Philips Hue lights reported as offline by Google Home

[Marha01]

When I trigger my automations, Google Home always reports that some of the Philips Hue lights are offline. Yet the automations often work well, the lights are (mostly) set correctly (except for one bulb that refuses to be controlled by automations), but there is always the annoying "xxx light offline" report by the Nest speakers.

The funny thing is, I had many issues with the Google + Hue setup in the past, when I was using the official Hue integration in Google Home. Once I switched to Matter protocol, all the issues were fixed. See this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/googlehome/comments/1gwzui8/google_home_philips_hue_lights_offline/

and the top post in it. This Nest Community post pointed me to the "switching to Matter" fix: https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Apps-Account/Google-home-fail-to-link-philips-hue/m-p/559072/...

Things were fine until the November 9 update of the Google Home app, which broke the Matter integration too. Now the problems are back.

Anyone experiencing similar issues?

[ByronP]

Hi Marha01,

Thank you for reaching out to the community. I'm truly sorry your Philips Hue bulbs are offline; I appreciate the effort you have put into resolving this inconvenience. I'm happy to help you.

To better assist you, please answer the following questions:

• Can you control your Philips Hue lights using the Philips Hue mobile app?
• What specific action are you trying to perform with your Philips Hue lights (e.g., turn on/off, adjust brightness)?

Before proceeding with troubleshooting steps, please verify the following:

• Your mobile device is connected to the same Wi-Fi network or linked to the same account as your speakers and displays.
• Your Google Home and Philips Hue bridge are on the same Wi-Fi network.
• You are using a mobile device with the same Google account linked to your Google Home.
• You are using the same Google account as your primary account within the Google Home app.

In the meantime, you may try to:

1. Unlink and re-link your Philips Hue lights in the Google Home app.
2. You can find instructions in this article: Connect third-party smart home devices in the Google Home app.
3. Additionally, delete your current routine and create a new one with a different name. Refer to this article for instructions: Manage Routines.

Please let me know how it goes and keep me posted.

Regards,
Byron

[Marha01 · Accepted solution]

• Can you control your Philips Hue lights using the Philips Hue mobile app?

Yes.

• What specific action are you trying to perform with your Philips Hue lights (e.g., turn on/off, adjust brightness)?

Turn on/off, adjust brightness and color.

I have verified the network and Google accounts.

After some tinkering I have narrowed down the problem:

The new version of the Google Home app has split the routines into Personal and Household categories. All my old routines are in the Personal category and all are exhibiting the problem. I have deleted one such Personal routine and recreated it as the new Household routine. That fixed the problem - it now works perfectly. As a test, I have deleted another problematic Personal routine and recreated it again as a Personal routine. It still has the same issues. But when I recreated it as a Household routine, the problems again disappeared.

Conclusion: Personal routines are buggy. Household routines work without issues. You can pass the bug report to the programmers. 😉

[ByronP]

Hi Marha01,

Thank you for your response and for the update.

I'm glad that it was resolved. I really appreciate all the information you provided about the household routines. We're always looking for improvements. It would be great if you could submit your experience to the feedback form for future updates.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Byron