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Author Topic: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)  (Read 8793 times)

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Offline BrownChiLD

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Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« on: December 30, 2016, 11:00:44 am »
The Philips hue bulbs uses Zigbee, and the A+ has both Z-wave and Zigbee radios.. so it should be able to connect to the Hue bulbs w/o the need for the hue hub right?

Offline Shazster

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2016, 10:50:25 am »
Hue uses a subset called Zigbee Light Link (ZLL). Your Almond can talk directly to anything plain vanilla Zigbee only (which to be fair is still a lot of devices - Hue is just really popular so it seems like a bigger segment of the Zigbee system than it is) . Hues still need the hub - but Almond does do a pretty good job of talking to the Hue hub.

Offline BrownChiLD

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2017, 09:02:58 pm »
hmm.. this is the reason why i prefer zwave over zigbee :(

Yeh Almond+ talks to Hue hub fine, until the internet goes down or really slow :( .. sucks..
I am against Smart Home setups being functionally dependent on internet connection.

is there a way to upgrade Almond+ capability to talk to Hue Bulbs directly?

Offline joltdude

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2017, 12:52:34 pm »
No...
Not even "Friends of Hue" allow this
Supposedly theres a newer standard than LL that Osram is implementing in Lightify....
Which in theroy, the Almond could directly support..

-J

Offline rjmp

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2017, 11:39:59 pm »
I had just successfully paired a Philips Hue White A19 lightbulb to my Almond 2015 router WITHOUT the Philips Hub. Took less than a minute and even the dimmable function works. I was banking on it to work actually since both are zigbee protocol devices. I'm thankful it worked out so I didnt need to spent $50 on a Philips hub. I will prolly buy more Philips Hue A19 (C$14.99 @ bestbuy.ca) and replace my hall way domed light fixture soon. HTH

Offline BrownChiLD

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2017, 07:44:41 am »
oh wow that's awesome info mate. thank you for sharing..
are you using gen3 or gen2? Im gonna buy gen2 bulbs if it works , cheaper and works w/ 220v

Offline Kazy

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2017, 05:42:33 pm »
Just a heads up for anyone who can't get this to work, Gen 1 hubs are super cheap on ebay/craigslist. I got one for $10.

Offline BrownChiLD

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2017, 06:54:30 am »
tnx for the tip Kazy.

Offline joltdude

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2017, 09:50:13 am »
I had just successfully paired a Philips Hue White A19 lightbulb to my Almond 2015 router WITHOUT the Philips Hub. Took less than a minute and even the dimmable function works. I was banking on it to work actually since both are zigbee protocol devices. I'm thankful it worked out so I didnt need to spent $50 on a Philips hub. I will prolly buy more Philips Hue A19 (C$14.99 @ bestbuy.ca) and replace my hall way domed light fixture soon. HTH

Its still very iffy... because Hue uses Zigbee Lightlink vs Home Automation which are similar but not the same... Lightlink is limited to certain channels of zigbee... Your practicing false economy and further headaches down the road by trying to bypass the hub...

Originally from what iv read Securifi tried to get Hue bulbs working directly but it became a moving target... hence why its not supported or recommended. ..

-J

Offline Yazzy88

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #9 on: May 22, 2017, 11:57:51 am »
Just wanted to note that I have an Almond 2015 and have 2 Philips Hue bulbs (one color and the other white), and have been able to use them WITHOUT a hub.
I can turn them on and off, and dim them. No problems in the past 3 months.

As another user has pointed out it may not be ideal, but it is definitely working for me.

Offline TheLostSwede

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2017, 12:30:32 am »
Just an FYI here, which may or may not have changed, but the Philips bulbs can only be connected once to a HA gateway, as there's no manual way to reset them, so if they lose connection permanently to your Almond (or other ZigBee gateway) for some reason, you can't reset them or re-connect them. The only way to reset and re-connect them is using a Philips hub. As far as I know, this is the same for all Philips bulbs and it's really quite stupid. All other ZigBee bulbs have some kind of manual reset, be it switching them off and on in a certain pattern or even a physical button on the bulb itself, so they can always be reset to pairing mode again.

Offline mparadis

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Re: Can Almond+ connect to Philips Hue bulbs directly? (no hub)
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2017, 09:42:06 am »
Hmmm, my local WalMart just started carrying a bunch of HA stuff and saw the white hue bulbs for $15. I have been having issues with my GE bulbs and thought I'd try those out but not being able to reset them is concerning to me. Thanks for the info thelostswede.

 

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