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Philips Hue control


Marcus_Lyle

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Hello all,

I am new to the HC2 scene only have installed one a week ago. 

To date I have always used Samsung smartthings hub to do automation for all my clients. However on this occasion the house we have just rewired is particularly large and the ST hub has struggled with the number of devices in it. Range wasn't the issue as all devices within a metre of the hub, it was the volume of communication going on it caused it to continuously lag. 

 

The property lighting is controlled mainly by fibaro modules, though there are around 20 aeon labs dimmer modules and 15 Philips hue bulbs being used. We use the Philips hue because of the ability to give mood lighting effects in concentrated areas. 

 

All the lights are controlled (well meant to be) by aeotec quad light switches. These look good and work well with ST, and to the best part work okish in HC2. Few more options with them in ST like button colour control. Only problem was ST couldn't handle anymore than 10 switches without becoming really unresponsive. The lag time would be up to a minute for a light to come on after the switch was pressed on. 

Hence the decision to try out HC2.

 

Now the HC2 is far more responsive and the modules all work well, and the switches work well with the modules.

 

The major problem I have encountered is the integration of Philips hue. After 20 attempts I finally got the hue plugin to work, not the most straight forward process. ST is a click on app and one click on hub and its there with all the bulbs.  Now that I have the bulbs installed on the HC2 they can be nicely controlled on the app or interface which is ok. The problem I have now encountered is that there doesn't appear to be anyway of controlling the bulbs from the switches, or from in scenes. e.g. a scene of - at dust turn on....  or 1 press of a button reverse state the bulb. 

 

Now this has become very frustrating as I expected fibaro to be way ahead of ST, (especially with price difference) but it appears to be the other way around. Fibaro seem to have the upper hand with performance and speed. But with control smartthings seems to be way head. 

The only way around this that I can see at the moment, is to have the smarthings setup as a secondary hub and use that on the buttons I want to control Philips hue bulbs. Not an ideal situation as I am sure you can imagine. 

 

So my question to the community is... am I missing something really straight forward, or is it really as I see it, and i'm stuck using 2 hubs??????

 

 

 

Verdict so far is 

Fibaro faster, more reliable, better looking app. Not installer friendly for setup and maintenance, for users and access. 

smarthings way more control, and easier to setup control, but struggles with large volumes of modules / switches. More versatile for installer situations. 

 

With ST I can have all the hubs I have installed listed in an app and then simply click on the one I want to review in seconds..  Fibaro seems to not have this option with the ID sign in setup. 

 

 

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Philips HUE lamps are not recognized by Fibaro as lighting devices therefore you cannot use them in Magic or Block scenes. You can use them in LUA scenes if you know to code LUA.

There is a workaround by using the Philips HUE VD from Sankatronic.

It's not the most user native way but it will work ok in Block scenes. 

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Hi @Marcus_Lyle and welcome to Fibaro forum!

 

As a installer for HA and new to Fibaro maybe you can check also bellow link and give me some toughs?

UHAS compatible Philips HUE VD is very simple to install and supports single light and groups of lights.

UHAS compatible Very Smart Lights™ scene enables complete control over many types of lights including Philips HUE and Nanoleaf Aurora (NEW) and selecting of different light moods with HUE, Aurora and RGBW modules. Every single light can be adjusted to different colors and brightness.

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  • 8 hours ago, Sankotronic said:

    Hi @Marcus_Lyle and welcome to Fibaro forum!

     

    As a installer for HA and new to Fibaro maybe you can check also bellow link and give me some toughs?

    UHAS compatible Philips HUE VD is very simple to install and supports single light and groups of lights.

    UHAS compatible Very Smart Lights™ scene enables complete control over many types of lights including Philips HUE and Nanoleaf Aurora (NEW) and selecting of different light moods with HUE, Aurora and RGBW modules. Every single light can be adjusted to different colors and brightness.

    Hello Sankotronic

     

    Yes I have looked through the UHAS thank you. Seemed comprehensive and I tried the Philips VD. 

    However, the issue seems to be in the device handler for the quad switch in that I am only able to apply control to a device recognised as a light. It really ought to allow control to any device including VDs. 

    However, it does allow for scene control, but only to run a scene. I got a bit confused looking through the UHAS very smart lights into how to actually modify the scene after I installed it.

    If I can set a scene that will reverse state the Philips hue I want to control then that would work, but I wouldn't want that scene to be running as an automation constantly, only when the switch is pressed and told it to run. 

     

    Thank you

    Marcus

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    Hi @Marcus_Lyle,

     

    So you are looking for simple solution like press switch to trigger scene, scene turn on some lights in some selected mood and then stops running until next switch press?

     

     

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  • Hi Sankotronic,

    Yes that is it exactly. 

    With the lights being Philips hue.

     

    The Hue bridge is connected to HC ok using the plugin and all the bulbs/strips installed so far appear ok. 

     

    Does the very smart lighting scene make this possible?

     

    regards

    marcus

    Edited by Marcus_Lyle
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    Hi @Marcus_Lyle,

     

    Yes, VSL scene supports HC HUE plugin and can be triggered with wall switches but not directly. It can be triggered with global variable so if wall switch changes global variable value that will trigger VSL scene. Scene will run while lights are turned on and will stop running when turned off. If you like I can help you with setting one scene just send me on private message what you want to achieve and lights ID numbers and type.

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  • Thank you very much really appreciate this. 

    I will message tomorrow, as I will need to work out the id numbers as the ID numbers don't seem to appear on the devices tab for the hue bulbs like the other devices do. 

     

    Once I have a start point I am sure I will pick things up with lua, as I use to do programming over 20 years ago, using cobal, pascal, VB, and done a little bit of java script.

     

    Thank you

    Marcus

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