Philips Hue and Home Speaker 500

[blore_boy]

Hi, I've been using Echo Plus from Amazon for the last two years and upgraded to the Home Speaker 500 earlier today, I immediately noticed I'm unable to control my Philips Hue lights anymore. Am I missing some setting or is the Home Speaker 500 incapable of connecting to lights and other such smart devices??

Cause I don't want to invest on a bridge or any other device just to control the lights.

[Vicky_W]

Hello Blore-boy, 

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Bose Community Forums. 

It is possible to control your Hue lights with your Home Speaker 500. Having just set this up personally, I can confirm the steps below work. 

1. Ensure that your Home Speaker is paired with the Bose Music app and on the same WiFi band as your Phillips Hue lights. 
2. Open the Bose Music app and click on the icon of the product on the right-hand side. Once the menu opens please then select the Voice Assistant option.
3. You will then need to click on the instructions and follow the steps to set up Alexa. 

Once this has been done, you will need to open the Alexa app on your phone and follow the steps here to add the Hue lights, if you have not done already. 

After this, the lights will be set up with your Home Speaker. You will need to say "Alexa, turn on *name of your room* lights". 

Please do let me know if you have any questions. 

Kind Regards, 

Vicky W - Community Support 

[blore_boy]

Hi Vicky, thank you for the reply, but the Philips Hue is Zigbee based and does not support WiFi.

The Amazon Echo Plus has a built in Zigbee transceiver which lets me control Philips Hue bulbs.

Does the Bose Home Speaker 500 have a built in hub to control Zigbee based devices??

[Keith_L]

Hello blore_boy,

Thank you for clarifying that for us. 

The Home Speaker 500 is capable of controlling Phillips Hue lights, but it does not have a built-in smart hub like the Echo Plus does. How the Home Speaker controls these devices is through the Phillips Hue Smart Home Alexa skill rather than a direct connection to the lights.

This control method does work over the Wi-Fi rather than using the Zigbee connection, so you would need a Hue Bridge to get this working correctly. The Hue Bridge is the component that connects to the bulbs via Zigbee and allows for control of the systems from a Wi-Fi connection.

I hope this helps make this a bit clearer. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Kind Regards,

Keith L