Homebridge Hue

Homebridge plugin for Philips Hue and/or deCONZ

Copyright © 2016-2020 Erik Baauw. All rights reserved.

This Homebridge plugin exposes ZigBee devices (lights, plugs, sensors, switches, ...) connected to (1) a Philips Hue bridge or (2) a dresden elektronik deCONZ gateway to Apple's HomeKit. It provides the following features:

• HomeKit support for contact sensors, including:
  • Heiman door/window sensor (2),
  • Samsung SmartThings multipurpose sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara door/window sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi door/window sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for motion sensors, including:
  • Heiman motion sensor (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri motion sensor (2),
  • Philips hue motion sensor,
  • Samsung SmartThings Arrival sensor (2),
  • Samsung SmartThings multipurpose sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara motion sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi motion sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara Smart Motion Sensor / Vibration sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for ambient light sensors, including:
  • Philips hue motion sensor,
  • Xiaomi Aqara motion sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for weather and temperature/humidity sensors, including:
  • Heiman temperature/humidity sensor (2),
  • Philips hue motion sensor,
  • Samsung SmartThings multipurpose sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara weather sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi temperature/humidity sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for carbon-monoxide (CO) sensors, including:
  • Heiman carbon-monoxide sensor (2),
• HomeKit support for fire sensors, including:
  • Heiman combustable gas sensor (2),
  • Heiman smoke sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for water sensors, including:
  • Heiman water sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara leak sensor (2);
• HomeKit support for built-in sensors:
  • Daylight sensor,
  • CLIP sensors: OpenClose, Presence, LightLevel, Temperature, Humidity, Pressure (2), CarbonMonoxide (2), Fire (2), Water (2)
  • Writeable CLIP sensors: GenericFlag, GenericStatus,
  • Multi-CLIP: Combine multiple CLIP sensors into one HomeKit accessory;
• History support in the Eve app for contact sensors (cf. Eve Door), motion sensors (cf. Eve Motion), weather, temperature/humidity, and temperature sensors (cf. Eve Weather and Eve Degree), including (multi-)CLIP versions of these;
• HomeKit support for wireless switches, including the list below. Note that you need a home hub to use these switches in HomeKit, see Prerequisites:
  • Busch-Jaeger Light Link control element (2),
  • Busch-Jaeger Light Link wall-mounted transmitter (2),
  • dresden elektronik scene switch (2),
  • Gira Light Link wall transmitter (2),
  • Gira/Jung Light Link hand transmitter (2),
  • iCasa Pulse Keypad 2, 4S, and 8S (2),
  • IKEA Symfonisk sound controller (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri remote (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri wireless dimmer (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri on/off switch (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri open/close remote (2),
  • innr remote RC 110 (2),
  • Jung Light Link wall transmitter (2),
  • Lutron Aurora Friends-of-Hue dimmer switch,
  • Philips hue bridge link button (1),
  • Philips hue dimmer switch,
  • Philips hue smart button,
  • Philips hue tap,
  • Friends of Hue switches,
  • Samsung SmartThings Button,
  • Sunricher remote controller and CCT remote (2),
  • ubisys C4 and C4-R control unit (2),
  • ubisys D1 and D1-R dimmer (2),
  • ubisys S1, S2, S1-R, and S2-R switch (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara smart cube (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara smart wireless switch (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara vibration sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi smart cube (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi wireless switch (2),
  • Xiaomi wall switch (2);
• HomeKit support for lights, wired in-wall switches, and plugs:
  • Philips hue lights,
  • ZigBee Light Link (ZLL) lights and plugs from other manufacturers,
  • ZigBee 3.0 lights and plugs,
  • ZigBee Home Automation (ZHA) lights and plugs (2),
  • Heiman Siren (2),
  • Multi-Light: Combine multiple lights into one HomeKit accessory;
• HomeKit support for power consumption (2) as reported by smart plugs, or wired in-wall switches including:
  • Heiman SmartPlug,
  • innr SP 120 smart plug,
  • Xiaomi Smart plug,
  • Xiaomi Aqara wall switch;
• HomeKit support for thermostats:
  • Bitron Thermostat 902010/32 (2),
  • Eurotronic Spirit Zigbee (2);
• HomeKit support for window covering devices:
  • IKEA FYRTUR and KADRILJ (2),
  • ubisys J1 shutter control (2);
  • Xiaomi Aqara curtain controller (2),
• History support in the Eve app for smart plug power consumption (cf. Eve Energy) and Thermostats (cf. Eve Thermo);
• HomeKit support for colour temperature on all Color temperature lights and Extended color lights;
• HomeKit support for groups on a Hue bridge or deCONZ gateway, including recalling Hue bridge GroupScene scenes and deCONZ gateway scenes, and turning off streaming for Hue bridge Entertainment groups;
• HomeKit support for enabling/disabling sensors, schedules, and rules on a Hue bridge or deCONZ gateway;
• Monitoring Hue bridge and deCONZ gateway resources (sensors, lights, groups, schedules, and rules) from HomeKit, without the need to refresh the HomeKit app. To achieve this, Homebridge Hue polls the bridge / gateway to detect state changes. In addition, it subscribes to the push notifications provided by the deCONZ gateway;
• Automatic discovery of Hue bridges and deCONZ gateways; support for multiple bridges / gateways; support for both v2 (square) and v1 (round) Hue bridge; works in combination with the native HomeKit functionality of the v2 Hue bridge;
• Includes the command line utilities dc_eventlog and ph.

1. Hue bridge only
2. deCONZ only

Please see the WiKi for a detailed description of Homebridge Hue.

Prerequisites

You need a Philips Hue bridge or deCONZ gateway to connect Homebridge Hue to your ZigBee lights, switches, and sensors. I recommend using the latest Hue bridge firmware, with API v1.36.0 (v2 bridge) or v1.16.0 (v1 bridge) or higher, and the latest deCONZ beta, v2.05.75 or higher.

You need a server to run Homebridge. This can be anything running Node.js: from a Raspberry Pi, a NAS system, or an always-on PC running Linux, macOS, or Windows. See the Homebridge Wiki for details. I run deCONZ and Homebridge Hue together on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, with a RaspBee add-on board.
I recommend using wired Ethernet to connect the server running Homebridge, the Hue bridge, and the AppleTV or HomePod acting as home hub.

To interact with HomeKit, you need Siri or a HomeKit app on an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, iPod Touch, or Apple TV (4th generation or later). I recommend to use the latest released versions of iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
Please note that Siri and even Apple's Home app still provide only limited HomeKit support. To use the full features of Homebridg Hue, you might want to check out some other HomeKit apps, like the Eve app (free) or Matthias Hochgatterer's Home+ app (paid).

As HomeKit uses Bonjour to discover Homebridge, the server running Homebridge must be on the same subnet as your iDevices running HomeKit. For remote access and for HomeKit automations, you need to setup an Apple TV (4th generation or later), HomePod, or iPad as home hub.

Command-Line Tools

Homebridge Hue includes the following command-line tools:

Command | Description -------- | ----------- dc_eventlog | Logger for deCONZ websocket notifications. ph | Command line interface to Philips Hue or deCONZ REST API.

These tools takes a -h or --help argument to provide a brief overview of their functionality and command-line arguments.

Installation

To install Homebridge Hue:

• Follow the instructions on the Homebridge Wiki to install Node.js and Homebridge;

• Install the Homebridge Hue plugin through Homebridge Config UI X or manually by:

  $ sudo npm -g i homebridge-hue

• Edit config.json and add the Hue platform provided by Homebridge Hue, see Configuration;

• Run Homebridge Hue for the first time, press the link button on (each of) your bridge(s), or unlock the deCONZ gateway(s) through their web app. Note the bridgeid/username (API key) pair for each bridge and/or gateway in the log output. Edit config.json to include these, see Configuration.
  Note that you cannot add these through the Homebridge Hue Settings in Homebridge Config UI X, but you can use the Homebridge Config Editor.

To update Homebridge Hue, simply issue another sudo npm -g i homebridge-hue@latest. Please check the release notes before updating Homebridge Hue. Note that a change to the minor version typically indicates that you need to review/redo your HomeKit configuration. Due to changes in the mapping how Hue bridge resources are exposed, HomeKit might treat them as new accessories, services, and/or characteristics, losing any assignment to HomeKit rooms, scenes, actions, and triggers. To revert to a previous version, specify the version when installing Homebridge Hue, as in: sudo npm -g i [email protected].

Configuration

In Homebridge's config.json you need to specify Homebridge Hue as a platform plugin. Furthermore, you need to specify what you want to expose to HomeKit, see the examples below. See the WiKi for a complete reference of the config.json settings used by Homebridge Hue.

The example below is a typical configuration for a v2 (square) bridge, which already exposes the Philips Hue lights, Hue motion sensors, Hue dimmer switches, and Hue taps to HomeKit. With this configuration, Homebridge Hue exposes the non-Philips lights.

  "platforms": [
    {
      "platform": "Hue",
      "users": {
        "001788FFFExxxxxx": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "001788FFFEyyyyyy": "yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
      },
      "lights": true
    }
  ]

The example below is a typical configuration for a v2 (square) bridge where the native HomeKit feature for sensors isn't used. With this configuration, Homebridge Hue exposes the non-Philips lights and all sensor resources, except those created by the Hue app for Home & Away routines.

  "platforms": [
    {
      "platform": "Hue",
      "users": {
        "001788FFFExxxxxx": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "001788FFFEyyyyyy": "yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
      },
      "sensors": true,
      "nativeHomeKitSensors": false,
      "excludeSensorTypes": ["CLIPPresence", "Geofence"],
      "lights": true
    }
  ]

For finer-grained control of what resources Homebridge Hue exposes to HomeKit, create resourcelinks on the bridge / gateway for whitelists or blacklists. The name of the resourcelink needs to be "homebridge-hue", the description indicates the type of list: "whitelist" or "blacklist". Whitelists take precedence over blacklists. Both whitelists and blacklists take precedence over the settings in config.json.
For example, if you have a chandelier with three bulbs, you might want to expose this as a group instead of as three individual lights, by creating the following resourcelinks:

{
  "name": "homebridge-hue",
  "classid": 1,
  "description": "whitelist",
  "links": [
    "/groups/1"
  ]
}

{
  "name": "homebridge-hue",
  "classid": 1,
  "description": "blacklist",
  "links": [
    "/lights/1",
    "/lights/2",
    "/lights/3"
  ]
}

Troubleshooting

Check Dependencies

If you run into Homebridge startup issues, please double-check what versions of Node.js and of Homebridge have been installed. Homebridge Hue has been developed and tested using the latest LTS version of Node.js and the latest version of Homebridge. Other versions might or might not work - I simply don't have the bandwidth to test these.

Run Homebridge Hue Solo

If you run into Homebridge startup issues, please run a separate instance of Homebridge with only Homebridge Hue (and Homebridge Config UI X) enabled in config.json. This way, you can determine whether the issue is related to Homebridge Hue itself, or to the interaction of multiple Homebridge plugins in your setup. You can start this separate instance of Homebridge on a different system, as a different user, or from a different user directory (specified by the -U flag). Make sure to use a different Homebridge name, username, and (if running on the same system) port in the config.json for each instance.

Debug Log File

Homebridge Hue outputs an info message for each HomeKit characteristic value it sets and for each HomeKit characteristic value change notification it receives. When Homebridge is started with -D, Homebridge Hue outputs a debug message for each request it makes to the bridge / gateway, for each state change it detects while polling the bridge / gateway, and for each push notification it receives from the deCONZ gateway. Additionally, it issues a debug message for each bridge / gateway resource it detects.

To capture these messages into a log file do the following:

• If you're running Homebridge as a service, stop that service;
• Run Homebridge manually, capturing the output into a file, by issuing:

  $ homebridge -CD 2>&1 | tee homebridge.log

• Interact with your devices, through their native app and or through HomeKit to trigger the issue;
• Hit interrupt (ctrl-C) to stop Homebridge;
• If you're running Homebridge as a service, restart the service;
• Compress the log file by issuing:

  $ gzip homebridge.log

Debug Dump File

To aid troubleshooting, on startup, Homebridge Hue dumps its environment, including its config.json settings and the full state of all bridges / gateways into a compresed json file, homebridge-hue.json.gz. IP addresses, and bridge / gateway usernames are masked. This file is created in the user directory, ~/.homebridge by default.

Getting help

If you have a question, please post a message to the #hue channel of the Homebridge community on Discord.

If you encounter a problem, please open an issue on GitHub. Please attach a copy of homebridge-hue.json.gz to the issue, see Debug Dump File. Please attach a copy of homebridge.log.gz to the issue, see Debug Log File. Please do not copy/paste large amounts of log output.

Contributing

Sometimes I get the question how people can support my work on Homebridge Hue. I created Homebridge Hue as a hobby project, for my own use. I share it on GitHub so others might benefit, and to give back to the open source community, without whom Homebridge Hue wouldn't have been possible. I do not seek any compensation for my work on Homebridge Hue.

Having said that, adding support for new devices, in Homebridge Hue, and in the deCONZ REST API plugin, is very hard without having physical access to the device. Since this is a hobby project, I cannot afford to spend money on devices I won't be using myself, just to integrate them for the benefit of others. I am happy to receive small donations in the form of new devices to integrate, or the money to buy these devices myself. I am also happy to return the devices afterwards, if you provide the shipping costs. Please contact me by email or on Discord for shipping details.

Caveats

Homebridge Hue is a hobby project of mine, provided as-is, with no warranty whatsoever. I've been running it successfully at my home for years, but your mileage might vary.

The HomeKit terminology needs some getting used to. An accessory more or less corresponds to a physical device, accessible from your iOS device over WiFi or Bluetooth. A bridge (like Homebridge) is an accessory that provides access to other, bridged, accessories. An accessory might provide multiple services. Each service corresponds to a virtual device (like a lightbulb, switch, motion sensor, ..., but also: a programmable switch button, accessory information, battery status). Siri interacts with services, not with accessories. A service contains one or more characteristics. A characteristic is like a service attribute, which might be read or written by HomeKit apps. You might want to checkout Apple's HomeKit Accessory Simulator, which is distributed as an additional tool for Xcode.

Internally, HomeKit identifies accessories by UUID. For Zigbee devices (lights, sensors, switches), Homebridge Hue bases this UUID on the Zigbee mac address. For non-Zigbee resources (groups, schedules, CLIP sensors), the UUID is based on the bridge / gateway ID and resource path (e.g. /sensors/1). By not using the resource name (e.g. Daylight), Homebridge Hue can deal with duplicate names. In addition, HomeKit will still recognise the accessory after the resource name has changed on the bridge / gateway, remembering which HomeKit room, groups, scenes, actions, and triggers it belongs to. However, when a non-Zigbee bridge / gateway resource is deleted and then re-created, resulting in a different resource path, HomeKit will treat it as a new accessory, and you will need to re-configure HomeKit.