ve given myself a crash course in CoRE (which is incredible BTW), and can control everything with it. It’s a lot of tedious manual setup, but it does give complete control over every aspect of a “scene” by setting up a piston for each one.