FabianThe Philips Hue Bridge is known to be designed for 50 lights. What was a pretty generous mark ten years ago is now exceeded by miles in many households. The only way out so far, as long as you want to remain loyal to Philips Hue, is to install a second or third Hue Bridge. So far, however, these installations are completely separate from each other, which definitely reduces comfort.
Multiple Hue Bridges in one home
On one of its support pages, Philips Hue has now made an exciting announcement entitled “Control multiple Bridges”. This new function is set to launch in 2024, but there is no exact date yet.
“Have more than one Bridge? Later this year, you'll be able to add multiple Bridges to one account and sort them into Homes to keep your system organised”, Philips Hue also states.
There are still some question marks
First of all, this sounds pretty positive, because until now you always had to switch between the Bridges manually just to be able to control the lamps properly.
However, the exact details still need to be clarified. For example, it remains to be seen if it will be possible to combine lamps on different Bridges in one room. Or if an accessory that is connected to the first bridge will also be able to control lamps on the second bridge. At least from a technical point of view, Philips Hue has already laid the technical foundation for such a solution with API v2.
Personally, I would even be satisfied with a smaller range of functions to start with. I currently have two Hue Bridges in my home and I have to constantly switch back and forth in the Hue app to control the light in the individual rooms.
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I really hope that this is more of an update than Matter that solved nothing.
Excuse me for being pessimistic, but this is so long overdue…
Most of us reading here is very invested in Hue, and with that said it’s really disappointing to be treated as a beta tester.
This should have been news years ago. Crazy that it’s only now they’re finally addressing this huge issue in their system. We put a complete stop on expanding our Hue system a few years back due to the whole bridge shenanigans. I guess we can finally start getting some Hue stuff for the rest of the house and garden too.
Same for me.
I’ve not bought any new products for 3 years or so as the bridge is full (with accessories rather than lights) .
Not holding my breath for a solution as I really see Zero improvements from matter.
I guess this will be really just the ability to have 2 bridges on one account without and linking between them.
Multiple users was also mentioned 2 years ago and this still does not work either
My word, could it actually be that Philips Hue have finally listened and are addressing this massive elephant in the room?
This is incredibly timely to me as just yesterday I purchased the Hue portable table lamp and should receive it new next. I have since been considering: will I even connect it to my sole bridge of 67 other devices? Will I buy another smart button to stick on the lamp to make the lamp more useful?
I ask myself these questions as I believe I am approaching a device hard-limit on a single bridge and have dreaded buying a second bridge due to the current experience. So, for me, I am curious to know if, when the new multi-bridge solution is released, will it auto-load balance devices, or will I at least be able to manually move devices to the additional hub(s)?
Hue and Google does nothing together and the lights are purposely shortened in lifespan. This update is a cover-up of another scam in which Philips makes something obsolete and removes functionality.
Any news on improved Secure Camera support?
I would really like to be able to access live view and clips so that they could be used with Home Assistant and similar open-source software for home automation. The “E2E Encryption Whitepaper” provides some details of the algorithms and protocols used but more detailed information would be required for access.
Traffic sniffing hints that Amazon Kinesis Video Streams may be being used under-the-hood. There is plenty of WebRTC software available in a variety of programming languages.
I’ve raised questions on the forum (https://developers.meethue.com/forum) but have received no replies. Are there any other routes to obtaining technical information?
They working on integration von Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant for the first half of 2024.
Are they working on integration with Apple HomeKit?
What about the combination Ambilight and Hue? Only 10 lights can be connected via the bridge to the Ambilight function in the TV.
This will never be fixed as it’s a limitation of the TV not the hue bridge.
They recently announced that ambilight sync support is being dropped from New TVs and you’ll need a sync box to be able to do it in the future.
That is long gone. Why would they support it when they already support PC, direct TV app for Samsung TVs and their own proprietary hardware – Sync Box.
The Ambilight + Hue was something that they kept because the offer they had for Entertainment was limited. Right now their own proprietary and partnerships (Samsung TVs) bring more to the table than the partnership with TP Vizion (manufacturer of the Ambilight TVs)
I’m really happy about this – if it truly goes head on into the problems we encounter with managing two bridges in one home. What would be brilliant is a larger capacity single bridge – which I suppose is still in the hopes and dreams territory.
About time as people are saying
I have 2 bridges and prefer to use Alexa. We had the great custom dev add on that was brilliant, but then was removed due to how popular it was and difficultly to support.
I’ve tried to connect the 2nd hub via matter. It usually connects ok. But have noticed after time it randomly drops the connection to Alexa. So you have for reconnect and assign the bulbs again. A right pain.
In the absence of Philips long overdue miracle, has anyone got a better way of controlling 2 hubs via Alexa?
It’s not supported. You’re wasting time trying and hurting the overall health of your system. If any errors happen you do know you’re responsible for getting the system back up right? And if you fail to do so how can you justify contacting their technical line to resolve an issue that you yourself created on the first place? I think we as customers also need to re-educate ourselves and learn that just because we can spend money on expanding, doesn’t mean we should do so blindly.
What’s not supported?
You can add 2 hubs in the official app (using 2 accounts). Matter is supported in the app?
So I’m lost on what’s not supported???
We have four bridges in our home that separate upstairs, downstairs, main and outdoor hosting over 175 hue products. Never really had a gripe with having to switch between bridges. Most are also run off smart switches and Brilliant Control Panels. I suppose this may help though in some aspects.
Where do they say anything about cross bridge support? They just announced you will be able to assign multiple bridges to one account and attach them to your virtual homes that are already present in web account page.
“Control multiple bridges” within one account is the only thing they announced and it should work just like now. The only thing that changes you don’t need separate account for each bridge.
Or there is more to the story not presented here? I like reading consumer fantasy but you really blown this announcement out of proportion.
I did not write that they said something about it. But I asked myself how deep the integration will be and mentioned to examples.
Agreed 100%. Sometimes this blog just stirs things up, making leaks that are useless since Signify is the official forum for news and for whatever the Hue System supports. Like the so called Hue Sync Box 8K… useless leak when there were barely any consumer TV sets with 8K enabled on the market.
The problem is you wrote nothing about what it really means, the realistic approach I presented above. People get their hopes up based on your wishes and become disappointed later on. Signify will be even more tight-lipped if you present their words like that. You can make a follow up article with you wishes if that’s majority of the article anyway. Other than that keep up the good work, I like reading anything you post here.
I’m missing something here clearly. I don’t see where Fabian is making wild claims. He clearly said
“However, the exact details still need to be clarified. For example, it remains to be seen if it will be possible to combine lamps on different Bridges in one room. Or if an accessory that is connected to the first bridge will also be able to control lamps on the second bridge.”
So all examples.
If a finger should be pointed its to Philips/Signify. They’ve released no details, and all this is really taking longer than it should.
I can remember their CTO going on camera saying multiple bridges in one account was being worked on and would be ready soon. That was 3 years ago. So who is really making shite up??
It’s not like Signify is ready to provide technical support that justifies having more than 1 Hue Bridge.
That’s great news. Every little step is appreciated after years of neglect.
I’m currently running three bridges, each controlling one floor of the house.
How are people positioning their multiple bridges? At the moment I have them spread out on their respective floors. I’m assuming a bridge has to be able to directly connect to all its lights/accessoires. Is that correct? Or would the zigbee mesh allow me to stack all the bridges in one place and I can still reach the lights that are two floors away?
I really hope this also applies to having multiple Hue Sync boxes. That was the only reason I got the second bridge in the first place. Although now 6 months later, I would. have needed the second bridge.