Hue Dimmer Switch Connected to ST

Developer Programs Writing Device Types
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[quote]If someone just wants to use this as an intuitive switch for guests, they could set the buttons like we used to do presets for the old Z Wave scene controllers: paragraph

Off equals off

Dim equals 50%

Brighten equals 75%

On equals 100%.

That would make sense to visitors, and get some good functionality out of the four buttons. :sunglasses:
[/quote]

This is actually great idea.

So would this work?
I have bunch of Osram Lightifys in my living room directly connected to ST hub. I have the Circadian smartapp running with them. Can I use this nice little remote to control a set of the lights (say half of them) and maybe have a second dimmer remote control the second half? I would prefer to install the remotes in place of the old wall switches, where I used to have two sets of controls to control two sets of lights in the living room. “Simple” dimming via the dimmer remote like you describe above would be “enough” while more granular control via mobile phone.

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I guess main question being: Can you have several Hue dimmers each controlling different set of lights? Or will ST just think all the dimmers are same device and thus not allow placing dimmer per room?

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Multiple should work just like any other device. Each will show up as a device you can name and use as a trigger.

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Thanks, Ill order some :slight_smile:

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Second try, different hue dimmer

It works like a charm if you keep using it (same as the first one), turn lights on and off, tv on and off (via harmony) but if I stop using it for half and hour, either the remote or the hub stops listening/speaking. (When I press a button the red light turns on for a second or two and then nothing)

Also this dimmer is linked to the hub 2.0 last week I was using a v1 so that at least is not part of the problem

Will try linking the remote again to see what happens

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Following @Sticks18 trick it relinked itself if you press the reset button and search for a new device on the st app, will see if it sticks

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I’m now seeing the same drop-off on my remote too. Not sure what’s happening, but I’d consider this integration unreliable. It won’t stay linked very long at all right now.

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maybe the remote is programmed to go to sleep to save battery. if that is the case I don’t think there is much that can be done to keep a permanent connection

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Most zigbee-battery powered devices sleep most of the time. There’s a big difference between going to sleep and not knowing what network you belong to when you wake up. :wink:

I have one of these attached to the Hue bridge, and it always knows it belongs to that bridge. I haven’t seen any reports of those kinds of drop-offs else where.

There may be a difference being attached to a ZHA coordinator and being attached to a ZLL network, though.

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51

Just adding my 2c worth here. Let me start by saying I’m an architect-level developer who writes software in about ten different languages. I’ve been playing with Home Automation for years, and currently I work at a very well known automation hardware company. My point is I’m a techie and have been around the block more than once.

Even so, I have literally spent the past few days reading every article/post I could about using this dimmer with SmartThings, and every one of those articles has the same problem. You’re supposed to already know how to do things, which doesn’t help those of us new to SmartThings, regardless of how technical one may be or what FAQs they have read!

For instance, while I have already created my own custom device types and SmartApps (thanks to the great FAQs that showed me how) and while I’ve also paired all of my third-party gear (GE Link, WeMo switches, Philips Hue, Amazon Echo) and have all of that working, I have yet to find a single article that tells me how to actually link the Philips Hue Dimmer Switch to the hub! I’ve tried pressing the setup button on the back while scanning to add new devices, but it didn’t work. I’ve tried pressing and holding the ‘On’ button (the way you pair directly to a bulb) but that doesn’t work either. I’ve added the custom code from these posts talking about it, creating a new device type, but that didn’t do anything except add the new device to my graph. I’ve even tried using Philips’ own documentation on adding it to their hub, substituting in the SmartThings hub where appropriate, but again, no dice.

In short, that’s the problem with all of these articles. They make certain assumptions… that you already have paired your remote and know how to connect it to your custom device type. But for people like myself, that’s not the case and I’m stumped.

That said, can someone please start to organize a landing page or similar for people such as myself that know their way around the basic system, but want to get started with more advanced things by adding this remote? A simple guide on what you need to do. For instance:

  • Step 1: Steps to pair the remote to the SmartThings hub (both a new remote and one that came pre-paired to its bulb in a dimmer kit)
  • Step 2: Add the custom device type based on this Groovy code (and please add comments in that Groovy code!)
  • Step 3: Steps tp link the custom device type to the physical remote so it can be used in custom SmartApps
  • Step 4: An example SmartApp showing how to control a simple light or switch with a button on the remote

If we can do something like that for people such as myself, it would go a long way to lowering the bar of entry to SmartThings outside of ‘just another hub’ while simultaneously paving the way to more advanced things that developers such as myself are capable of once we get over that hump!

Anyway, just my 2c worth. So can someone please help?

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Hi Sticks18! Been reading through your code to teach myself SmartThings. As I said in my own reply in this thread however, I still can’t get/don’t know how to link the actual, physical remote to the hub! It’s really frustrating to have all this information served up piece-meal, but without coherent steps or instructions to guide us through the process. You spend a lot of time reading a lot of stuff about what you can do once you get somewhere, but no one’s told you how to start the car! That said, mind writing out the steps of how to get from opening the Hue Remote box to using it with your code? Would really help those of us techies/developers who are new to, and excited by the potential of SmartThings.

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I’ll update the first post with more information including a link to the code to make it easier to find. There are FAQs for a lot of the information regarding adding custom code, so I’ll link to them instead of recreating. I’ll try to add comments to my code (I’m a weekend coder, so my habits are bad!), but there’s nothing in there that isn’t documented in the API.

Just an FYI - I currently consider this integration unreliable since the remote has a tendency to forget the ST network and require re-pairing often. I’ve contacted the ST team to let them know, and I hope they’re engineers can figure out how to maintain the connection with the remote.

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Much appreciated. And hey… at least you got your remote to pair in the first place! I can’t even get that far (hence my plea!)

One thing though… finding your code wasn’t the issue. That there are links to the GitHub page. I’m more concerned with cart-before-the-horse here in that I don’t see/know how to pair the remote with the hub to be able to use your code in the first place. That’s the piece I feel is missing in this discussion.

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Check the first post. I added pairing instructions. They were difficult to come by because they’re baked into the Hue App. I definitely recommend pairing near the hub. I’ll work on code comments later today if I can. Good luck!

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Comments have been added to the code in Github. Hopefully they provide enough detail to understand what is going on.

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Great write-up! Exactly what I was looking for! And just like you said, I too am seeing the remote drop off after a while.

Just guessing here, but people have said the remote isn’t two-way. Are they sure about that? I ask because it is smart enough to know it’s disconnected because the light goes back to red instead of green when pressing. My guess is if it’s not constantly listening, then it at least ‘wakes up and checks’ every so often for the Hue hub and if not found, reports that it’s disconnected again. Completely guessing, but that may explain the behavior since SmartThings obviously still knows about it. It just seems like it’s the remote who stops transmitting, not the hub which stops listening.

Wish I had some kind of Zigbee sniffer and could check this out for sure with the actual Hue hub (although part of me doesn’t want to upgrade the hub to the new firmware because I can sell it as still working with non-Philips bulbs until I do! :smile: )

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Philips has reversed their decision on not supporting other brands of bulbs. See their Facebook page.

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The remote is designed to communicate directly to end devices, so it expects to get responses back, not commands. The Hue Hub pretends to be a bulb, so the remote thinks it’s talking to an end device. ST can’t do that as currently configured. What ST configures with the remote is “hey, when you send a command to a bulb, send it to me too”, but the remote never gets anything back, so it thinks the connection is broken. That’s my guess at least. Either that or the bind to ST doesn’t get placed in memory, so it gets lost when the device sleeps.

I thought about trying to fake a response, but the first press after a certain amount of time doesn’t make it to ST; so there’s no way to trigger the response.

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Yep! All over the news! But it’s too late. I feel burned and already upgraded to this SmartThings hub. That’s actually exactly why I’m here. I was Hue/Echo (with GE Link and three Hue color bulbs) guy but when my system was suddenly rendered useless over the weekend, I hit up Google, found this on Amazon, and now I’m a happy SmartThings/Echo convert ever since. Plus, apparently I have a lot more power now too thanks to SmartApps. I still have the Hue but it’s been disconnected from the Echo and relegated to a peripheral of SmartThings so now SmartThings is the only thing the Echo talks to. Everything else spiders off from there. This way I can sell off my Hue and not worry about my system needing to change. Plus, these new LIFX bulbs look amazing!!!

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Where did you get that info about the Hue hub mimicking a bulb? I had suspected that too at one point, but would love clarification. Either way, I’m sure we can set up some SmartApp with a timer that updates the appropriate/needed message back to the remote.