I’ve installed a few Blues on smart bulb mode controlling some Philips Hue bulbs. I have some Hue bulbs that are bound directly to the switch, and some that are controlled instead using automations in Home Assistant (Blue > ZHA > Philips Hue Integration (for bulbs on Hue hub) > Bulb). I can’t make up my mind which way to go here, because there’s some key functionality that seems to be missing under each approach:
Bound directly to switch:
Pro: Seamless on/off/dimming
Con: No ability to control Hue-defined scenes. Since the bulbs are no longer bound to the Hue hub, I can’t apply scenes defined from Hue. The problem here is that I really like to use the Hue dynamic scenes, which allows the lights to cycle through various predefined colors. Automating this in Home Assistant looks like a very intensive process as opposed to the “click play” option in Hue.
Managed through home assistant automations:
Pro: Easy enough to automate on/off behavior between switch/Hue so each control each other
Pro: Easy to apply Hue-defined scenes
Con: No way that I can figure out to dim the lights using the switch using the standard hold to dim process and have the dim LED bar match the light dimness.
I know this may be a bit of a unique situation, but anyone else experience this? Any recommended approaches? I can’t make up my mind which functionality to sacrifice, so hoping I can find a way to have it all!
I’m not sure exactly how the hue dynamic scenes work, but when you say it cycles through various predefined colors there’s a blueprint in HA for doing exactly that.
This allows you to define 12 colors, how fast they change and the transition time to switch. It gets setup as a script, and then you simply call the script from an automation. For example you could setup a doubletap up event on your blue series to activate the script and a doubletap down to stop it.
I use my Blue switches through HA (instead of direct bonding) and can’t figure out how to get Dimming to work either. If anyone figures this out please post the solution to this thread or link to the solution.
I actually have something like this now for a switch that cuts power to the hue bulbs (that go through the hue bridge), and do some complicated stuff to only dim 50% power (but multiple that by 2x when sent through the hub integration). This way while dimming the bulb doesn’t lose so much power it turns off and you can’t control it. When the switch turns off then the bulb loses power so it isn’t great. I am planning on replacing it with a Blue Series 2-1 in smart bulb mode and will update the template. I think this should work with dimming but can you confirm that the dim setting of the light switch is visible in Home Assistant?
I’m interested in this as well and the light template approach seems like a natural solution to the problem. Would love to hear whether it actually works well and supports dimming by holding down the paddle switch, before I spend a bunch of money!
I’m mostly posting to see if anyone has updates on their setup between Hass, Inovelli, and Hue.
Here’s my setup:
Every room in the house has a Zigbee Inovelli light switch, and most rooms have some Zigbee hue bulbs. For me, priority number 1 is that the light switches always show the state of the light, and the light is always reactive to the switch. I have all the compatible lights bound in Z2M (ZigBee to MQTT). This allows the light and the switches to show their dim setting when on and to react correctly if the server ever has issues (about twice a year these days)
Unfortunately, the functionality that I really want to get working but haven’t been able to is the Hass Adaptive Lighting HACS integration. The goal with this add-on for my setup is that when the light switch is turned on, the lights are automatically adjusted to the right color temperature and brightness, with the light switch following the brightness value.
NOTE: It’s been a while since setting up Adaptive Lighting with the lights and switches, so there might be some updates that make this easier.
