I have been using Lutron Maestro dimmers with regular LED bulbs for over a decade now and love their light indicators and ease of dimming (including 3-way dimming). I recently started to use Hue bulbs and am still looking for a good dimmer option for it. The Philips dimmers have some good functionality but need to be mounted in addition to standard switches. I like that the Click dimmers from RunLessWire can replace regular switches and fit in the decora faceplates - but they don’t have the indicator lights and my guests find them confusing.
So I have been looking for a better option and found that the Inovelli blue dimmer, at least in theory, fits my needs perfectly. Installation, however, compared to Hue and Friends of Hue products, is a lot more complex.
I have been able to install two dimmers to replace two dumb dimmers in 3-way mode and was able to add the dimmers to the Hubitat bridge. I am also able to control the Hue bulbs via the Hubitat bridge (they are still connected to the Hue bridge). However, connecting the switch to the bulbs is a challenge. I was able to get some things to work via Button Controllers, but programming all of the functionality I want would take me a long time, as I am basically learning a new language, and I don’t have the time. I can’t imaging that I am the first one to pair Hue lights to Inovelli switches via a Hubitat hub, but I cannot find a good tutorial for this. Is there a good tutorial or simple way to apply some simple rules to the switches?
Here is what I want to accomplish (to replicate the Maestro functionality):
When lights are off, single tap up turns the light on to the last dim setting
Double tap up always brings lights to full brightness
Single tap will increase dim level by 10% (up and down)
Double tap down will turn off the lights
What would be the easiest way to accomplish this - while not unlinking the bulbs from the Hue hub - the Hue App has some great functionality and is easy to use for the whole family.
Direct binding is pretty cool, but it requires the Hue bulbs/fixtures be paired directly to the same controller as the Blue (Hubitat in this case), so binding is not possible if you want to keep the Hue lights on the Hue bridge.
I don’t think there’s any way around the need to program the desired behavior for each switch – that effort is simply what’s necessary to get the smart outcome you want.
Thank you for the quick response - I appreciate it.
I have a couple of follow up questions:
If I switch to direct binding of the Hue bulbs to the Hubitat hub, is there an alternative app I can use on my phone to get intuitive and easy control over the Hue bulbs, such as turning them all off, changing light temperature, etc.? Would that work via the Apple Home App?
Are there any downsides to binding bulbs directly compared to the Hue Bridge binding? Would I lose any Hue functionality (firmware updates, control over bulb behavior after a power outage, etc.)?
Before I go down the Button Controllers route with lights still connected to the Hue Bridge, I wonder if the following would be possible:
If I want the brightness level to be shown on the Inovelli switch, can that be updated if the brightness of the hue bulb is changed in the Hue app?
is anyone aware of a detailed tutorial specific for the Inovelli switches in Button Controllers? I have come across many user posts and examples, but it seems like I have to piece information together from multiple different sources. Even just understanding how button numbers in Hubitat are mapped to the actual buttons (up, down) and number of taps takes quite a bit of time and is not intuitive. But I am willing to learn.
There are some Hue features/capabilities that would be lost if no longer paired to the Hue bridge. I think adaptive lighting is one, but there are probably more. I don’t know details, since I don’t use any special Hue features along those lines.
You would lose automatic firmware updates, but Hubitat typically gets Hue updates eventually, though not as fast as when paired to the Hue bridge.
The only place I use direct binding with Blue/Hue is in a super vanilla on/off setup, so I have no experience with dimming considerations in a binding setup - hopefully others will be able to add more there.
The button mapping is all Inovelli - it doesn’t have anything to do with Hubitat per se. But it’s obviously important to have that button-mapping info in order to use it in Hubitat’s Button Controller (or whatever other smart-home controller).
I’m using Hubitat and have 23 Hue downlight retrofits bound to Inovelli blue dimmers. I do not own a Hue hub.
Three switches are bound to a single downlight each, and for those I use the Zigbee Binding Tool app to bind the switch to the downlight.
Four other switches are bound to groups of two, three or four downlights. I use the Groups and Scenes app to create the Zigbee group for the downlights, then assign the group number to the switches.
In two other cases, I have two switches bound to each other, controlling a Zigbee group of three downlights. I again use the Groups and Scenes app to create the group for the downlights and assign the group to the switches, then the Zigbee Binding Tool app to bind the two switches to each other so they work in a “3-way” configuration.
It works but getting it set up correctly took a fair amount of trial and error as it isn’t (or wasn’t at the time) very well documented.
These scenarios are the primary reason why I went with the Inovelli blue switches. I want the lights to work whether or not the hub is running or not. If you set things up like this, there is no need to program rules in Button Controller or Rule Manager, it just works. But as hydro311 said, the Hue devices must be paired to Hubitat, they cannot remain on the Hue hub so you will lose whatever functionality the Hue hub provides.
Edit: I also have about 10 Hue A19 bulbs paired to Hubitat, but they are controlled by four Hue button controllers (also paired to Hubitat) via the Button Controller app. But controlling bulbs via an Inovelli blue switch should be no different than what I did with the downlights.