FabianWe haven't talked about the Hue Bridge for a long time. For many users, this is still the bottleneck of the system, as it gets really tight when you have around 60 lights at the latest. But accessories, scenes, rules and routines can also reach the limits of the Bridge even before that.
Many of us have now resigned ourselves to having to use more than one Hue Bridge. This also means that a separate Hue account is required for each Hue Bridge – and this can be a little problematic when used in conjunction with Hue Secure and the paid Hue Secure subscription.
This is exactly what Hueblog reader Marc showed me using his example with a total of three Hue Secure cameras, which he has linked to different Hue Bridges in his smart home. He reports in an email:
“The problem starts somewhere else. I use one camera in the living room and in the event of an alarm, I can only address the lamps that are also on this bridge. I have two more cameras together with four contact sensors in the same house in the office, and here too I can only address the lamps that are linked to the bridge there. But now the biggest problem: the Plus subscription would be the best choice with three cameras, but the subscription is linked to an account and therefore also to a Bridge.”
No real help from Hue support
The official Hue support team only gave the nicely meant advice to pair all cameras with a bridge. But this is not so easy to do with advanced installations that have been distributed over several bridges with a lot of effort and a plan.
Instead of being able to use the Plus subscription for an unlimited number of cameras for 99.99 euros per year, Marc and all other Hue users who use at least three cameras and on more than one Bridge have to pay at least three times for the Basic subscription for 39.99 euros. And anyone who can't do without the 60 days of cloud recording of the Plus subscription will pay significantly more.
Even if not many users are affected by this problem, it shows once again that Philips Hue finally needs to do something. Either a better link between the bridges or a more powerful bridge.
Philips Hue Secure Camera
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This has gotten ridiculous. I have two Bridges that are almost at capacity. I will not buy a third Bridge and I won’t buy anymore Hue products until they release a new Bridge that can connect all of my Hue products. I also won’t buy any Hue cameras unless they support HomeKit Secure Video and/or local storage via a new Bridge.
Completely! I had two Hue bridges so I could use ambilight + Hue on the TV. For convenience, I have put everything in one even though I exceed the recommended capacity of lights and accessories. I prefer to be able to manage everything from the same bridge rather than have my network segmented into several and there being no communication between them except if I use home automation concentrators such as Matter, Home Assistant or Homekit. I live in a medium-sized apartment and I think it is insane to have two Bridges. I have also stopped buying Hue products until they give us a good solution. Hue festivia has been the last one and will be for a very long time.
I thought you could have two bridges on the same account! One say for the house lights and another to control the garden/outside lights. That’s what I found on their site at least.
It’s something they hinted at in recent communications but haven’t actually implemented yet.
Same for different user roles on a bridge
Same here.
I’ve not bought any hue lights for more than 2 years until they find a solution to mutliple bridges.
Either software to link bridges together or hub max with larger limits.
I find the hue system much for stable than others so would like to stay but there’s lots of good competition in the smartlight space these days.
Does anyone know if Ikea have the same limits & can manage multiple bridges for their smart system?
Their new contact switches are less than half the price of Hue