I am a dabbler in home automation and thinking about starting to get into lighting. I have heard mostly good things about the Philip Hue line and wanted to see what peoples thoughts are about it.
Our main current automation are a large number of Google Smart Speaker and Arlo video doorbells. Everything is working now on the Google ecosystem which I think Philip Hue will connect with. Our house is 100 years old which means that our possibilities to automate are lower than a new home since we have very few overhead lights, power outlets are at a premium (we have lots of power strips running through the house).
We are thinking about doing smart bulbs in some lamps which we can leave on and a chandalier. I think the biggest issue will leaving things always powered on.
HA will be your “hub”. What you need is more like something that lets you communicate to Zigbee devices i.e. a Zigbee dongle. There are a lot of choices and you can search online for the current best option.
HA will act as the main server that connects everything. HA can then expose all of your devices to Google Home and then you can control things via Google Home as well. As an example, if you turned off a light bulb in Google Home the chain of command will look something like this: You issue an off command -> Google Home -> Home Assistant -> Light Bulb.