Is Siri possible w/ Hue Hub + Wink bulb?

[Chupa Chupa]

I just set up a Hue 2.0 hub for my lamps. Really nice to just tell Siri to turn on, up, off, blue the lights rather than even fiddling w/ an app.

I had a Wink bulb laying around so was curious if it would pair. It did. Everything worked except Siri. Has anyone had any luck getting Siri to work in a 3rd party bulb w/ Hue? I asking because Hue doesn't make a 90w equivalent floodlight, which is what I need for the cans in my house. Wink and some other connected bulbs do come in that brightness. I'd love to get the rest of my house lights working on Siri. Is there a technical reason why Philips doesn't offer anything brighter than a 65w equivalent?

 

[Otto Pilot]

The Wink lights will never work using the Hue hub, as they are completely separate systems. You can, however, get the wink bulbs working on HomeKit and with Siri but you need to use something like Homebridge as a go-between, and not the Hue bridge. The specific Homebridge plugin for wink is here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-wink

 

[xraydoc]

I just set up a Hue 2.0 hub for my lamps. Really nice to just tell Siri to turn on, up, off, blue the lights rather than even fiddling w/ an app.

I had a Wink bulb laying around so was curious if it would pair. It did. Everything worked except Siri. Has anyone had any luck getting Siri to work in a 3rd party bulb w/ Hue? I asking because Hue doesn't make a 90w equivalent floodlight, which is what I need for the cans in my house. Wink and some other connected bulbs do come in that brightness. I'd love to get the rest of my house lights working on Siri. Is there a technical reason why Philips doesn't offer anything brighter than a 65w equivalent?

Yeah, not sure why Philips doesn't make a white floodlight. They do make a multi-color one, though I think the brightness is less than a 90w-equivalent.

Consider using a HomeKit supported wall switch/dimmer & hub like the Lutron to control the cans instead of Hue. I have a mix of Hue and Lutron and they're both seamlessly & directly controlled by Siri (and Amazon Alexa, by the way).

 

[Chupa Chupa]

The problem with the Lutron is it's all-or-none since it controls the switch rather than the bulbs like the Hue. I have a few 3- way switches that control multiple lights, not all of which I want on all the time. The great thing about Hue is you can tell Siri "Turn off [Bulb x]." Is there another home kit system that has that flexibility? Wink does this but it's neither HomeKit nor Alexa compatible. The voice control is what makes it so convenient.

 

[xraydoc]

The Wink hub is compatible with Alexa. I have one and it does a decent job with one exception - triggering Hue lights or scenes via Alexa (or the Wink app) through the Wink hub results in slow response of the Hue lights. Controlling the Hue lights directly via Alexa's native Hue support offers much faster response times and is more reliable. It does require some duplication of work, though, in setting up rooms on the Echo's app.

Someone created a Wink-to-HomeBridge config file, so you can get the Wink hub working with HomeKit if you have the inclination to do the work. I don't have any first hand experience with it myself, however.

But you're correct in that the Lutron dimmers only control the lights they're attached to and don't have direct scene support. What you can do, however, is use a specific Lutron device as a trigger to activate a HomeKit action or scene. For example, turn on a specific overhead light or a lamp and activate a scene - which can then include Hue lights or other HomeKit devices. Kind of like a "robot" on the Wink software, if you're familiar.

I have this set up for a couple of my lights -- it works but there's a short delay. In my kitchen, there's two banks of overhead can lights that I like to turn on/off together - one main bank and one smaller bank - but each is physically wired to a separate switch. I've got Lutron dimmers on both, and have HomeKit programmed so if the main one turns on to 100%, then to turn the other one on to 100%. So when I tap the ON button to turn the main one on, a second or so later the second one comes on. The caveat is that the program resides on the iOS device used to create it. So, if I made it on my phone and was out of the house, the program would not work if my wife turned on the main light. The work around is I made the program on a spare SIM-less iPhone 5S I'm using as an always plugged in "Hey, Siri..." voice controller.

(Sorry for the wall of text...)
[doublepost=1469044400][/doublepost]

The problem with the Lutron is it's all-or-none since it controls the switch rather than the bulbs like the Hue. I have a few 3- way switches that control multiple lights, not all of which I want on all the time. The great thing about Hue is you can tell Siri "Turn off [Bulb x]." Is there another home kit system that has that flexibility? Wink does this but it's neither HomeKit nor Alexa compatible. The voice control is what makes it so convenient.

 

[simonx314]

I have a ton of z-wave switches on my Wink hub. I run homebridge-wink on a Raspberry Pi, and now all my z-wave switches show up as HomeKit lights alongside my Philips Hue bulbs. It works well. I can control all the lights in my house with HomeKit scenes. I can tell Siri to dim the kitchen lights to 50%, and my Philips Hue light strip and my z-wave dimmer switch both dim to 50%.

 

[Derrick620]

I have a ton of z-wave switches on my Wink hub. I run homebridge-wink on a Raspberry Pi, and now all my z-wave switches show up as HomeKit lights alongside my Philips Hue bulbs. It works well. I can control all the lights in my house with HomeKit scenes. I can tell Siri to dim the kitchen lights to 50%, and my Philips Hue light strip and my z-wave dimmer switch both dim to 50%.

[doublepost=1478115819][/doublepost]Are you able to make a video on how to setup homebridge?

 

[simonx314]

[doublepost=1478115819][/doublepost]Are you able to make a video on how to setup homebridge?

Just search YouTube there are already several Homebridge videos, like this one:

You will find up to date documentation on how to install homebridge at github.com/nfarina/homebridge. The Github issues page and Slack channel will help new users. Any problems you encounter are the same problems people have had dozens of time before, and can usually be quickly resolved. If you know how to use a Linux shell enough to type "cd" then you can probably install Homebridge.

Side note:

I just got two Amazon Echo Dots. Now both Siri and Alexa can control all the same lights in my house, a mix of both Philips Hue lights and Z-Wave switches on a Wink hub. Alexa is generally faster and more convenient than Siri at controlling lights.

 

[ecschwarz]

The Hue bulbs and Wink bulbs (GE Link, Cree) used to work unofficially with the Hue hubs and Siri/HomeKit, but this all was removed about a year ago. They all use the Zigbee protocol, but there were some issues with the Hue ecosystem and non-Hue bulbs sometimes not responding. Because of this, Philips basically removed this capability (even though it was never advertised anyway).