Philips gave the original round Hue Bridge its last software update in April 2020 and cut it off from their own servers. New app features stopped arriving, and any scene or automation that leaned on Philips’s cloud to package the instructions stopped working. The bridge itself never noticed any of this. It has run its own local web API since the day it shipped, and that’s still sitting there answering requests.
Home Assistant talks to that local API directly, so if you already run it, adding the bridge takes a couple of minutes. If you don’t run Home Assistant, diyHue can sit in front of the bridge or replace it outright, which is worth knowing since these bridges are old hardware now and won’t last forever.
What to do
- If you run Home Assistant, add the Hue integration. It finds the bridge on the network and talks to it locally, no cloud step involved.
- Otherwise, install diyHue on a Raspberry Pi or any always-on computer. Its docs cover both working alongside your real bridge and replacing it.
- The Hue app itself won’t get more updates for this bridge, so plan on controlling your lights from Home Assistant, diyHue’s own interface, or another local app instead.