great, thanks @harjms
@NeighborGeek – do you find the need to install bypass for Philips Hue lights? Or you have a neutral wire setup?
Sorry, I only have a couple of the red series dimmers installed currently, and I think those both have neutral wires at the switch.
understood - no worries, thanks
sorry to hijack the thread, another question – is the bypass necessary if the switch is operating with dumb bulbs? i’m asking because then the bulbs will be drawing no power at all since they don’t require to stay connected (in fact, in that mode the switch should fully shut off the power to them) but on the flip side, the switch also doesn’t need to communicate with the lights so might require less power itself. So i’m curious if bypasses are required for a switch in “dumb mode” with no-neutral-wire setup ? Thanks!
More than likely, yes.
I’m not him, but I did test this with Hue bulbs a while back (since I have one location that is non-neutral and I was curious; most of my locations do have neutral). I used a single Hue A19 (2nd gen, 800 lm, 10 W, 135 mA) bulb connected to the Hue Bridge with the Blue Series in switch mode (on/off, since dimming didn’t do much for me without binding, and they’re basically just button controllers for me; for testing, I used the Hue app directly, but in real life, they’ll be controlled mostly via Hubitat). This was with a beta unit, as I have not yet installed or even received the production units I ordered, but I’m not aware of any changes that would affect this.
With a single Hue bulb, I had problems with the following setups:
- worked at full brightness without bypass but failed if dimmed below about 20-25% or turned off (so, not a good idea)
- worked when on at any level when used with Aeon or Fibaro bypass but failed if turned off (so, also not a good idea)
This setup sort of worked, but probably isn’t a good idea:
- worked when on at any level and when turned off if used both Aeon and Fibaro bypasses; probably could have used two of each, but I didn’t have that (so sort of usable, though I’m not sure if there are issues with putting two if these in a box, etc.)
The Lutron Minimum Load Capacitor as opposed to the Fibaro or Aeon bypass worked the best for me:
- worked when on at any level and when turned off if used with Lutron MLC (perfect!)
I did also test with a neutral, and, of course, none of this was necessary.
I did not have the ability to test two or more Hue bulbs in this setup or any if their higher-wattage models, but I imagine they would probably fare better or at least the same – so it’s possible (likely?) that the Aeon or Fibaro bypass would work with that setup, should they be needed at all (I’d still assume so). I could test this once I actually have another to install. In the meantime, sorry to Inovelli, but Lutron worked the best for me. 
(I’m not sure what the production docs say, but an early doc from the manufacturer did say “capacitor” instead of “bypass,” and I’m really not sure what’s inside either of the other products other than that they don’t market it with this term like Lutron does.)
I’d be curious what others find, but that’s what worked (and didn’t) for me!
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@BertABCD1234 woah that is INCREDIBLE INFO!! Thank you so much for taking the time to test so methodically and to share the results!
I will absolutely look into Lutron Minimum Load Capacitor! This is probably going to save me a ton of headache if I end up using Inovelli throughout the place.
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Hey all, I’ve been following this thread and decided to make the switch to moving my Hue bulbs off of their Hue Hub to a SmartThings hub, in order to do local zigbee binding. I’m hoping some people can point me to some resources that could help me out:
- Is there a walkthrough for how I can move Hue bulbs off of the Hue Hub onto the SmartThings hub? When I’m trying to add bulbs through the SmartThings app, they seem to push me to Hue’s website to login, which I’m assuming means the bulbs are connected through the Hue Hub, then the SmartThings hub, which will result in a poor dimmer experience.
- Am I right in assuming that the SmartThings Hub can act as a zigbee router that Home Assistant can use to talk to both the Hue Bulbs and the Inovelli Blue switches?
- If I’m correct in my assumption of #2, Is anyone able to point me in the right direction of any guides that would allow me to add SmartThings to my Home Assistant instance running on TrueNAS Scale? Almost all of the info to date involves HAOS, with isn’t as limited as the version running as a container.
1: I’m honestly not sure if a driver exists for smartthings that will allow hue zigbee bulbs to be controlled locally. And if there is, all bets are off when they flick the switch to shut down groovy. Lots of uncertainty right now with that platform.
2/3: If your goal is to get them into Home Assistant, you’d be best suited just buying a zigbee coordinator to work directly with HA. My go-to is usually the sonoff zigbee stick but I’m unsure of the limitations with the containerized version available in TrueNAS Scale. It may be worth looking at something like the TubesZB or Athom coordinators that both use cc2652p’s and can be connected via ethernet. Then you just point ZHA or Z2M to the IP of the coordinator and don’t have to deal with passthrough on your server.
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Ah, damn. Maybe I misunderstood that SmartThings was an acceptable hub for this type of application. I ordered a Nortek HUSBZB, since it seems like that’s the Zigbee device Eric uses in the Zigbee/Hue binding video. If that doesn’t work, I’ll definitely try the Sonoff stick, though!
Thanks a ton for the reply, @MRobi!
There is something floating around… and working. EricM has posted about it recently.
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