All seemed well, and then reality kicked in…
Before you get the itch to migrate your current Hue bridge V1 (round) to V2 (square), you first need to decide if it’s worth it. The only advantage to going with V2 is the added support of Apple HomeKit. Also, if you’re an Amazon Echo users, then V2 gives you control over scenes and not just individual lights. That’s pretty much it. If those don’t apply to you, then there isn’t a very compelling reason to upgrade – they use the same app, control the same lights, etc.
OK, let’s say you’re crazy like me and you want to upgrade. It’s actually pretty easy. The hassle comes with reconnecting all of your apps and devices that use Hue. For example, I have Hue connected to Scout Alarm, Nest Protect, Smartthings Hub, Harmony Hub, IFTTT, and more. I was under the impression that these connections would remain – I was wrong.
Migrating from Hue Bridge V1 to V2
The good news is that you can stumble your way through the migration and ultimately end up in the right place.
- To get started, connect your new Hue bridge to your router. Do not unplug your old bridge.
- Open your app and go to the settings screen where you have the option to add a new bridge (make sure you’re on the same wifi as your bridge). Click on the + sign and your app will begin looking for a new bridge. Once it finds it, it will realize that you have 2 bridges.
Hue found new Bridge
- As you can see, Hue will now try to transfer all of your settings from your old bridge to the new. This will take with it your scenes and your connected bulbs! Follow the simple steps and make sure you can reach each bridge so you can push the buttons when prompted.
- You’ll be told you can removed your old bridge from the router.
Now the fun begins – and by fun, I mean not-fun.
After the New Bridge is Up and Running
There are 2 big pieces of the puzzle that are still not complete.
- Associating your new bridge with your online account so you can control the lights away from your home network.
- Removing the old and associating your new bridge to all of your 3rd party services like IFTTT, SmartThings, Google Home, etc.
Getting Remote Access to the New Bridge
There are a lot of articles on this, so I won’t go into a lot of details. But, go ahead and login here, then go to the bridge page. At the bottom of the page, you’ll need to ‘unlink’ your old bridge. From there, you’ll link your new bridge. Get ready to push the link button on the bridge. The same page should give you an option to add a bridge.
After your done there, open the app. Here it gets a little tricky.
When you open your app, you need to connect it to the website you went to in the previous step. To do this, you just need to log into your account from the app. I didn’t find this to be easy and was never able to from where the instructions told me to. So, here is the easiest thing to do:
- Turn off your phone’s wifi if you’re at home so the app is forced to try and access your bridge remotely. Most likely this won’t work.
- Now, go to the Routines tab in your app. Since you’re away, you will almost definitely be prompted to log into your account.
Hue
- Once you log back into your account, the connection is made and all is good to go!
Setting Up Your New Bridge With 3rd Party Apps
This is painful, but here are few notes:
IFTTT – I had a few issues here, but the first thing you’ll want to try is to reconnect your Hue account to IFTTT. Go to the Hue page and there should be an option to do so. Even after trying that, most applets didn’t work for me. This meant opening and editing each applet and re-selecting the Hue lights and options. You just need to be aware that a new IFTTT applets will not work until IFTTT knows about your new bridge.
SmartThings – This was a horrible experience for me since i have a LOT of SmartApps and Automations setup. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to keep anything related to Hue lights. As a matter of fact, I had to remove all of my lights from SmartThings, then start over by having ST discover new devices (new bridge). I’m still rebuilding all of the SmartApps and Automations. Ugg.
Alexa and Google Home – Same as above – you’ll have to remove what you have and start over from the beginning with the Hue skill.
That’s about it. It’s a little painful and really not worth if for non-Apple folks – but, hey, I did it anyway, of course.
Worked perfectly, thanks!
it doesn’t work
most painful is the transfer because it is impossible
fails every single time or won’t detect one hub or the other or both no matter if you use android or IOS
tried it on 10 different devices on both OS’s
hue forced us to buy new non working hubs to replace perfectly good working hubs that they deliberately broke
and threw their early adopters under the bus
now I am sitting here in the dark with 50 non working hue bulbs because they deliberately broke their own ecosystem