When you buy a Philips Hue kit like the Dimmer with an extra bulb, the bulb is already linked to the dimmer. This means, that the bridge cannot find this bulb. First you have to instruct the bridge to takeover a bulb (from another bridge, a dimmer or similar), before it can be added.
This information is for the version 1 of the bridge (the round one), but I believe that method 2 also works for the newer bridge
There are 2 methods for doing this – depending on the version of the bridge firmware. In both cases, start by placing the bulb immediately next to the bridge (like 30 cm.)
- for older firmwares, telnet to port 30000 on the bridge and type
[Link,Touchlink]
and stop the telnet - for newer firmwares, use your own code or the CLIP debugger and on the
http://<ip>/api/<username>/config
object, PUT the value
{“touchlink”:true}
In both cases, the bulb should blink to signal that it can now be seen by the new bridge. Now you can use normal methods (like the app, CLIP debugger or own code) to link the bulb to the bridge.
Do not copy/paste the texts from above, since this will often result in “body contains invalid json” error messages. Type them by hand.
The same problem occurs, if you want to move the bulbs from one bridge to another without using the official app
To use the clip-debugger, you need to first find the ip-address of your hue-bridge, and then enter the url below into a browser
http://ip-address/debug/clip.html