Hue integration questions

[notslow]

I asked some questions in a thread some time ago, but thought I would post a new thread. Hoping some progress has been made since back then.

I have a huge Hue ecosystem, 150 plus devices and growing. I control all of my lights by Hue scenes as turning on or off individual lights would be way too much effort and confusing, especially for the wife. Scenes are great because we can dial in what lighting we want and when. Lights are bright white during the day, soft white at night, dim late night.

Primary reason I want to integrate hue with isy is for the keypadlinc. I already use them for ceiling fans and would like to use them throughout the house to activate Hue scenes. As of yet, I have not been able to figure out a way to do this.

  Would also like to activate "emergency" hue scenes to turn inside lights on if elk alarm goes off while home or have all outside lights flash red if alarm goes off when not home.

Second thing I would like to do if possible is to use the hue motion sensor data to trigger isy programs. If this data can't be seen by isy, maybe isy could see a hue light state change and be triggered from that as a workaround. Hue motion sensor could trigger a hue light directly, light state change could trigger isy program.

  This would be great to trigger bathroom fan when bathroom light goes on and even hot water circulation when walking in the kitchen or bathroom.

 

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, notslow said:

I asked some questions in a thread some time ago, but thought I would post a new thread. Going some progress has been made since back then.

I have a huge Hue ecosystem, 150 plus devices and growing. I control all of my lights by Hue scenes as turning on or off individual lights would be way too much effort and confusing, especially for the wife. Scenes are great because we can dial in what lighting we want and when. Lights are bright white during the day, soft white at night, dim late night.

Primary reason I want to integrate hue with isy is for the keypadlinc. I already use them for ceiling fans and would like to use them throughout the house to activate Hue scenes. As of yet, I have not been able to figure out a way to do this.

  Would also like to activate "emergency" hue scenes to turn inside lights on if elk alarm goes off while home or have all outside lights flash red if alarm goes off when not home.

Second thing I would like to do if possible is to use the hue motion sensor data to trigger isy programs. If this data can't be seen by isy, maybe isy could see a hue light state change and be triggered from that as a workaround. Hue motion sensor could trigger a hue light directly, light state change could trigger isy program.

  This would be great to trigger bathroom fan when bathroom light goes on and even hot water circulation when walking in the kitchen or bathroom.

 

I use amazon Alexa boxes too control my lighting scenes via ISY programs and ISY Portal. With so many colours and lighting combinations manual switching could not handle them all. My mini-Remotes all sit in my Insteon surplus junk box now.

[notslow]

I won't use Alexa or Google home. Right now we have Hue wireless switches in locations that we need manual control of lights. Every time we tap the on button, it cycles a different scene. I would prefer insteon switches for the cleaner look and ability to control a fan and lights from one switch as well as being hard wired.

 

This house had a rediculous number of light switches. There were 4-6 gang switch plates all over, only single gang switch was the hallway. It looked like a comercial office. I've since reduced most locations to 1or 2 gang.

[notslow]

On 7/17/2020 at 10:32 PM, notslow said:

 

Anybody else using hue with isy?

 

Problem with most smart home equipment really seems to be integration. I got the isy as it seemed like some of the best integration, but seems like I'm still doing more and more redundancies. Master bathroom has an ecobee sensor, multiple Hue motion sensors and will soon have multiple aeotec multi sensors to control ventilation fan. 

In a perfect world all these systems could have been sharing a multi sensor. That would be three less sensors in my bathroom alone.

 

Maybe over the long haul the redundancy is better. If each system is independent, they can't all fail at once. The battery count is really starting to climb though.

[oberkc]

54 minutes ago, notslow said:

Anybody else using hue with isy?

Yes, I do.  I have no hue switches or sensors....only hue lights.  The ISY (network resources and also with polisy) seem to work well with hue lights.

[lilyoyo1]

2 hours ago, notslow said:

Anybody else using hue with isy?

 

Problem with most smart home equipment really seems to be integration. I got the isy as it seemed like some of the best integration, but seems like I'm still doing more and more redundancies. Master bathroom has an ecobee sensor, multiple Hue motion sensors and will soon have multiple aeotec multi sensors to control ventilation fan. 

In a perfect world all these systems could have been sharing a multi sensor. That would be three less sensors in my bathroom alone.

 

Maybe over the long haul the redundancy is better. If each system is independent, they can't all fail at once. The battery count is really starting to climb though.

I'm using the isy with hue. The problem is oems build things for their own system not everyone else's.

There are ways around this however if a person plans their system properly from the start vs jumping all in with anything they see. For example, a zwave motion sensor can be used with the Isy to trigger hue lights. Some can also be used for temp, light, etc which can then be used for other things such as turning on fans and lights based on how dark a room is.

When it comes to the ecobee, I do like that it's separate. That way if my isy fails my AC still works. I'm still able to use it for other stuff such as turning the ceiling fans on based on the temp in that room. 

You'd be surprised at what you can accomplish once you start thinking outside the box with how you use your system. Sometimes it's better not to automate something and simply hit a bunch to cause the desired results. Other times it may be using something unrelated to cause a particular event to happen. For example, fans will only turn on if that room is occupied. I could use a motion sensor but instead, I'll use my tv, Sonos, or something else to determine if it's in use. 

[larryllix]

On 7/18/2020 at 4:19 PM, notslow said:

I won't use Alexa or Google home. Right now we have Hue wireless switches in locations that we need manual control of lights. Every time we tap the on button, it cycles a different scene. I would prefer insteon switches for the cleaner look and ability to control a fan and lights from one switch as well as being hard wired.

 

This house had a rediculous number of light switches. There were 4-6 gang switch plates all over, only single gang switch was the hallway. It looked like a comercial office. I've since reduced most locations to 1or 2 gang.

I use about 22 different scenes in my Gathering room. I use colour cycling in my one bathroom but I would have to cycle through scenes in my Gathering room for 2-3 minutes to get the correct one and then I change scenes many times per day as my needs change in that one room. My wife would move out if I did that and nobody would ever use it.  I started to use mini-Remotes with 8 scenes each but once I tried vocal controls I stored them away. I have one KP but it only gets used for a combination keypad to turn on/off alarms and reset leak alarms and devices by 4 digit codes.

I use 12 MSes to automate lights in other locations.

My deck lights are controlled by vocal commands also. I have about 15 scenes for those lights also, with 16 bulbs surrounding two major sides of my home. ISY controls which scene is used for those outside lights also.  Some scenes there are Christmas, Easter, Party, Canada Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving,  Halloween, Dim, Bright, Emergency, etc. as well as rotating colour animations for accenting certain holidays.  Again, vocals give unlimited scene selections, immediately, and without fiddling.

Alexa doesn't know anything about what lights are on or off. It controls ISY via variables, and the those variables issue Ethernet commands to my NRbridge firmware that issue WiFi commands to my bulbs. Some are Insteon SwitchLincs. Alexa cannot see or understand any of that.

I started out using Hue bulbs but they all got dumped for better quality colours.

[notslow]

2 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I'm using the isy with hue. The problem is oems build things for their own system not everyone else's.

There are ways around this however if a person plans their system properly from the start vs jumping all in with anything they see. For example, a zwave motion sensor can be used with the Isy to trigger hue lights. Some can also be used for temp, light, etc which can then be used for other things such as turning on fans and lights based on how dark a room is.

When it comes to the ecobee, I do like that it's separate. That way if my isy fails my AC still works. I'm still able to use it for other stuff such as turning the ceiling fans on based on the temp in that room. 

You'd be surprised at what you can accomplish once you start thinking outside the box with how you use your system. Sometimes it's better not to automate something and simply hit a bunch to cause the desired results. Other times it may be using something unrelated to cause a particular event to happen. For example, fans will only turn on if that room is occupied. I could use a motion sensor but instead, I'll use my tv, Sonos, or something else to determine if it's in use. 

If there is an easy way for a z wave motion sensor to control hue scenes and turn off lights through isy that works as reliably and fast as the hue motions, I would be all for that.

 

I really like the idea of using a TV as a control in the living room. Living room and entry has been a problem area where I haven't setup motion yet. I don't want lights to turn on or off by motion if someone moves while watching TV. I could use a program to ignore motion sensor when TV is on, but use motion for entry lights when TV is off.

What device do you use to connect TV to isy?

 

[lilyoyo1]

23 minutes ago, notslow said:

If there is an easy way for a z wave motion sensor to control hue scenes and turn off lights through isy that works as reliably and fast as the hue motions, I would be all for that.

 

I really like the idea of using a TV as a control in the living room. Living room entry has been a problem area where I hadn't unnaturally motion yet. I don't want scenes to change by motion if someone moves while watching TV. I could use a program to not change hue scene when TV is on, but use motion for entry lights when TV is off.

What device do you use to connect TV to isy?

 

Nothing will work as far as hue sensors controlling hue lights since they are directly connected to each other.

I've never had reliability issues with my sensors. I don't use direct links and speed hasn't been a problem (no more than a second to turn something on). 

I use the harmony hub asking with the corresponding nodeserver.

[notslow]

Since I already have the hue motion sensors and they work great, I think I'm going to just use redundant systems. I'll keep hue sensors and ecobee sensors all doing their own reliable thing. I'll add z wave motion sensors where needed for isy.

I do want to control hue scenes with isy for keypadlinc and alarm though, so I better start reading up on network resources. This way, Hue can run on its own if isy is down, but I can still use keypadlinc in some locations where I need to control more than hue lights, like a fan.

Thanks, I'm going to check out the harmony hub.

Here's my current switch setup. Not as elegant as the keypadlinc. I do get to keep a decorator style switch under the hue dimmer. If ever the hue dimmer doesn't work, I have the back up switch.

4 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I'm using the isy with hue. The problem is oems build things for their own system not everyone else's.

There are ways around this however if a person plans their system properly from the start vs jumping all in with anything they see. For example, a zwave motion sensor can be used with the Isy to trigger hue lights. Some can also be used for temp, light, etc which can then be used for other things such as turning on fans and lights based on how dark a room is.

When it comes to the ecobee, I do like that it's separate. That way if my isy fails my AC still works. I'm still able to use it for other stuff such as turning the ceiling fans on based on the temp in that room. 

You'd be surprised at what you can accomplish once you start thinking outside the box with how you use your system. Sometimes it's better not to automate something and simply hit a bunch to cause the desired results. Other times it may be using something unrelated to cause a particular event to happen. For example, fans will only turn on if that room is occupied. I could use a motion sensor but instead, I'll use my tv, Sonos, or something else to determine if it's in use. 

If there is an easy way for a z wave motion sensor to control hue scenes and turn off lights through isy that works as reliably and fast as the hue motions, I would be all for that.

 

I really like the idea of using a TV as a control in the living room. Living room entry has been a problem area where I hadn't unnaturally motion yet. I don't want scenes to change by motion if someone moves while watching TV. I could use a program to not change hue scene when TV is on, but use motion for entry lights when TV is off.

What device do you use to connect TV to isy?

 

[notslow]

I think I may have figured out a simple way to get a hue device to trigger Isy.

Connect the sense wire from an Insteon remote control micro on off switch adapter to Philips hue smart plug.

Of course this would only be a simple on/off signal, but could use it to active the bathroom fan when Hue lights come on and programmed timed fan off after lights go off.

This may be helpful for others that need to trigger isy by a hue switch or motion, but don't want to get into polyglot. Though this wouldn't be practical if you needed a lot of triggers since you would have to buy two modules for each trigger.

 

https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/p/hue-smart-plug/046677552343