Then select whether you use a voice assistant. You should only select Yes if you use Alexa or the Google Assistant. Otherwise, select Not right now. You can always connect your Philips Hue bulbs with your voice assistant later. Then tap Choose Group. If you connected multiple bulbs, you will have to tap Choose Device and set them up individually. You can skip the remaining steps and start using your Philips Hue bulbs without adding them to a group. If you tap Skip, you can start using Alexa to control your smart lights. However, that means you will have to use voice commands to turn each smart light off individually. note that the protocol probably doesn’t matter at all in this particular case. On most platforms, including, for example, Alexa routines, it’s possible for a motion sensor of one protocol to be used as a trigger for a smart light of a different protocol and still work very reliably.)

What's required? - A 'Philips Hue Bridge' (sold separately) is required for smart control. Simply connect your Bridge, install your new Philips Hue lights and take advantage of smart outdoor lighting via the 'Philips Hue' app

Some motion sensors are just less reliable than others. For example, the Wyze motion sensors are very cheap, but just not as reliable as some others. You can set up an Alexa routine to have a Wyze motion sensor detecting motion trigger a hue light to come on, but if the motion sensor doesn’t report, nothing will happen. As always, the first rule of home automation applies: “the model number matters.“ And in this case, that doesn’t just mean the brand and model number of the motion sensor: as you noted, it means the platform that was used to create the rule that isn’t always working. Then select which voice assistants you want to use. You can only choose between Alexa and the Google Assistant. If you don’t have a smart assistant, or you want to set up a voice assistant with your Philips Hue bulbs later, you can also choose Setting up a voice assistant later. Next, tap Pair. You will see a pop-up prompt asking you to allow the app to access your device’s Bluetooth. We’re curious how and where you set up smart home automations, as well as why you’ve chosen your particular method. Consider answering three simple questions in our survey found here. No personal information is collected through the survey, and we will only be using the information in-house. Additionally, we’ll share the results with all of you in the near future.

Once you have connected Alexa to your Philips Hue bulbs, you can use voice commands to control them. Simply say, “Alexa turn off the lights in the kitchen,” or “Alexa, dim the lights in my bedroom to 50%.” If you have colored lights, you can also say, “Alexa, turn the lights in the living room red.” To connect Philips Hue to Google, open the Google Home app and tap the plus icon. Then go to Set up device > Set up new devices > Light bulb > Set up. Finally, follow the on-screen instructions to connect your Philips Hue bulbs to Google. If you bought a set of Philips Hue smart light bulbs, you won’t necessarily need to buy an expensive Hue Bridge to control them. Depending on what kind of bulbs you have, you can also use the Philips Hue app on your smartphone to turn your lights off, dim them, change the color of the light, and more. Or you can connect your Philips Hue lights to your Alexa or Google Home Devices, so you can control them with voice commands. Here’s how to set up Philips Hue smart light bulbs without using a Hue Bridge.To connect the motion sensor to your Alexa device, make sure the Philips Hue Motion sensor is in pairing mode in the Hue app. Next, select the room where the light is. If you don’t see the group you want to add your bulb to, tap Skip. You can always add your lights to groups later. No, Max shouldn’t have to do that, but it will likely solve the problem. This would remove any non-Hue hub from the equation as Alexa wouldn’t be the “brains” of the automation. Max would then set up his motion sensor trigger and Hub bulbs routine directly within the Hue app. Keeping both the devices and the centralized automation within a single platform reduces complexity, and all but guarantees success.