homebridge-hue

Homebridge plugin for Philips Hue

Copyright © 2016, 2017 Erik Baauw. All rights reserved.

This homebridge plugin exposes ZigBee lights, plugs, sensors, and 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 the following sensors:
  • Hue motion sensor,
  • IKEA Trådfri motion sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara weather sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara door/window sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara motion sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi temperature/humidity sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi door/window sensor (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi motion sensor (2),
  • Built-in Daylight sensor (1),
  • CLIP sensors: Presence, LightLevel, Temperature, Humidity, Pressure (2), OpenClose,
  • Writeable CLIP sensors: GenericFlag, GenericStatus;
• HomeKit support for the following switches:
  • Hue dimmer switch,
  • Hue tap,
  • IKEA Trådfri remote (2),
  • IKEA Trådfri wireless dimmer (2),
  • Xiaomi Aqara smart wireless switch (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi wireless switch (2),
  • Xiaomi wall switch (2),
  • Xiaomi Mi smart cube (2),
  • Hue bridge link button (1);
• HomeKit support for the following lights:
  • Philips Hue lights,
  • ZigBee Light Link (ZLL) lights and plugs from other manufacturers,
  • ZigBee Home Automation (ZHA) lights and plugs (2),
  • ZigBee 3.0 lights and plugs (2);
• 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;
• 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 HomeKit functionality of the v2 Hue bridge;

Please see the WiKi for a detailed description of homebridge-hue.

Prerequisites

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 using the latest OS versions: iOS 11.2.1, watchOS 4.2, and tvOS 11.2.1.
Please note that Siri and even the iOS built-in Home app still provide only limited HomeKit support. To use the full features of homebridge-hue, you might want to check out some other HomeKit apps, like Elgato's Eve app (free) or Matthias Hochgatterer's Home app (paid).
For HomeKit automation, you need to setup an Apple TV (4th generation later) or iPad as Home Hub.

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 v1.22.0 (v2 bridge) or v1.16.0 (v1 bridge) or higher, and the latest deCONZ beta, v2.04.99 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 3 model B, with a RaspBee add-on board.
I recommend using wired Ethernet to connect the server running homebridge, the Hue bridge, and the AppleTV.

Installation

The homebridge-hue plugin obviously needs homebridge, which, in turn needs Node.js. I've followed these steps to set it up on my macOS server:

• Install the Node.js JavaScript runtime node, from its website. I'm using v8.9.3 LTS for macOS (x64) and the 8.x Debian package for Raspberry Pi. Both include the npm package manager;
• For macOS, make sure /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH, as node, npm, and, later, homebridge install there. On a Raspberry Pi, these install to /usr/bin;
• You might want to update npm through sudo npm update -g npm@latest;
• Install homebridge v0.4.31 following the instructions on GitHub. Make sure to create a config.json in ~/.homebridge, as described;
• Install the homebridge-hue plugin through sudo npm install -g homebridge-hue@latest;
• Edit ~/.homebridge/config.json and add the Hue platform provided by homebridge-hue, see Configuration below;
• 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 pair for each bridge and/or gateway in the log output. Edit config.json to include these, see Configuration below.

Once homebridge is up and running with the homebridge-hue plugin, you might want to daemonise it and start it automatically on login or system boot. See the homebridge Wiki for more info how to do that on MacOS or on a Raspberry Pi.

Somehow sudo npm -g update doesn't always seem to work. To update homebridge-hue, simply issue another sudo npm install -g 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 install -g [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 exposing a v1 (round) bridge, or a v2 (square) bridge where the native HomeKit feature isn't used. With this configuration, homebridge-hue exposes all lights and all sensor resources, except those created by the Hue app for Home & Away routines, and all lights.

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

Troubleshooting

If you run into homebridge startup issues, please run homebridge with only the homebridge-hue plugin enabled in config.sys. This way, you can determine whether the issue is related to the homebridge-hue plugin itself, or to the interaction of multiple homebridge plugins in your setup. Note that disabling the other plugins from your existing homebridge setup will remove their accessories from HomeKit. You will need to re-assign these accessories to any HomeKit room, groups, scenes, actions, and triggers after re-enabling their plugins. Alternatively, you can start a different instance of homebridge just for homebridge-hue, on a different system, as a different user, or from a different 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.sys for each instance.

The homebridge-hue plugin 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 logfile, start homebridge as homebridge -D > logfile 2>&1.

To aid troubleshooting, homebridge-hue dumps the full bridge / gateway state into a json file, when Identify is selected on the bridge accessory. Bridge ID, mac address, ip address, and usernames are masked. The file is created in ~/.homebridge, and is named after the bridge / gateway. Note that the Apple's Home app does not support Identify, so you need another HomeKit app for that (see Caveats below).

If you need help, please open an issue on GitHub. Please attach a copy of your full config.json (masking any sensitive info), the debug logfile, and the dump of the bridge state.
For questions, you can also post a message to the #homebridge-hue channel of the homebridge workspace on Slack.

Caveats

The homebridge-hue plugin 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. Please report any issues on GitHub.

Homebridge is a great platform, but not really intended for consumers, as it requires command-line interaction.

HomeKit is still relatively new, and Apple's Home app provides only limited support. You might want to check out some other HomeKit apps, like Elgato's Eve app (free), Matthias Hochgatterer's Home app (paid), or, if you use Xcode, Apple's HMCatalog example app.

The HomeKit terminology needs some getting used to. A 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.

HomeKit only supports 99 bridged accessories per HomeKit bridge (i.e. homebridge, not the Hue bridge). When homebridge exposes more accessories, HomeKit refuses to pair with homebridge or it blocks homebridge if it was paired already. While homebridge-hue checks that it doesn't expose more than 99 accessories itself, it is unaware of any accessories exposed by other homebridge plugins. As a workaround to overcome this limit, you can run multiple instances of homebridge with different plugins and/or different homebridge-hue settings, using the -U flag to specify a different directory with a different config.json for each instance. Make sure to use a different homebridge name, username, and port for each instance.

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.