search

vanviegen / hue-thief

Factory reset Philips Hue bulbs using an EZSP-based Zigbee USB stick. After a reset, bulbs can easily join any type of compatible bridge.
GNU General Public License v3.0
178 stars 20 forks source link

chore: update README to indicate pairing is required #21

Open meadowsjared opened 1 year ago

meadowsjared commented 1 year ago

This PR just makes it clear in the instructions that the bulb(s) should be paired with the Hue Bridge when you attempt to free them from the Hue Bridge.

When I used this, I wasted a ton of time attempting to use it, but it wouldn't work until I made sure to pair my lights with the Hue Bridge before scanning for them. I'm hoping that a simple change to the README.markdown will make it easier on others.

Thanks for making this awesome tool! 🥂

vanviegen commented 1 year ago

I'm not really sure if that statement is accurate. The way I think/thought of it, is that either the bulb is part of some network (possibly coordinated by a Hue Bridge), in which case this tool should be able to forcibly eject it from the network, or the bulb isn't part of a network, in which case it should have no trouble joining a network.

So, if the above is not mistaken, it shouldn't make sense to first join a Hue Bridge, in order to then use this tool and then join the desired Zigbee network... ?

meadowsjared commented 1 year ago

While your statement is USUALLY true. I had some specific Hue Lux bulbs that I had deleted from the Hue app, yet they weren't available to pair with other Zigbee hubs. 🤦‍♂️ In fact, those same bulbs couldn't even re-pair with the Philips Hue Bridge easily. In order to get them rejoined to Hue, I had to pair them with Hue using their serial numbers.

Re-pairing the bulbs with Hue Bridge was the only way I could get those dang bulbs to work with Hue Theif and finally be free. I was hoping that adding this text would save others the trouble I had. However, I'm open to whatever you'd think would be best.