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!