Philips Hue Zigbee Delays with many lights

Apps
1

I’ve tested a 12 spot setup with Hue bridge and directly with the Hue Zigbee app, and there is an extreme difference in the reaction time. With the Philips Hue bridge and a Smart Dimmer Switch also connected to the bridge, the 12 spots turns on off, increases and decreases lights nearly instantly and all the lights at the same time.

When adding all the spots and the dimmer directly to Homey, I get a problem. The dimmer to spot reaction are pretty good, however the spots them self seems to turn on in small bulks or one by one in serial. It takes approximately 5-8 seconds from the first light ignites until the 12’th are lit. I’ve mainly used the “Group” app to group all the lights into one bulb with same input, but I also tried to do a few of the Spots in a smaller flow and it seemed to be the exact same issue.

So, my conclusion is that the problem is one of the following:

  1. A problem with a ineffective communication method from within the Philips Hue Zigbee app on Homey.
  2. A limitation with hardware or software in the Homey device.

As Philips them self have managed to find a solution to light up and turn off all lights at the same time, it can’t be the protocol or limitations by the communication method it self.

Can anyone else confirm this? Have you had similar issues and what have you done to solve it?
Have anyone tried to contact Sebastian Johansson (developer of the app)?

2

To let this work directly with Homey like the Hue Bridge, Athom had to implement additional Zigbee protocol parts that allow to send one message to a group of lights at once. This is probably part of the pending Zigbee rewrite by Athom. No planning is available from Athom.

3

I see. Let’s hope this rewrite happens soon. This will drive me mad :frowning: Dim control with such a number of spots will be extremely painful now.

I’ll have to consider to purchase another dimmer with two zones (two parts in the living room) which works in Philips Hue apps. I believe the “Friends of Hue” should work in the app. It’s just a darn shame that I won’t be able to use this in conjunction with other things like timers and motion sensors, because they are only in Homey.