I bought a new Phillips Hue Light-bulb (in a bundle with a Dimming Switch) that supports Bluetooth as well as ZigBee. I would prefer to integrate the bulb in my mostly HomeMatic based Openhab Installation on my Raspi 3 without a Hue Bridge (this would allow me to turn it on and of in sync with other open-hab controlled elements in the same room)
I did not yet find anything about the Bluetooth part of the Hue here - does anybody have a pointer for me where to start (if it is possible at all).
What I know so far: The Bulb is able to speak Zigbee (with the Hue Dimmer Switch) and Bluetooth (with 2 Android Smartphones and the Hue Bluetooth App right now) in parallel - so it should be possible in theory to speak with the Bulb with the Bluetooth stack of the Raspi…
Welcome to the forum!
There is not too much official support (in terms of bindings) for bluetooth that I am aware of. Some people developed some workarounds, just search the forum for Bluetooth.
I am running Hue with a bridge: rock-solid!! You can also run them with other zigbee devices (deConz for example).
What makes you think that controlling Hue lights via the Bridge is noticeable slower than via Bluetooth? Given the nature of the ZigBee protocol, I doubt that. In addition ZigBee uses a mesh network topology, meaning all devices can communicate via another ZigBee device to extend their reach. Bluetooth doesn’t have such a feature and can quickly suffer from its limited range.
I guess the main reason for Signify to add Bluetooth support is the extremely simple direct connection between a smartphone and a light bulb. But for Home automation I would argue you are better of with a Bridge (or another ZigBee Hub directly connected to the OH device).
I do not think that controlling the lights via the bridge is slower than via zigbee. With in “sync” i meant at the same time (roughly the same, maybe 1-2 seconds later) like other non-hue elements in the same room (that can not be controlled via the bridge)
What I want to do is to detect the state of the hue lamp via bluetooth if possible and mirror it (together with maybe some temperature control) with other elements in the same room.
In fact I have already an zigbee usb stick connected to my Pi to control a different Hue Lamp (for which I do not want to use a zigbee control because I already have nice Homematic Wall Switch beside my Bed). This approach (openhab via Zigbee USB Stick) works most of the time (lets say 80%) but is extremely unreliable (still ok for own experiments, but not OK for a different room where reliability of the wall-switch is more important).
Thanks for that feedback! I tried to avoid having a bridge just for my wall-switch and one wall-light but if it is not possible to simply use the Bluetooth transport I will most likely go down that route and live with the fact that I need to have an extra ethernet switch (because I am running out of available ethernet ports on the fritzbox) and the bridge running 24/7
I am running Hue with a bridge: rock-solid!! You can also run them with other zigbee devices (deConz for example).
Im using the deconz variant with the raspbee module for the pi4 and some xiaomi aqara devices, and some ikea bulbs and an outlet from another manufacturer but I really regret buying those devices.
I feel like zigbee devices have an really bad radio range compared to wifi and homematic. My devices also are super unreliable but thats maybe because of the reach.
Because of that im really wondering why I am always reading that people are satisfied with zigbee systems…Maybe im doing something wrong??
Yes, zigbee has a noticeably shorter range compared to wifi (and just for the record, only the devices powered by main will be repeaters, battery powered ones are simply end points and do not help establish a mesh network). I have about 20 hue and as many tradfri over three floors (controller on the middle floor), and I have to say Hue with a bridge just works, always, and it provides fast responses. Tradfri…still OK, but definitely less reliable, at least when used with OH2 (but reach is comparable). There are zigbee repeaters out there that, maybe they can help you to get the range you need.
Take a look at zigbee2mqtt https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/#getting-started. I use this and have a second Pi that’s located in center of home with the USB stick. This helps to reach all my zigbee devices and has been very reliable.
Thx for all the feedback - Just for the completeness - I ended up buying a hue-bridge and will stop using the zigbee stick in my raspi for now. I moved my old Phillips Living Colors also on the the Bridge and archived a much better reliability due to that (they LivingColor is controlled by an HomeMatic Wall Switch which talks to an Homematic CCU2 - the Homematic CCU2 has a module that can talk directly with the HueBridge)
The Hue bridge has a really low power consumption it seems (2 Watt?) and has the added benefit that it is really easy to combine a hue motion sensor with the Hue light - it was simply not worth it to go further down the Bluetooth road. On top of that the Hue Integration of Openhab seems to work pretty solid!
Current Project is to use that to build an automatic WakeUpLight with the Help of the Android OpenHab App (App can send the next wakeup time from the phone to openhab and openhab will start the dimming process 10 minutes prior to the alarm from the mobile phone)
