Hue: channels for a single bulb, rather than the whole group?

So i’ve read the announcement about supporting Hue groups, and several others about being able to adjust lights as a group - which is obviously useful. My question is actually the opposite.

In my setup, i have 2 0210 Extended Color bulbs (A & B) which Hue has kind of forced me to add into a group (“Living Room”). Within the app, i can obviously adjust them as a group, or use them separately as individuals. And that’s great.

However, in my OpenHAB setup, despite all of them appearing, only the group has channels for switch, brightness etc. The bulbs only have color and color temperature, rather than the full list the group has. I want to be able to use those for individual bulbs. Currently i can switch them all on at once, and then modify individual colours. The docs say 0210 supports power/switch, but not brightness. The thing is, it’s available to the group, and both are possible in the Hue app.

I need an on/off switch item for them, as well as a brightness item - which i already have for the group.

Am i missing a configuration trick? I’ve looked through all the UIs and docs and can only see the switch is meant to be there (but can’t link it to the Thing).

That’s all you need. You can send ON/OFF (i.e. Switch commands) and PercentType (i.e. Dimmer commands) to a Color Item. I’m surprised the Hue group offers anything but Color Channels itself.

It’s confusing, to say the least. In the group they are all laid out, which implies that what they allow. Will test today, thank you!!

openHAB, more so than almost any other system I’ve used, requires careful and repeated returning to the docs. In this case: MQTT 2.5 Event Bus

Type Name Description Command Types
Color Color information (RGB) OnOff, IncreaseDecrease, Percent, HSB

That third column shows that commands Color Items will accept.