Ezlo - Philips Hue plugin is on the marketplace!

[mert]

Hi everyone,

Our new plugin for Ezlo controllers, Philips Hue plugin is on the marketplace. You can copy it to your controller and start using it immediately.

The Philips Hue plugin enables you to integrate your Philips Hue Bridges into the Ezlo ecosystem so that you can control your Philips Hue devices via our web and mobile applications, as well as include them in your MeshBot automations.

In order to configure your Hue Bridge and Ezlo controller to work together, start with making sure they are in the same local network. Then find out your Hue Bridge’s IP address by opening the Philips Hue app on your phone, and navigating to Settings > My Hue System > Your Hue Bridge. Take a note of the IP address, we will need it later.

Continue with installing the Ezlo Philips Hue plugin on your controller. To do so, navigate to the plugins marketplace on EZlogic, and copy the plugin to your Ezlo. Once you do that and you are taken back to the My Private Plugins tab, click the Manage Installations button for the Philips Hue plugin and install the plugin to your controller.

Once you do that, you will see a success message and the plugin will be ready for configuration.

Click the Configure button, and type the IP address of your Hue Bridge you noted down earlier in the IP address field.

Then press the button on your Hue Bridge and within 5 seconds, click Save New Configuration. If you fail to click the save button within 5 seconds of pressing the button on your Hue Bridge, your controller will fail to detect the lamps connected to your Bridge, so act fast.

Once you click the save button, you will see a success message that your configuration has been successfully updated.

Autodetection will then detect your Hue Bridge and create devices for your lightbulbs connected to it. Once that’s done, you can begin controlling your lightbulbs via our web or mobile applications, or adding them to your MeshBot automations in order to turn them on or off, set their brightness, and their color.

Feel free to share your feedback here.

[cw-kid]

Great work !

Were all the issues I previously reported to you fixed then ?

Thanks

[cw-kid]

@mert

Well Done !

Version 1.0.17 of the Philips Hue plugin is working much better. I just paired it to my Hue bridge and all devices were imported again now with the prefix name of:

(Philips Hue) Devices Name

Personally I’d prefer it the other way round reading

Devices Name (Philips Hue)

Or even just

Devices Name (Hue)

Seems we can now move the Hue lights in to different rooms and moving the parent Hue plugin device no longer makes all “child” devices follow into that same room.

When using the Vera mobile app, the dimmer slider issues and on / off status problems all seem to be fixed also.

Also changing a lamps dimmer level via the actual Philips Hue app, that status change was eventually then updated for that particular lamp in the Vera mobile app as well.

So all in all this is a very good plugin update !

So you will be looking at bringing in Philips Hue scenes in to the Ezlo system next right ? For use in Meshbot rules actions etc.
or maybe even to be able to add a tile on to your dashboard that would run a particular Philips Hue scene.

[mert]

We appreciate the feedback and are glad to hear you like it, @cw-kid

Yes, that is the default way Hue devices are named, but you can change them into anything you’d like in the Devices list.

We also do support Hue Scenes in Ezlo, look for them under your Hue Bridge’s capabilities when creating a MeshBot automation.

[cw-kid]

Great I found the Hue Scenes in a Meshbot Action now and it does work and ran the Hue Scene I selected.

So the only thing missing I think now is an option to start “SetEffect” the “ColorLoop” animation scene that is on the Hue Bridge.

This is how you do that in a Vera scenes Action.

[cw-kid]

Should a Hue Scene in a Trigger also work?

I tried it but my Meshbot action (HTTP Request) was not run when I used the Philips Hue app to start the Hue scene named “Warm White”.

[cw-kid]

Ezlo Philips Hue plugin how to “Set Effect” ColorLoop

Instead of selecting the “Device” being the Hue Plugin parent device, if you instead select an individual Hue light then under “Capabilities” there is an “Effect” option in the list, you then select “colorloop”

And you will need another Action where “Effect” is set to “none” to stop the colorloop again.

I just created a rule with a Virtual On / Off switch as the trigger.

True Action

Turns ON the particular Hue Light and then there is a 3 secs delay before sending the Effect command for “colorloop”

False Action

Sends the Effect command of “none” to stop the colorloop and then after a 3 secs delay the Hue light is turned OFF.

It does work !

I then tried adding another light into my Meshbot rule, so I have two Hue lights on colorloop

True Action -

I changed to Dimmer 100% rather than just Switch ON

False Action -

[cw-kid]

Most tests setting certain colours on a Hue light.

Method 1 - rgbcolor (HEX / RGB codes)

Works OK !

Method 2 - hue

Doesn’t seem to be working for me.

The way I always calculated “hue” numbers, was by starting with a known HSL value and then doing a calculation. Not 100% sure this is correct, but from my previous research online it seemed to be.

Some examples below:

RED

HEX Value = #FF0000
HSL Value = (0, 100%, 50%)
RGB = 255,0,0

To calculate the Hue value to be in the range of (0 to 65535)

0 x 182 = 182

GREEN

HEX Value = #00FF00
HSL Value = (120, 100%, 50%)
RGB = 0,255,0

To calculate the Hue value to be in the range of (0 to 65535)

120 x 182 = 21840

BLUE

HEX Value = #0000FF
HSL Value = (240, 100%, 50%)
RGB = 0,0,255

To calculate the Hue value to be in the range of (0 to 65535)

240 x 182 = 43680

ORANGE

HEX Value = #FFA500
HSL Value = (38.8, 100%, 50%)
RGB = 255,165,0

To calculate the Hue value to be in the range of (0 to 65535)

38 x 182 = 6916

So for example if I entered in the value “43680” then I’d expect the Hue light to change to BLUE it did NOT however.

So maybe my understanding of “hue” values is not correct, can anyone give more detail and information?

And these options I never understood what they are for and how they work?

[cw-kid]

You can also use the Philips Hue Clip API to view the current status of a light.

I set the light to HEX code blue #0000FF or RGB 0,0,255 using a Meshbot Action this works OK and the light changed to BLUE.

Leaving the light as is on the blue colour, I then looked at the information from the Philips Hue Clip API, it says its current hue value = 44415

"2": {
		"state": {
			"on": true,
			"bri": 254,
			"hue": 44415,
			"sat": 254,
			"effect": "none",
			"xy": [
				0.157,
				0.0179
			],
			"ct": 153,
			"alert": "select",
			"colormode": "xy",
			"mode": "homeautomation",
			"reachable": true
		},
		"swupdate": {
			"state": "notupdatable",
			"lastinstall": null
		},
		"type": "Extended color light",
		"name": "TV Backlight",
		"modelid": "FLS-PP3",
		"manufacturername": "dresden elektronik",
		"productname": "Extended color light",
		"capabilities": {
			"certified": false,
			"control": {
				"colorgamuttype": "other",
				"ct": {
					"min": 153,
					"max": 500
				}
			},
			"streaming": {
				"renderer": false,
				"proxy": false
			}
		},
		"config": {
			"archetype": "huelightstrip",
			"function": "mixed",
			"direction": "omnidirectional"
		},
		"uniqueid": "00:21:2e:ff:ff:01:4e:4f-0a",
		"swversion": "020E.201000A0"
	},

I then created a new Meshbot rule to send the hue value of 44415.

To test I change the light to another colour and then ran the new Meshbot rule.

Result the light did not change to blue with the hue value specified and remained on the other colour I manually set the light too.

So using “hue” value to set a colour on a light does not seem to be working or at least not for myself.

Thanks.

[cw-kid]

@cw-kid

44415

Just tried it with another different Hue light to rule that out. This one is a genuine Philips Hue LED light strip.

Same result the light does not change colour at all and not to blue.

[cw-kid]

@mert

Click the Configure button, and type the IP address of your Hue Bridge you noted down earlier in the IP address field.

Then press the button on your Hue Bridge and within 5 seconds, click Save New Configuration. If you fail to click the save button within 5 seconds of pressing the button on your Hue Bridge, your controller will fail to detect the lamps connected to your Bridge, so act fast.

This works OK if you know what you are doing. However there needs to be a user prompt added for them to press the button on the Hue Bridge before they press that Save button. I had to get Osman to tell me how to connect the two system up as it wasn’t clear the first time I tried it.

In the AltHue Vera plugin settings we get to see some additional connection status information.

Plugins on the old Vera hubs seem much more graphical and can present more useful information to the user. For example the AltHue plugin under “Control” you can list and see Hue Devices, Hue Applications and Hue Data.

Hue Devices -

Hue Applications - These are authorised users on the Hue bridge, looks like you can delete them from this 3rd party plugin UI also.

Hue Data -

Saves you messing about with the Hue Clip API as I have just done above. I could of just come in here and looked instead.

Hue Scenes - Lists all the scenes on the Hue Bridge and a Run button for each.

Now granted most of this extra stuff is mainly informational. However all this stuff really helps when configuring your system and setting things up.

I find the Ezlo hubs web UI very lacking in displaying me more advanced information that I would like to see, its just not there at all for advanced users.

For example in the Ezlo web GUI if I go back and look at the Hue plugin and click the “Manage Installations” button and then press the “Configure” button it just shows me the empty IP field again. Should it not show me the current IP of my Hue bridge to give me more indication its still configured ?

I can however also click the “Devices” button and I get this more basic and not so well laid out list of devices. Its just a list you cannot click on any of the devices to see more information though.

If you then go to the “Devices” area under the main Settings and find the Philips Hue Plugin master device, it looks like this. Pressing the little info button as yet shows no information.

And under the “Function” button I have these options.

And looking at an actual individual Hue Light there is no Info at all when pressing that green button and Function is grey out, presumably as its not needed for each light device.

Overall the Ezlo Hue Plugin is pretty much in feature parity with the AltHue one for Vera, as far as the required main functionality and features. Just Minus a better looking plugin UI when compared to Vera and the extra informational screens I have shown you above that we have in Vera but have lost on the Ezlo controller.

[jouked]

Today I went trough the steps to get the plugin installed and configured. Setup was a breeze, I got lucky in hitting the save button within 5 seconds.

The devices show up successfully on the (dynamic) dashboard and the vera app. I played a bit with automation, and now some of my lights blink when the doorbell rings (Vista 1203). All in all good fun and functional!

[cw-kid]

How you make the lights blink? Just a Meshbot rule Action to turn them on and off again?

[jouked]

There is a specific ‘alert’ action available on the hue lights. That makes them inverse the current setting for a second, so they blink if they were off, and they get dark if they where already on. Try it!

[cw-kid]

OK nice I never knew that ! I will try it.

[cw-kid]

Found it, there is a “select” and “lselect” option, not sure what they mean?

[melih]

you can also use the “repeat” function to achieve it no?

[cw-kid]

Well it seems to work, I used “select” and my light is currently OFF and when running the rule it blinked on for a moment.

Now how would you get it to repeat the blinking for say 10 seconds ? Other than adding several more actions to do the same thing.

[cw-kid]

@melih

you can also use the “repeat” function to achieve it no?

Not sure about that? That might work, would have to try that way also.

[cw-kid]

Just edited the action and selected “lselect” instead and that makes it blink several times for a period of time. So that is probably the easiest answer.

This could be handy for rules like the doorbell going off and if your upstairs you could make your lights blink or whatever.