Homey Pro - Philips Hue - Bridge (?)

Devices
1

Hello,

I just bought a lot of devices with Philips.
Why? Because Athom is developing the App, so it might work better than the others.

Now, an other surprise (for now I’m discovering a lot of NOT very fun surprises with Homey everyday): I need the Philips Hue Bridge to use the official App… or I can use the community App if I don’t want one.

So a simple question: should I get the Philips Bridge? If yes, why? If no, why?

Isn’t it going only to overcharge my frequences there?

Homey is telling we don’t need any bridges as it supports ZigBee and Z-Wave… this is just insane and not true at all! It MUST be clearly written!

//facepalm

Thanks!

2

I don’t agree. Many community devs write waaay better and more extensive apps. Some devs have more knowledge about Homey than Athom has :grimacing:
BUT, this is just my humble opinion.

I don’t Hue, but from several Huesers I’ve read they recommend using the Hue bridge with Homey. It’s zigbee network is pretty solid, and when Homey has a day off, you still can operate your Hue stuff.
You can add it as Matter device btw.

No. If you don’t use Homey zigbee, it doesn’t transmit signals. And zigbee and 2.4GHz wifi have settable channels, you’d select in a smart way.
Search the net for “Wifi vs zigbee interference”

This is just a users forum, don’t count on Athom (the manufacturer) to read your post. And users can’t help you with it, can they?
So, it’s better/best to write to https://homey.app/support instead.

When you make such statements here, please describe them, if not, you’re just trolling imho.

The word surprise tells me you didn’t read any decent source of information / reviews before buying Homey. Youtube / ToxTic is not decent/reliable.
Deciding purely on a company’s own marketing material can be called naive.
I’ve never seen ads which are 100% honest.
Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Athom’s marketing at all, b/c they “forget” to mention the very crucial ‘but’ and ‘however’ and ‘please note this and that’ parts.

1 Like
3

Thank you Peter, very detailed and nice reply.
If anyone else have his 2 cents about getting the Philips Hue Bridge or not experience I’ll be happy to read it!

I waited near 6 months before buying Homey. Watched all Homey’s official videos and lot of others tests. I wish I could get more technical tests about getting the Philips Hue Bridge.

I just learnt how to check what to buy by checking the supported device by an App first. The ZigBee and Z-Wave logos aren’t enough indeed.

4

Hi,

I have my Hue system (approx. 15 lamps, 4 plugs, 15 switches) with bridge for over 2 years over HP23 and no problems.

As already mentioned, the lights can also be controlled in this way if Homey ever has a problem.

5

Thanks Asterix.

So if I got it well, you’re using the Bridge only in case of Homey problems, right? Is it the only reason? Any other reasons I should go with the Philips Hue Bridge? Feel free to talk about it!

@Asterix: can you connect the Bridge using Wi-Fi only or, is Ethernet required as I see in lot of YouTube guides?

6

I already had the Hue system and the bridge before Homey, so I never asked myself whether with or without a bridge.

I only know it with Bridge and it runs perfectly.

I have the Homey and the Bridge on Ethernet. Ethernet is always better than Wifi.

But you can try it without a bridge and gain experience. If it doesn’t work well, you can still get a bridge…

7

I also think the advantage of using the Hue bridge is getting updates. And you can use the special effects of certain Hue lamps in a flow.