Philips Hue provides some of the complete and versatile smart lighting ranges on the market, and, sometimes, you are required to have the Philips Hue Bridge plugged into your router with the intention to management put in bulbs.
What if you do not need the Hue Bridge, although? Nicely, the excellent news is that you have not hit a useless finish.
Due to the Hue bulbs’ compatibility with the Zigbee commonplace, there are different methods to get entry to your Hue bulbs with out all of the official gear. Philips Hue additionally has Bluetooth bulbs, providing you with one other approach across the hub.
It is price stating that putting in the Hue Bridge is one of the simplest ways to go, because it offers you one of the best, most dependable management over your Hue smart lights, and entry to all of the performance of the Hue apps.
If you wish to do it otherwise, nonetheless, learn on for all of the alternative ways you may keep away from the Hue Bridge.
1. Use Philips Hue Bluetooth bulbs
In 2019, Signify found this miraculous commonplace known as Bluetooth, and, since then, all Hue bulbs have supplied each help alongside Zigbee, providing you with choices in relation to setup.
Due to Bluetooth, a type of choices is to not use a hub in any respect. As a substitute, you may merely screw the bulb in and join it on to your telephone.
Prior to now, that meant utilizing a standalone Hue BT app, but it surely’s all now been rolled into the identical Hue app, for ease. The added versatility could make Hue extra interesting to anybody not able to go “all in” by bringing the entry value down.
This does include limitations, although: you may solely join as much as 10 bulbs, there is not any distant management as soon as you permit the home and third-party app integrations aren’t supported.
You can also’t group Bluetooth Hue bulbs into totally different rooms, though you may technically create teams in rooms, so you would do a “lavatory” and a “kitchen”. Creating an upstairs group could be a stretch, nonetheless, contemplating that you must be in Bluetooth vary (therefore the rooms limitation).
Nonetheless, Alexa and Google Assistant play good right here, and you too can use Google’s Seamless Setup function so as to add Hue Bluetooth bulbs to a Google Assistant smart home with out utilizing a Hue Bridge.
2. Utilizing the Hue Dimmer Swap
(Picture credit score: Signify)
If you happen to purchase a Hue Dimmer Swap bundled with a Hue bulb, they’re already linked once you get them out of the field. All that you must do is screw the bulb right into a vacant socket, flip the sunshine swap on, after which put the battery within the Dimmer Swap.
Right away, you’ll use the Dimmer Swap to regulate the Hue bulb: turning it on and off, and adjusting the brightness. You possibly can’t management the colour in any respect (one of many causes you would possibly contemplate shopping for a Hue Bridge), but it surely does offer you some performance.
Philips Hue bulbs work with a daily gentle swap, too, after all – even if you happen to do not buy the Dimmer Swap or the Hue Bridge or some other accent, you may flip the bulb on and off utilizing the usual gentle swap on the wall.
Every Hue Dimmer Swap can help as much as 10 bulbs. If you wish to add a brand new bulb with no Hue Bridge, set up the bulb and swap it on, then carry the Dimmer Swap near it and press and maintain the On button. You will see a small LED gentle come on the Dimmer Swap and the bulb will blink to verify the connection.
All these linked bulbs (as much as 10 of them) are going to reply in the identical approach to the Hue Dimmer Swap, however that is a method of including Philips Hue smart bulbs to your home with no Hue Bridge.
4. Utilizing a Hue Smart Button
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
As with the Dimmer Swap, the Hue Smart Button can be used to regulate 10 Bluetooth Hue lights with out the necessity for the Bridge.
Start by long-pressing the Hue smart button for 3 seconds till it initiates a blinking sequence. Then preserve the smart button in shut proximity, roughly 15 cm, to the sunshine you want to handle.
If that you must disassociate a light-weight from the Hue smart button, observe the identical steps, however lengthen the button maintain to 10 seconds.
4. Utilizing an Amazon Echo as a hub
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
As Philips Hue bulbs use the Zigbee commonplace, they’ll work with some Zigbee smart home hubs relatively than a Hue Bridge. Nonetheless, the combination is not at all times as dependable, or accessible with as many options, as it’s with a Hue Bridge.
Some Echo audio system – particularly, the Amazon Echo Plus, Amazon Echo Present 10 (not first-gen), (4th-gen) Echo and Echo Studio – can work as Zigbee hubs. If you happen to’ve already acquired one in every of these speaker fashions arrange, new Hue bulbs may be added by means of Alexa and the Philips Hue ability.
Make certain your Hue bulbs are linked and powered on, then head into the Alexa app (which you must have already put in when organising your Echo). Choose Gadgets, then the Plus button, then Add Machine. After a number of seconds of looking, your Hue lights needs to be detected and added.
If you happen to favor you should use a voice command as a substitute: say “Alexa, discover my gadgets” and your Alexa smart speaker will scan your home for appropriate Hue bulbs.
Whichever approach you add the Hue bulbs, you may management them by means of the Alexa app or through your voice with instructions like, “Alexa, flip the bed room lights off,” as soon as they’re linked.
By means of the Alexa app, you too can group your Hue bulbs collectively and even group them with smart lights of a unique model. Nonetheless, with out the Hue Bridge, you may’t create customized scenes, have lights activate or off based mostly in your location, or entry varied different superior options accessible within the Hue app.
5. Utilizing an Ikea Trådfri gateway as a hub
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
An alternative choice is to make use of an Ikea Trådfri gateway as a hub on your Hue smart bulbs as a substitute of the official Philips Hue Bridge. Identical to the Amazon Echo Zigbee gadgets, the gateway, which plugs straight into your router, handles communications between your telephone and the Hue bulbs you’ve got put in.
Assuming you’ve got already acquired your Ikea Trådfri gateway and Trådfri bulbs up and working, including Hue lights to the combination is not too troublesome: you simply observe the identical course of as you do for including a Trådfri gentle.
Get your Hue bulb put in and switched on, then open up the Trådfri app and select to Add gadgets then Bulb. You will be requested to choose a management gadget, which you should have used to arrange your Trådfri lights — a movement sensor, a wi-fi dimmer or a distant management, for instance.
While you’ve made your choose, maintain the management gadget inside two centimeters of the bulb, and press and maintain the hyperlink button on it for ten seconds. It’s best to see the bulb flicker, and, as soon as this flickering stops, launch the button. The Hue gentle is now added.
As with the Amazon Echo integration, you aren’t getting the entire scheduling, geolocation and shade biking choices you get with an precise Hue Bridge, although it is nonetheless a neat approach of including Hue lights if you happen to’ve already acquired a Trådfri system arrange – it saves you having to plug two hubs into your router.