Philips Hue is the most popular smart lighting system in the world, and for good reason. The bulbs are reliable, the color quality is excellent, and the ecosystem is huge. But the Hue app barely scratches the surface of what these lights can do. Connect them to Home Assistant and you get cross-device automations, sunrise alarms that actually work, presence-based lighting, and control over every aspect of your home from a single dashboard.
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The Hue app lets you control your lights and set basic schedules. Home Assistant takes that foundation and supercharges it. Instead of light-only automations, you can trigger Hue scenes based on your thermostat reading, your front door sensor, the time of sunset, or whether anyone is actually home. You can mix Hue with any other brand and control everything from one place.
Home Assistant talks to the Hue Bridge over your local network. No cloud dependency, no latency. Your lights respond instantly even when your internet is down.
Trigger Hue lights from a Shelly door sensor, an Aqara motion detector, or your smart lock. The Hue app can only automate Hue devices. Home Assistant connects everything.
The HACS Adaptive Lighting integration automatically adjusts color temperature and brightness throughout the day, way beyond what Hue's built-in natural light feature offers.
Build custom dashboards with light cards, color pickers, room overviews, and wall-mounted tablets. See the state of every light at a glance, not buried in the Hue app's room screens.
The setup takes about five minutes. Home Assistant's official Hue integration auto-discovers your bridge on the network and walks you through the pairing process.
In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Devices & Services. If your Hue Bridge is on the same network, Home Assistant will show a discovered notification automatically. Click Configure.
Home Assistant asks you to press the physical button on top of the Hue Bridge. This is a security step. Walk over, press it, and click Submit in HA within 30 seconds.
HA imports all your lights, sensors, and switches as entities. You can assign them to HA areas that match your Hue rooms, or let HA auto-import the room structure from the bridge.
Your Hue lights, motion sensors, dimmer switches, and contact sensors are now available in Home Assistant. Every entity can be used in automations, scripts, scenes, and dashboards.
Tip: If the bridge is not auto-discovered, click Add Integration, search for "Philips Hue," and enter the bridge's IP address manually. You can find it in the Hue app under Settings → Hue Bridge → Network.
You have two ways to connect Philips Hue devices to Home Assistant. Each has clear trade-offs. Here is when to pick each approach.
Best for: Most people. Especially if you have 5+ Hue devices, use Hue entertainment features, or want the simplest setup.
Best for: Tinkerers with just a few Hue bulbs mixed into a larger Zigbee network, or people who want to avoid the bridge entirely.
Our recommendation: Keep the Hue Bridge. The integration is rock solid, you get firmware updates, and you can still use the Hue app when it is convenient. The bridge approach gives you the best of both worlds: Hue's polished lighting experience plus Home Assistant's automation power.
Not every Hue product is worth buying for a Home Assistant setup. Here are the devices that deliver the most value when paired with HA's automation capabilities.
The flagship bulb. 16 million colors, 2000K to 6500K white range. Perfect for rooms where you want full color control. Use color temperature shifts throughout the day for natural-feeling light.
~$45 per bulb
Warm to cool white (2200K to 6500K) without the color RGB. Half the price of color bulbs, and more useful in most rooms. Pair with Adaptive Lighting for automatic temperature shifts.
~$25 per bulb
The best accent lighting option. Individual zone control in the V4 model lets you display gradients. Great behind TVs, under kitchen cabinets, or along shelves. Works beautifully in HA dashboards with color pickers.
~$80 for 2m base kit
Vintage Edison-style bulbs with smart dimming. White only (2100K), but the warm amber glow is gorgeous. Perfect for pendant lights, exposed fixtures, and anywhere you want a decorative look.
~$30 per bulb
Four-button remote that mounts magnetically to walls. In Home Assistant, each button press (short, long, double) can trigger different automations. That gives you up to 12 actions from one tiny remote. The best physical control for Hue lights.
~$25
Four buttons plus a rotation dial. Battery-free (kinetic energy). The dial is fantastic in Home Assistant: rotate to dim lights, set thermostat temperature, or control media volume. Easily the most versatile Hue control.
~$50
Installs behind your existing wall switch. Keeps the switch always powered (so bulbs stay online) while sending button events to HA. Solves the "someone flipped the switch" problem. Essential for shared households.
~$45
Detects motion, measures light level, and reports temperature. In HA, the light level sensor is incredibly useful for "turn on lights only when it is dark" automations. The outdoor version is weatherproof and has a wider detection range.
~$40 (indoor) / ~$50 (outdoor)
Door and window sensor that reports open/close state. Use it to turn off lights when a door closes, trigger alerts when a window opens, or disable heating when a room is being aired out.
~$35
These automations showcase why Home Assistant takes Hue to the next level. Each one combines Hue with other devices or data sources that the Hue app simply cannot access.
Start a 30-minute sunrise simulation in your bedroom. If the weather forecast says cloudy, start earlier and go brighter. On sunny mornings, use a gentler ramp because natural light will help.
automation:
- alias: "Sunrise wake-up with weather"
trigger:
- platform: time
at: "06:30:00"
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.workday_sensor
state: "on"
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.openweathermap_cloud_coverage
above: 70
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
data:
brightness: 3
color_temp_kelvin: 2200
- delay: "00:30:00"
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
data:
brightness: 255
color_temp_kelvin: 4000
transition: 1800
default:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
data:
brightness: 3
color_temp_kelvin: 2200
- delay: "00:30:00"
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.bedroom
data:
brightness: 180
color_temp_kelvin: 3200
transition: 1800During the day, the hallway lights come on at full brightness. After 10 PM, they glow a dim warm red so you can navigate without waking up. After 30 seconds of no motion, they fade off.
automation:
- alias: "Hallway motion light"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.hallway_motion
to: "on"
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: time
after: "22:00:00"
before: "07:00:00"
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.hallway
data:
brightness: 15
rgb_color: [255, 80, 20]
default:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.hallway
data:
brightness: 255
color_temp_kelvin: 4000
- wait_for_trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.hallway_motion
to: "off"
for: "00:00:30"
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: light.hallway
data:
transition: 5When everyone leaves, turn off all Hue lights after 5 minutes. If you are on vacation (input boolean), randomly turn lights on and off in the evening to simulate someone being home.
automation:
- alias: "Away mode lighting"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: zone.home
to: "0"
for: "00:05:00"
action:
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: all
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.vacation_mode
state: "on"
- repeat:
while:
- condition: state
entity_id: zone.home
state: "0"
sequence:
- wait_template: >-
{{ now().hour >= 18 and now().hour < 23 }}
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: >-
{{ ['light.living_room', 'light.kitchen',
'light.bedroom'] | random }}
data:
brightness: "{{ range(100, 200) | random }}"
color_temp_kelvin: 3000
- delay: "{{ range(20, 60) | random }}:00"
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: allWhen your video doorbell rings, flash the living room Hue lights blue three times. Useful when you have music playing and might miss the audio alert. Works with any doorbell in HA.
automation:
- alias: "Doorbell flash alert"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door_doorbell
to: "on"
action:
- service: scene.create
data:
scene_id: before_doorbell
snapshot_entities:
- light.living_room
- repeat:
count: 3
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.living_room
data:
rgb_color: [0, 100, 255]
brightness: 255
transition: 0
- delay: "00:00:01"
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: light.living_room
- delay: "00:00:01"
- service: scene.turn_on
target:
entity_id: scene.before_doorbellPress button 1 on your Hue Tap Dial to activate movie mode: dim the main lights to 5%, set the lightstrip behind the TV to a warm amber glow, and pause the robot vacuum. Rotate the dial to adjust the ambient brightness. Press button 2 to restore normal lighting.
automation:
- alias: "Movie mode on"
trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: hue_event
event_data:
id: tap_dial_living_room
subtype: 1
type: short_release
action:
- service: scene.create
data:
scene_id: pre_movie
snapshot_entities:
- light.living_room
- light.tv_lightstrip
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.living_room
data:
brightness: 13
color_temp_kelvin: 2200
transition: 3
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.tv_lightstrip
data:
brightness: 40
rgb_color: [255, 160, 50]
transition: 3
- service: vacuum.pause
target:
entity_id: vacuum.roborock
- alias: "Movie mode dial"
trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: hue_event
event_data:
id: tap_dial_living_room
type: rotation
action:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.tv_lightstrip
data:
brightness: >-
{{ [1, [255, state_attr('light.tv_lightstrip',
'brightness') + trigger.event.data.rotation] | min] | max }}
- alias: "Movie mode off"
trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: hue_event
event_data:
id: tap_dial_living_room
subtype: 2
type: short_release
action:
- service: scene.turn_on
target:
entity_id: scene.pre_movieA well-designed dashboard turns your phone or wall tablet into the ultimate Hue control panel. Here are some cards and layouts that work great with Philips Hue lights.
The Mushroom card set (available via HACS) creates beautiful light controls with color wheels, brightness sliders, and room overview chips. Tap a chip to toggle, long-press for the full color picker.
Group lights by room with a card per room. Show the dominant color as the card background. Add a "turn off all" button at the top. This layout scales well from 5 to 50+ lights.
Create a row of scene buttons: Energize, Relax, Movie Night, Reading, Bedtime. Each one sets the perfect lighting preset across the room. One tap instead of adjusting each light individually.
Overlay light entities on your floor plan image. Lights change color in real time on the map. Tap any room to control it. This is the "wow factor" dashboard that impresses everyone who sees it.
Configure each bulb to return to its "last state" after a power outage. This prevents all your smart bulbs from blasting at full brightness at 3 AM when the power flickers. You can only set this in the Hue app, not in HA.
Always add a transition parameter (in seconds) when changing light state. A 2-3 second transition makes changes feel natural instead of jarring. For sunrise alarms, use transitions of 1800 seconds (30 minutes).
The Adaptive Lighting custom integration automatically shifts color temperature from warm (2200K) in the evening to cool (5500K) during the day. It works per-room and pauses when you manually change a light. Way better than Hue's built-in natural light feature.
Assign a static IP address to your Hue Bridge in your router settings. This prevents the bridge from getting a new IP after a router reboot, which can temporarily break the HA integration until it rediscovers the bridge.
When controlling multiple Hue lights at once, use HA scenes or Hue scenes instead of calling each light individually. Scene activation sends one command to the bridge, which then updates all lights simultaneously. This prevents the "popcorn effect" where lights change one by one.
In the Hue app, dimmer switches and Tap Dials only control lights. In Home Assistant, every button press fires an event you can attach any automation to. Use them to control blinds, arm your alarm, start the coffee maker, or trigger any scene.
Already have Hue lights? Here is how to get them working in Home Assistant and build your first automations in a single weekend.
SATURDAY MORNING
If you do not have HA yet, install it on a Raspberry Pi, mini PC, or in Docker. Add the Hue integration and pair your bridge. All your lights should appear within minutes.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Create a simple dashboard with room-based light cards. Install Mushroom cards via HACS for beautiful controls. Set up your first scene: "Movie Night" or "Bedtime."
SUNDAY MORNING
Set up two or three automations: motion-activated lights, a sunrise alarm, and an all-off when everyone leaves. Install Adaptive Lighting for automatic color temperature shifts.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Remap your Hue dimmer switches and Tap Dials to HA blueprints. Add a non-Hue sensor (like an Aqara motion detector) and trigger your Hue lights from it. Welcome to the good stuff.
Run a free compatibility scan to see which of your Philips Hue devices work with Home Assistant and what automations you could build.
Free Compatibility ScanYes. Newer Hue bulbs support Zigbee and can pair directly to a Zigbee coordinator like SkyConnect or a Sonoff dongle using ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. This gives you full local control without the Hue Bridge. However, you lose Hue-specific features like entertainment zones and firmware updates. Most people keep the bridge and integrate it with Home Assistant for the best of both worlds.
The Home Assistant Hue integration communicates with the Hue Bridge over your local network. No cloud connection is needed for controlling lights, reading sensors, or running automations. Your automations will keep working even if your internet goes down.
For most people, keeping the Hue Bridge is the better choice. It handles firmware updates, entertainment features, power-on behavior settings, and ensures rock-solid Zigbee performance for Hue devices. Connecting directly via Zigbee makes sense if you have just a few Hue bulbs mixed into a larger Zigbee network or want to avoid the bridge cost.
Yes. If you use the Hue Bridge, your Hue devices run on a separate Zigbee network managed by the bridge, while other Zigbee devices connect to your coordinator. If you skip the bridge and pair Hue bulbs directly, they mesh with your other devices. One caveat: Hue bulbs are known to be poor Zigbee routers for non-Hue devices, so keep that in mind.
You do not lose anything when using the bridge integration. Home Assistant adds capabilities on top of the Hue app. The only things you cannot control from HA are Hue Entertainment (sync box, gaming) and in-app scene editing. Everything else works through Home Assistant, and you gain powerful automations, cross-device triggers, and dashboard control that the Hue app cannot match.
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