FabianThe negative reports started piling up back in September, and there are already around 30 comments under one of my articles on the subject – and more are being added all the time. It's about the link between Philips Hue and Amazon Alexa, which hasn't been working properly for months. Google Assistant is also affected by the problems.
And it seems to be anything but a “minor” problem. In Germany, the Philips Hue skill now only has a 1.4-star rating on Amazon, with 85 per cent of over 4,000 reviews having just one star. The situation is no different in other countries, such as the USA.
The Alexa problems have changed since September
In September, the main problem with the Alexa skill was the fact that the link between Philips Hue and the Hue skill kept getting lost. Things have now changed: The skill can no longer be activated at all for many users.
Amazon and Signify, the manufacturer of Philips Hue, are reportedly already working on a solution to the problem. Unfortunately, as the story has been dragging on for several months, I have no hope of a quick solution.
The fact that the Echo Hub, a smart home control panel, is due to be released in December gives me a little stomachache. By then at the latest, it would be great if the most widely used lighting system could be controlled seamlessly with Alexa.
It doesn't work any better with Google Assistant
Google Assistant doesn't seem to work much better than Amazon Alexa. Unfortunately, I don't have any personal experience here, but it seems that routines and scenes can no longer be used in conjunction with Philips Hue.
At least something seems to be happening here soon. On Monday, a Signify employee announced in the Google forum that a bug fix will be released at the beginning of this week if more than two scenes are to be switched in a Google routine. It remains to be seen whether this will also resolve the general problems.
And how are things going with Apple HomeKit?
I now only use Apple HomeKit in my home. One of the big advantages here: For years now, the connection to more than one Hue Bridge has been supported without any problems.
However, it doesn't work completely without errors here either. A known problem that Philips Hue has been struggling with for quite some time is the synchronisation between its own app and HomeKit. It can sometimes take quite a while for new devices or changes to the existing system to be synchronised with HomeKit.
I have deliberately not yet made the switch to Matter, as this would not result in any functional improvements for me. But how are things going for you? Are the voice assistants working or are you also struggling with problems?
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Same here with Google Home. Accidentally broke the connection with Google Home when trying to clean up different accounts that had access to my Hue systen. Since then I haven’t been able to reconnect.
My experience with switching to Matter has unfortunately not been as positive as I had hoped. Since the switch, I have been experiencing various problems. My entire system became slow and sometimes unresponsive. The combination of Matter and Google Home was downright disappointing; I often received messages that it could not connect with Hue. HomeKit also became slower and less responsive.
After contacting Hue support last month, I performed a complete reset of the Hue hub. Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem. After extensive troubleshooting, I discovered that the cause was my Philips TV with Ambilight + Hue feature. When this TV was on in combination with HomeKit and Matter, the system became slow and unresponsive. Turning off the TV provided some relief.
Eventually, I removed the connection with HomeKit, which brought some improvement. However, there are still problems with the Ambilight + Hue integration. Every time the TV is turned on, the Hue system slows down considerably. Remotes and sensors respond slowly or sometimes not at all. Google Home works fine for turning lights on and off, but that’s about it.
I would like to use all systems (HomeKit, Google Home, Ambilight + Hue) together, but that currently seems impossible. The Hue support advised me to try again later after some system updates.
Seems that the problem now also have reached HomeKit. My Bridges had an automatic update over night 6th of February (1962154010) and since then Hue connection to HomeKit is dead on both my Bridges. Everything else works fine, and Hue app works fine. I was in contact with Hue US support who admitted “massive problems” with HomeKit and Europe support a little more conservative saying “it’s a known issue” and “technical team is actively working to resolve the problem as soon as possible”… Wow.
I have, in contrary to many others, had a very stabile environment since “upgrading” to Matter on Hue, so this is really surprising for me.