Hoping you can help me with my setup and some questions I have with Hue.
I have some Hue bulbs (A21 and some downlights) connected directly to SmartThings (as in they are paired to the SmartThings hub and not the Hue gateway). The reason I do this is because I use Zigbee bindings from my smart switch directly to the bulbs so they turn on insanely fast.
The problem with this approach is that if the bulbs are paired directly to SmartThings, I lose all ability to use the Hue app and thus, the cool animations the app has such as the fireplace and candle effect.
I’m wondering if there’s a way to expose those features from within the firmware (I’ve updated them on the Hue bridge to the latest firmware as I still use the Hue bridge for my outdoor lights that are on a timer and I don’t need Zigbee bindings) and activate them somehow from SmartThings.
Well I’ll be… I had this installed a while back and thought it was for connecting bulbs from the Hue bridge to SmartThings. But now re-reading the page, it looks like it’s for both (Hue bridge connected and ST connected).
That driver only works for bulbs that are connected to a hue hub. It is essentially an LAN edge Driver between a Smartthings/Aeotec hub and a hue hub. It is not for Hue devices connected directly to a smartthings via Zigbee.
But to be honest, that’s just not a good method for most people anyway, because the hue bulbs are not good repeaters for other Zigbee devices on a smartthings network, and messages can get lost. Plus you lose a lot of cool features.
The connection between the hue hub and a SmartThings hub is local using LAN, so it shouldn’t be any slower than working without a hue hub. And if you want to directly connect a Zigbee button or controller to a hue bulb, you still can as long as that controller also connects to the hue hub.
So, as always, the first rule of Home automation applies: “the model number matters.“ What Zigbee devices were you hoping to connect together?
Obviously @blueyetisoftware can say for sure, but it’s not possible to do both in one driver. The hue hub is connected by LAN. If you are using hue bulbs without a hue hub, then they are connected by Zigbee. A single edge Driver cannot do two protocols.
Yeah I agree and maybe I’ll see if I can accomplish what I want with scene control (ie: multi-taps of my light switch to turn on/off my light).
Not sure how familiar you are with Zigbee Bindings, but it’s nice to have full dimming control straight from the light switch. So I’ll use the bindings to turn on/off and dim the Hue bulbs and then use multi-taps to change colors (so I was hoping to multi-taps to activate the candle animation).
But yeah, agree, I’m definitely in the minority of people who do it this way and if I could just use the Hue gateway I’d prefer it based on how well it works with the bulbs and the networking aspect of it you mentioned.
Well I was trying not to self-promote lol. But if it’s helpful, I’m trying to control my Hue A21’s from my Inovelli Blue Series switch.
