Best Way to Manage Lights with Hue & Homey?

Questions & Help
1

Hi everyone,

I currently have Hue lights throughout my home, each room with a Hue dimmer switch. These switches are all set up directly in the Hue app (not in Homey).

I’m moving soon, and I’d like to rethink my setup — especially the switches. Right now, it feels a bit messy having both Hue switches and regular wall switches in every room.

On top of that, I have a Homey flow that turns certain things off when we go to sleep, while my Hue motion sensors are set up in the Hue app to manage lights differently depending on the time of day. It’s getting confusing having automations spread across two systems.

I’m wondering what’s best practice here — should I move all lighting automations (switches, motion sensors, etc.) into Homey and stop using the Hue app for that?

What do you all do with your light switches and motion sensors? Do you let Hue handle it, or do you manage everything from Homey?

2

Yup, move all automations to homey.

For connecting the lights and sensors, thats a choice.

Remeber that hue and homey create there own zigbee network. So if you have a limited number of non-hue zigbee devices you might want to strenghten your zigbee network by lso moving the hie devices to homey.

disadvantage of hue devices on homey (not much)

  • no firmware updates for devices
  • Some of the “scenes of hue re not available on homey yet
3
  • no binding
  • no grouping
  • worse Zigbee performance
4

that’s not a small disadvantage lol

5

As I see it, the best way is to keep the Hue bridge and setup lighting scenes in different rooms through the Hue app and then bring the scenes into Homey.

This way, the firmware update will not be an issue.

6

The things you list are assuming no Hue bridge right?

I think its best to keep the Hue bridge in the setup no matter how the switches and motion sensors are implemented.

7

Yes

You can Also look at these switches.

They can be used in the wall behind a switch AND they connect to hue.

This way the wife can use the normal switch and hou still hve full automtion.

Behind this switch you will use a normal ledlight (also gives you a lot of options in lights selection)

8

From this I gather that it migth be best to have all Hue stuff connected to the Hue Bridge and then brig it over to Homey through the app.

Regarding the mess with the sensors and time of day, It’s best to do all that in Homey.

This means that the only thing done within the Hue system is setting up the scenes. No motion sensor automations or switch logic.

9

Thanks for the input here. :heart_eyes:

I’m still not sure what the “right” way of dooing this is though.

I’m thinking of doing it the following way. Is this a decent approach?

  • Connect all Hue bulbs and Hue lamps to the Hue bridge
  • Setup scenes in Hue app and so not using Homey moods.
  • Install smart switches in place of all the switches in the house or perhaps install sonoff relays behind the old switches to make them smart
  • Don’t use the Hue Dimmer switches
  • Setup a flow in Homey for every switch that in turn activates scenes that are setup in Hue.
  • Setup a flow in Homey for every Hue motion sensor to trigger scenes in Hue.

I know I’m overthinking this, but I still see this as perhaps not beeing the best way of getting around this. It will end up being a lot of flows in Homey. :upside_down_face:

What are you guys thourghts on this and what do you do?

10

Yes, I would recommend to keep everything lighting-related in Hue because of the ease of use and setup

Hue Dimmer Switches work perfectly in my case, why wouldn’t you use them? Do you only need voice or app control?

If the sensor and the lights are both Hue devices, you should set it up in the Hue app/bridge. It’s way easier to configure than in a Flow.