Cnet’s write up on this was a little more in depth than Engadget. This tidbit is promising concerning the remote:
The same goes for the switch. Pair it with a bridge, and you’ll be able
to customize which lights it turns on and off from within the app, or
put existing Philips Hue products under its control.
That doesn’t mean the ST hub will be able to see the button presses for multiple protocol control, but it will connect to a hub for configuration. Sounds a lot like the Lutron Connected Bulb Remote, and I expect the fingerprint will be almost identical.
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tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
#9
I certainly avoid high expectations and assumptions…
But the Specs for the Hue Dimmer Switch say that it, specifically, is ZLL, not some sort of internal proprietary protocol.
What exactly are the interchangeability specifications from the ZigBee Alliance regarding ZigBee HA (SmartThings) and Zigbee Light Link (ZLL) controllers?
I guess we’ve talked a bit about ZLL vs ZHA in several contexts, but this new product is a good reason to revitalize the conversation…
Just as an example, Hue Tap is not proprietary, but is incompatible with SmartThings.
It’s pretty clear this new device uses direct “Zigbee binding” between the remote and the bulbs that it controls. That’s why it doesn’t need a bridge. We just don’t know yet exactly what information it would send something besides a bulb.
When somebody actually has the device, they can play around with it and see what they can get it to do.
edited because it needed to be.
1 Like
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
#11
Has anyone dug into “why not”?
Isn’t ZLL a subset of ZHA… Or, well, there is supposed to be some consolidation of the ZigBee standards as of the next version (?). This is opposed to ZigBee Pro (and a few others), which I think is orthogonal and incompatible with ZigBee HA…
Put another way: It’s hard to understand how SmartThings can directly control a ZLL compatible bulb (GE Link, Hue, Cree (is Cree ZLL?)), but not be able to write a Device Handler for a ZLL based button controller.
@Tyler or @juano2310 may be able to contribute to this conversation?
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
#12
No. You’re probably thinking of communication channels. ZLLuses a subset of the total zigbee channels. ZHA uses more. But the command clusters are different.
Or, well, there is supposed to be some consolidation of the ZigBee standards as of the next version (?). [/quote]
Zigbee 3.0. All profiles in one. But not backwards-compatible.
[quote=“tgauchat, post:11, topic:21087, full:true”]
Put another way: It’s hard to understand how SmartThings can directly control a ZLL compatible bulb (GE Link, Hue, Cree (is Cree ZLL?)), but not be able to write a Device Handler for a ZLL based button controller.[/quote]
Not really. Because it’s not a “button controller” as you know them. It’s a zigbee device which is bound to another device.
If I use a z wave association to associate a motion sensor with a light switch, I can have that light switch turn on anytime there is motion on the motion sensor without having to go to the hub first.
And the hub can turn on the light switch by itself.
But I can’t make the hub trigger the motion sensor and have that turn on the light switch. The hardware just isn’t designed that way.
The open question with this new device is whether instead of having the button causing the event occur on the lightbulb, can I have the hub detect that the button was pressed and then do something?
And the answer is, we just don’t know yet. We have to look at what clusters are supported. It may be possible, it may not.
But it is certainly possible to imagine a controller situation just like the motion sensor and the light switch, where the hub cannot trigger the controller device even though it could cause the same event to occur on the end device.
I’m going to leave it up to others to discuss more details. I’m tired today. v
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
#14
Not to disregard @JDRoberts’ reply, but at least in theory, any ZLL device shoul be able to join Zigbee HA network.
The main difference between ZLL and ZHA is that ZLL was designed to operate without Zigbee Coordinator and to enable that, a new network commissioning protocol, called Touchlink, was defined, along with new security mechanism.
However, ZLL spec mandates that all ZLL devices be compatible with HA profile, i.e. they should be able to join network created by Zigbee HA Coordinator. This is why all ZLL lamps should be “compatible” with SmartThings hub. Same should be true for other ZLL devices, including remotes. The question is how to initiate HA network association for a particular device, since there’s no standard way of doing that.
I do think it likely it can join, and be recognized as a Zigbee device. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to notify the controller about its button presses. That’s One question.
The second technical question is what happens if you do have a hue bridge that those bulbs are attached to?
We know that this new dimmer control can be associated to a hue bridge: the update for the official Hue app just came out for that today. And it seems likely that the bridge does receive information on the button presses.
But now we have a new problem. Is the dimmer control going to consider the Hue bridge its controller, and therefore will not talk to the smartthings hub directly?
I don’t know, but it seems like one possibility.
So there’s just a lot of different ways technically this could be set up, and some would work better with smartthings than others.
Maybe this device will be able to be used as a button controller, but only if you don’t directly bind it to any bulbs, and maybe only if you don’t connect it to the Hue bridge.
So it would be pretty much the same as using the Minimote. All communication going to the hub.
That would be OK for a lot of things, maybe for everything. But it’s just not necessarily as simple as saying the device can talk to the hub.
Obviously, a Zigbee device cannot be included in two different networks at the same time. It will either join HA coordinator (e.g. SmartThings hub) or associate with ZLL controller, or it may try to create a new network (if it’s a controller). Once it joined the network (be it HA or ZLL) it will remain on that network unless reset to factory defaults.
We know that this new dimmer control can be associated to a hue bridge: the update for the official Hue app just came out for that today. And it seems likely that the bridge does receive information on the button presses.
For sure, the dimmer remote should be able to control the lights that have already been attached to the Hue bridge. Thus, it will need to perform the Touchlink dance to get the network key generated by the bridge. But it does not need the bridge to control the lights. I believe it work independently, pretty much like a secondary Z-Wave controller can control Z-Wave lights independently from the hub.
Maybe this device will be able to be used as a button controller, but only if you don’t directly bind it to any bulbs, and maybe only if you don’t connect it to the Hue bridge.
Yes, it someone finds the way to make it join HA coordinator, this is how it would work, I guess.
I don’t know how likely it will be that the bridge receives information about button presses. The impression I get by the press release and the available clusters for the Lutron Remote is that they’re intended to directly control bulbs only, and that the Hue hub can be used for easier setup to adjust the bindings, so the user won’t have to carry the remote around to each individual bulb.
So in theory the new Lutron connected bulb remote should work with Hue bulbs even though they’re not listed as compatible. Unfortunately, I can’t get them to pair.
I’m using it quite successfully with a Hue and GE bulbs. Obviously no color control, but on/off and dimming works fine. Not sure what the problem is with pairing. Have you tried resetting the remote and bulb to factory defaults and trying again?
I tried the reset on the remote but not the bulbs. Is your Lutron remote stealing the bulb from the hub or working with it? I don’t want to lose scene functionality just to have a quick on/off button.
It can steal it away from ST if you reset the bulb with the remote then pair the remote to the Hue. If you want the bulb to stay on the ST mesh, you’ll need to join the remote to ST first, then follow the bulb pairing process with the remote. (If your Hues are on the Hue Bridge, then I don’t know if this will work. Mine are directly connected to ST.) If you’re doing that and it’s still not working, then I’m not sure what’s up
As a renter, I would love to use something like this remote with my SmartThings setup (even though I realize it’s unlikely). Flimsy or not, it’s better than any other alternative for areas which are used by people other than myself (living room, kitchen, main hallway, etc.) because it goes right over the light switch where those people would expect to control the lights, and it doesn’t require me to do any modifications to a place that I don’t own.
Hopefully some other company takes this type of design and does something that is more universally compatible (whether Z-wave or whatever).
After using IKEA Tradfi bulbs for a few months I got fed up with the IKEA dimmer (I found battery life was particularly poor) so I thought I’d try a Hue dimming kit (without a Hue bridge).
The IKEA bulb can be paired with both SmartThings and it’s own dimmer at the same time and controlled by either, so I was hoping for a similar experience with the Hue bulb as I wanted to be able to use both the dimmer and the app / Alexa.
After a couple of hours of either being able to control the bulb with either the dimmer or SmartThings but not both, I thought it would be useful to document the working setup which involves pairing the bulb and dimmer to SmartThings and then using a SmartApp to process the button presses.
This is my first experience with Hue bulbs so learnt a few things I thought would be useful to share. I’ve written most of this down from memory and not re-tested all of the pairing so hopefully the steps are in the right order.
Here goes:
Pair the Bulb
There doesn’t appear to be a special procedure to put the Hue bulbs into pairing mode as with some other bulbs although it may be that the bulbs will only pair if they arenn’t already paired with something e.g. the dimmer (see note below on resseting the bulb). With the bulb switched on, I was able to just add a device in the SmartThings app and it appeared as “Philips Hue White”.
Note: If you have problems pairing the bulb, it can be reset by pressing and holding the On and Off buttons on the dimmer for 10 secs while holding it close (< 15 cm) to the bulb as per: Login - Philips Hue Developer Program
I also found that I had to switch the bulb off and on at them mains before it would allow the dimmer to reset the bulb.
[Optional] Install Bulb Device Handler
The bulb should automatically be picked up as a “ZLL Dimmer Bulb” but I found I preferred how it dimmed with the “Improved ZLL Dimmer Bulb for Philips Hue White A19 (w/ Level Transitions)” by Michael Kelley
You can then edit your bulb in IDE and change the type to the “Improved ZLL Dimmer Bulb for Philips Hue White A19 (w/ Level Transitions)”
Install Dimmer Device Handler
Get [ALPHA] Hue Dimmer Switch (ZHA) (beta) (no hue bridge) device handler
Pair the Dimmer
Put the dimmer into pairing mode by pressing a pin into the setup button on the rear of the remote. The light on the dimmer should start flashing amber and green (from memory). In the SmartThings app, add a device.
Note 1: If when pairing the device it just shows up as a “thing” then it’s probably a newer model than in the device handler. I found that the device handler is written for the device being model “RWL020” whereas mine is a “RWL021” (you can see this under the data section of the device).
Update the model to “RWL021” on the “fingerprint profileId” line of the device handler and save and republish it.
After making the change and remove and re-pairing, the dimmer automatically appeared as a “Hue Dimmer Switch (ZHA)” (it may start working without re-pairing but I didn’t try)
Note 2: If you have problems pairing the dimmer, you can reset it by pressing into the setup button for 10 seconds until the light starts flashing quickly. It will then go into setup / pairing mode.
v
