Are these the type of bulbs that do not respond to the regular light switch? I just got rid of hue lights because they will not turn on if we flip the light switch. My old hue bulbs we great, but those I just got rid of were horrible.
This is a behavior that can be set for any Hue bulb in the app - Any of the Hue lights can be used with a normal switch, and be told to do a number of things when power is restored to them: return to default warm white, return to last settings, or remain off.
Granted, this is not how Hue lights work best, and certainly not how they are intended to work. They are expected to be put on a circuit that stays on always, and then be controlled via app, voice assistant, or a special switch (Hue dimmer, Lutron Aurora or Caseta switch, Innovelli smart switch, etc.)… That’s usually your best case scenario. Even though these bulbs can be taught to turn off and on with retained settings, they will occasionally “forget” what those settings were, and you get to teach them again.
I’m not defending the design choice, because I also think that it’s a little tedious. But it is the paradigm that they’ve created - Smart lights that are meant to be left on live circuits with dumb switches, or used in conjunction with smart switches that are capable of managing them after a bit of setup.
Hope that helps. Basically, any Hue bulb can be taught. But they will forget at some point if you keep power cycling them.