HomeKit Hue dimmer custom controls suddenly stopped working

[SaxPlayer]

I've had Philips Hue dimmer switches in my lounge for a long time, and when I set them up I configured the buttons that usually do dimming to instead trigger my chosen scene. It's worked flawlessly for many months.

As far as I know, nothing's changed (unless some firmware has been updated automatically without my knowledge), but for some reason today pressing the buttons on either dimmer (I have two programmed the same) only triggers the default actions and not those in the Home app.

The boxes for each dimmer in the Home app "bounce" when I tap a button so that tells me that HomeKit knows I'm pressing the button but for some reason isn't triggering my chosen scene.

I tried editing each dimmer in the Home app and re-saving, however it makes no difference. The scenes run fine if I tap on them in the Home app or ask Siri to activate that scene. The 3 blue status lights are all lit on my Hue hub and it's otherwise all working as normal.

This baffles me. Any ideas on how I could fix this or troubleshoot further would be gratefully received!

 

[SaxPlayer]

24 hours later it all just started working again. Did nothing. Changed nothing. No software had updated (as far as I know). I work in tech so I know I didn't do anything stupid and would be aware of anything obvious.

Why the Hue Dimmers worked for many months then decided not to work for a single day is seriously weird.

 

[MoparShaha]

I have the same problems with mine. Initially, I would reset everything to get them working again. I’ve learned to just sit it out and do nothing. They always start working correctly again within a few hours.

 

[SaxPlayer]

I have the same problems with mine. Initially, I would reset everything to get them working again. I’ve learned to just sit it out and do nothing. They always start working correctly again within a few hours.

It's an odd one. Glad I'm not alone. Very odd that they worked for many months without a hitch and then didn't work for just a few hours for no apparent reason. Oh well. Next time I won't be too concerned about trying to troubleshoot it!

 

[SerenaC]

Have had this a couple of times. Just restart the device which is selected as the hub. That fixes the problem immediately.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Have had this a couple of times. Just restart the device which is selected as the hub. That fixes the problem immediately.

Thanks for the tip. I didn't think of re-booting the hub, which seems odd - surely an obvious thing to try! I'll remember that for next time it happens.

 

[danmart]

Another thing to try if odd behaviour occurs is to fire up the native Hue app. There may be a firmware update waiting for the hub. I’ve seen that cause issues in the past.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Another thing to try if odd behaviour occurs is to fire up the native Hue app. There may be a firmware update waiting for the hub. I’ve seen that cause issues in the past.

Thanks for the suggestion. That's one of the first things I checked, but always worth mentioning it in case anyone else stumbles across this thread in the future.

 

[bjornand]

So, after two years of mostly problem-free usage of Hue dimmer switches in my extensive HomeKit setup, I've run into this issue. As @AJClayton said, HomeKit senses the buttons being pushed as the device tile "bounces" in the room view. However, absolutely nothing happens, but if I try "Test this automation" it works. I have several dimmer switches and the others still work fine. I have tried rebooting the Hue bridge, checked for firmware updates, "rebooted" the switch by removing the battery, nothing solves it.

I have also had this happen before, especially to one dimmer switch, and as many have said, it fixed itself after a few hours/the next day. But this has now persisted for days.

Any further insights anyone can share?

 

[TillmanZ]

HomeKit senses the buttons being pushed as the device tile "bounces" in the room view. However, absolutely nothing happens, but if I try "Test this automation" it works

Hi there!
I just have added a new Hue dimmer switch to my Homekit setup and I am seeing the same weird behaviour.
The button presses are registered correctly (I can tell visually in the home app) but nothing happens.
However manually checking the button action also works fine.

Did you find a solution yet?

Best,

Tillman

 

[dotme]

Hi there!
I just have added a new Hue dimmer switch to my Homekit setup and I am seeing the same weird behaviour.
The button presses are registered correctly (I can tell visually in the home app) but nothing happens.
However manually checking the button action also works fine.

Did you find a solution yet?

Best,

Tillman

If this is a new device, start by restarting your Homekit hub. If an AppleTV, log out of iCloud on it, restart it, and log back in. That can accelerate the propagation of new automations from iCloud to your hub.

 

[TillmanZ]

If this is a new device, start by restarting your Homekit hub. If an AppleTV, log out of iCloud on it, restart it, and log back in. That can accelerate the propagation of new automations from iCloud to your hub.

Thanks for the quick response!
Just to be on the same page - the hue switch does appear in the Home app and pressing its buttons is properly reflected instantaneously inside the Home app as well.
I have restarted all my AppleTVs and HomePods but the issue remains the same.

 

[malcky77]

I think I had this the other day, or something similar and it turned out that the colour of the lights for the button presses seemed to have disappeared/were showing as black.....which just meant they stayed off......editing the scene/colour of the bulbs/room in question fixed it for me.

 

[fainpablo]

After a lot of troubleshooting and research I've arrived to this post. For me this seems to be an issue with the Apple TV as home hub (not sure if the same happens if you have a HomePod or an iPad as home hubs).

Since around November last year, I noticed that from time to time my dimmer switches stopped working (I currently have seven dimmers deployed at home), and so the motion sensors (Eve Motion) automations. I used to restart both the Apple TV and the Hue Bridge and everything started working again.

As @AJClayton and @bjornand mentioned above, every time you push the switch buttons you'll see the the visual confirmation on the Hue app ("X button pressed") + the animation (bounce) on the Home app + the green dot physically on the switch, but nothing happens.

However, if I try to turn the lights on through my Apple Watch, iPhone, or MacBook, everything goes fine and the lights are turned on. Even if I ask Siri to turn the lights on I got the expected response.

During months I've been blaming the Hue Bridge, but today I discovered the problem seems to be on the Apple TV side.

During the failure, I've setup one of the dimmers on the Hue app (while keeping the configuration on the Home app) and every push triggers the expected action. For example, on the Home app the first button turns on all the lights on the living room and sets the color to white. The same button on the Hue app sets the lights to red. When I press the button, the lights come on red. That's it. Now if I restart the Apple TV, the same button will first turn on the lights in red and then in white.

This tells me that the dimmers send the push to the Hue bridge (who doesn't know what to do because remember the configuration here is empty) and the Home hub (Apple TV) receives the push from the Hue bridge but without telling the bridge what to do. Again, this also explains why some automations (like the ones associated with the motion sensors) are not getting triggered. The Home app shows motion detected, but no lights are turned on. After restarting the Apple TV, the automations start working again.

I guess I'm going to remove the dimmers from the Home app and instead configure them on the Hue app. This way I also get some extra options like up to five different actions on the first button. The downside is that buttons 2, 3, and 4 only do what they're intended to do (increase bright, decrease bright, turn off).

I also found a reference to this behavior here, where a "bug" is mentioned, but the link to the bug seems to be broken.

Pablo