Hue direct to hub

Hi,

I currently have 4 hue white bulbs connected directly to my smartthings hub, i have purchased 3 hue color bulbs but for some reason they arent even detected as a thing in smartthings, anybody had a similar issue or suggest way I can work around this? I have a hub I can connect so was wondering if that could be used temporarily to pair them another way and then let me remove the hub

Thanks

It was my understanding that Philips Hue bulbs can no longer connect directly to Zigbee device hubs. Only the first gen bulbs had that ability. Newer bulbs require an Hue Hub to connect to, although I have heard of some people using a Minimote to fix Hue problems. I don’t have any expirence with this but is something you could check out.

A minimote is a Z wave device, it has no way of communicating with either a Hue bridge or a Hue Bulb, as those are zigbee.

Hue bulbs are certified ZLL devices, nothing has changed between the first, second, or third generations as far as what zigbee coordinators they can connect to.

All of that said, there are several reasons to use the hue bridge if you want to use hue bulbs with SmartThings. See the FAQ ( this is a clickable link)

As far as the bulbs that you can’t connect, see if they will work with the hue bridge that you have. If they will, then you should be able to reset them and then use them directly with your SmartThings hub if you really want to do so.

If you can’t get them to connect with your hue bridge, then contact Phillips hue support.

What you do have them working with your hue bridge, you will still have to reset them. If you have a Hue dimmer switch, you could do it with that. If not, you can use the laptop method described in the following thread:

Maybe not the Minimote but I thought I read in the forums somewhere there was a zigbee remote or tool of some sort that could be used to reset a bulb if the official method doesn’t work. I don’t remember what it was called or where I saw it other than here in the Smartthings community.

After reading some of those posts I just decided my time and frustration level was worth enough that a real Philips Hue hub was a easier/cheaper/better option.

P.S. I also had a lot of trouble with the early Hue app but it has been trouble free for at least the last year. The updates have been an improvement.

Yes, there are some other Zigbee devices that might be used, and they are discussed in other threads in the forum. So providing links to those threads is always helpful. But not the minimote, that can’t help at all, as it uses zwave.

As for exactly which zigbee device to use, it will depend whether the OP is in the US or in Europe as the device selection available does vary somewhat.

But again, before going out to buy any additional device, since the OP already has a hue bridge they might as well try getting their new bulbs connected to that first. :sunglasses:

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