What: I want to control my Hue bulbs from Indigo without the Hue hub, using a zigbee USB stick
Why: To expand mains zigbee devices in my network to enable more zigbee battery sensors to be used, plus the zigbee USB sticks are cheaper than the Hue hub and removes our dependence on proprietary hubs.
I have been using the Philips Hue for longer than I have had Inidgo, and recently upgraded to v2. However I have never had perfect signal strength, despite bulbs being in neighbouring rooms. I have also wanted to move the Hub but have been limited due to the need to wired into my network (despite having cat6 in most rooms)
Since finding the Aqara sensors and wireless switches, I wanted to expand my zigbee network to use more of these battery sensors. However as these dont act as routers, I would be forced to use lots of USB zigbee sticks as routers. So, I got thinking about my Hue bulbs. Could I run just one zigbee network.
Taking full advantage of Joe's amazing MQTT plugin, and node red, I have created a dummy Meta Device Dimmer and I can now use that to control my a Hue bulb.
I now need to create a dummy RGB device and see how to get the colour states published over MQTT from Indigo, and then move all my Hue bulbs over so that I can test my zigbee network.