Philips Hue hacking documentation

[Kim Burgestrand]

As far as I’m aware, there is currently no compilation of the knowledge acquired from various resources about the Hue. A wiki might be sufficient, but they tend to be high maintenance and are easily jumbled up. Might be better with a public GitHub repository, where contributions are sent as pull requests (and a successful contribution will end up in commit access being granted). Either way, I’m open to ideas, I just want to gather the information and make it accessible, don’t care about where it’s done.

Articles I’ve found so far:

- http://rsmck.co.uk/hue

- http://www.nerdblog.com/2012/10/a-day-with-philips-hue.html?showComment=1352172383498

- https://github.com/Burgestrand/ruhue (my own progress)

Feel free to post articles as you find them.

[Stefan Jansen]

I've found some additional information after testing stuff out myself. I'll make a blogpost and add the link here.

Op dinsdag 6 november 2012 08:01:40 UTC+1 schreef Kim Burgestrand het volgende:

[Kim Burgestrand]

On Tuesday, November 6, 2012 9:39:04 PM UTC+1, Stefan Jansen wrote:

I've found some additional information after testing stuff out myself. I'll make a blogpost and add the link here.

Great! I can add the link to the mailing list header once that happens, if you’d like. I can see the list of links will only grow; maybe some kind of wiki is not a bad idea…

On another note, I finally managed to sniff the HTTP traffic; I’ll write about how that was done somewhere.

I’ve also documented more of the information about the API calls that I’ve managed to figure out so far in my GitHub repository: https://github.com/Burgestrand/ruhue — added documentation for POST /api, GET /api/username/config; there are a few more I’ve figured out but it’ll have to wait for another day as it’s closing in on time to sleep. 

[Stefan Jansen]

I added a pull request for your github repo, with some extra info!

Op dinsdag 6 november 2012 22:50:14 UTC+1 schreef Kim Burgestrand het volgende:

[Kim Burgestrand]

On Wednesday, November 7, 2012 12:08:04 AM UTC+1, Stefan Jansen wrote:

I added a pull request for your github repo, with some extra info!

Awesome! I initially missed your pull request so two of your explained calls (POST /api and GET /api/username) have become duplicates. I added a comment to your pull request; would be great if you could look at it. Sorry about the ninja-update! :)

I was also given a link to another Hue forum: http://www.everyhue.com/?page_id=38 — I’ve added it to the group description.

[Usman Shaukat]

Hi Kim,

I have a quick question, I used wireshark to sniff Hue, it was able to show me some useful information but in the list of protocols I did not see Zigbee. Can you tell me why its not showing. Can you recommend any good sniffer to sniff hue with both wired and wireless traffics.

[David J Kordsmeier]

Most definitely the standard Zigbee HUE A19 lightbulbs are Zigbee LightLink spec.  Presumably you have a Zigbee dongle connected to your PC and verified that you can trace Zigbee.  I have myself verified that with the HUE A19 bulbs I purchased that are I believe gen2 era, that I can communicate directly with these bulbs from my own hardware, create a PAN, and set HUE, level, on/off, etc.  NOTE: I do not have a Hue Bridge, and I think if you can avoid needing one, this prevents your bulbs locked to that hub.

[Andy Ody]

Sorry to reboot this conversation thread again, but I can comment on a couple of things.

1: I can sniff both Osram Lightly Home and Pro with Wireshark, but I could not the Hue starter kit where the bulbs are bonded to the hub.

2: Ikea have just released Tradfri wireless smart lighting, and I have not yet looked into sniffing that, BUT the bulbs can pair with the Osram systems; Home is limited to on/off, but Pro can adjust intensity and white tone.

3: Osram and Hue bulbs can be bound to Ikea Tradfri. Osram RBGW bulbs are limited to dimming and white tone as colour is not supported in Tradfri yet, but I can only say that Philips support on/off as the bulbs are the starter white ones.

4: Of note for #3 above, Ikea do a remote control which forces Zigbee bulbs into a reset mode and allows the Trader remote to grab control. This breaks the lock of bound Philips bulbs to the Hue hub! I can now bind them to my Tradfri, but cannot get them to bind to Osram Lightly home or pro gateways. But, it does allow me to grab control of both Sram, Philips, and Hue bulbs.

Just hope that Ikea come through with their claim to support Hue in both directions, and hopefully Lightify

Andy