I’ve been using the Philips Hue 2 plugin on my Vera Edge successfully for a year or two. I just tried adding a new Philips Hue Smart Plug to my Hue configuration and it causes the Vera plugin to fail. Removing the Smart Plug from the Hue network restores Vera plugin operation.
The symptoms are that any attempt to change state of a Hue device (including the Hue “master switch”) results in a “Command failed” banner under the device. The Vera plugin shows “Connected” in its device configuration tab.
I’m assuming there’s something in the transfer of data from the Hue hub which is causing the plugin to fail when a Smart Plug is present. Ironically, I purchased the Hue Smart Plug so I have an independent way of power cycling the Vera if I’m away from home and it hangs up!
Thank you for posting this. I have exactly the same problem. I have been trying everything and now that you have posted this I realise it started when I added 3 of those modules to my hue system.
Hopefully they update this soon. I really want to keep my VeraPlus, but these little things keep pushing me towards giving up.
I am using AltHue at the moment, which works really well, but I’d prefer official support long term.
We had the same issue when adding a Hue Flood light. Vera support did very little and just said it must be the hue hub, however it’s exactly as you describe. The only work around was the Alt Hue app (which vera team suggested as I think they were not bothered about fixing it) however I don’t find that app has all the functionality of the original plug in.
I’m currently pursuing this with support. The ALTHue app seems to work fine except for the SVG icons which I can’t get to work (cosmetic). It has the advantage of showing the Hue Switches as well, plus their battery status. However, I would still prefer to have an official supported app as Hue Integration is essential for me and I would prefer the security of long term support.
Any updates? I am having the exact same issue after adding a Zigbee smart plug to Hue. Support have not responded back yet. I guess the long term solution (if there isn’t a fix) is to only use the smart plugs noted in the Vera compatibility list.
I may try the Hue Alt app as a stop gap but it isn’t ideal.
Hi @aks, Vera Support have looked at the app but made no real progress. The official line is that it isn’t supported by Vera. However, my point is that the app is included automatically when you add a Hue Bridge from the devices menu so it gives the impression of a supported feature. After all, Alexa and Google Home support are via apps and I assume Vera are supporting them! Not very impressed, especially since the main reason I want to use a Hue plug is so that I can power cycle my Vera Edge remotely when it invariably hangs up!
I’ve installed the ALTHue app and it works fine with all my devices. I’ve since added a Hue floodlight and outdoor sensor which also work fine with the ALTHue app. It also has additional features like supporting the Hue remote controls and showing their battery level. Also supports the temperature and LUX sensors in the Hue outdoor sensor. I believe it’s possible to use the Hue remotes to trigger Vera scenes but I’ve not tried that. I had to edit all my Vera scenes that used Hue lights of course as the device IDs are different.
I’m increasingly swapping out lighting controlled by Vera with Hue lights instead as the Hue system is simply more reliable than Vera. Also, Alexa to Hue integration is almost instantaneous as it’s on the local network (not the voice recognition part as far as I know but that’s quick anyway). Alexa to Vera commands have a lag and sometimes just don’t work at all as the switching is done via the Vera cloud.
Hue can’t support the range of devices Vera can of course which is why I need both for the foreseeable future.
The ALTHue app seems to be actively supported at the moment so I’m sticking with that.
Not being the author of the ALTHUE app but having been around with vera/mcv for some time now I can probably add a bit of objective perspective.
My observation is the the officially supported apps tend to not be as supported as the community written ones. A number of community devs like @rigpapa are even taking over old plugins which were abandoned by their original authors. The only regret I have is that there aren’t too many of them. Having contributed a little to @amg0’s ALTHUE app, I can tell you that it is far better written than the official one. You will often see developers starting their own version of an official app out of frustration with the official one. That’s why we ended up with an ALTAppstore, ALTSonos, ALTUI etc…
So the value of an “official” is not very positive… if not abysmally negative as people are desperately trying to get rid of all these virus like official plugins.
Now some thought on the Alexa-Hue connection. The local communication is true only if you do not use any skill and indeed, alexa can discover the hue hub locally without the cloud. If you are using a skill then you are going through a cloud-cloud scheme. This connection is the basis for the habridge plugin which acts as a proxy server to the vera and emulates another hue hub, essentially allowing you to have alexa directly control the vera and bypass the cloud. It is also a far superior solution to the official alexa plugin because it is local as you noted. This is not something GH allows unfortunately as Google has been aggressively shutting down this type of independence in favor of larger reliance on their cloud to collect data from users.
Hi Thanks for the update. I will give the AltHue app a go. as I too want to add further Hue devices. Do any of the parameters need to be changed or will the AltHue App work without any changes?
I use a GSM power socket to power cycle my routers/switches/hubs which always works well. I wanted something independent of the network in case the network has issues. You can pickup a Tekview for a little more than a Fibaro smart switch. Used with a PAYG sim its the perfect solution for me.
Hi @aks, I installed the ALTHue app in parallel with the Hue2 app and just paired it with the hub. A new set of devices were created by the ALTHue app (as well as the original Hue2 app ones that no longer work). I then went through editing all my relevant scenes swapping over the devices and finally deleted the original Hue2 app which also removed it’s associated devices.
Thanks for the tip on the Tekview GSM switch, I’d not come across that one and it looks quite useful.
Hi Peter, thanks for that! I have installed the AltHue app and all works fine. Just in the process of editing. Is there anyway to add in the Hue light symbols in the AltHue (Bloom, RGB tape, etc?)
Hi @aks - I couldn’t find a way to get the correct Hue light symbols to show in the native Vera UI despite the SVG files already being in the correct place. I tried ALTUI and the correct symbols do show when using that interface. I mainly interact with the Vera using ImperiHome anyway so I can live with the default lamp icons,