If you’re having trouble connecting to your Philips Hue Bridge here are some common issues to check for:

Are you connected to the same Wifi network as your Philips Hue Bridge?

Portal can only control the Hue Bridge if it’s on the same network as your iPhone or iPad.

It might be worth double-checking that you’re not only connected to your cellular network and that the official Hue app is working.

Has your Philips Hue Bridge been recently connected or powered off?

If your Philips Hue Bridge has recently been connected or powered off it can take a bit of time to become fully discoverable. It may be worth trying again in a few minutes.

Do you have a VPN running?

Some VPN setups will restrict access to your local network and prevent Portal from accessing your Philips Hue Bridge.

Are your networks firewalled or subnetted (advanced)?

Some networks, especially corporate or those with public access may have firewalls or configurations which reduce discoverability or access to other devices.

Have you granted Portal permission to connect to devices on your local network?

When you first attempt to connect Portal with your Philips Hue Bridge a pop up will appear asking you to grant Portal permission to connect with devices on your local network, see below.

You will need to grant Portal permission to do so, otherwise Portal won’t be able to connect to your Hue Bridge and so won’t be able to work.

I didn’t grant Portal permission to connect to my local network the first time I was prompted – can I still do this?

Absolutely, that’s not a problem at all. All you need to do is open the “Settings” app on your iPhone or iPad, scroll down the list of apps until you find “Portal”. The tap on “Portal” and the following window will appear:

If you slide the “Local Network” toggle to the right, the background of the toggle will turn green and you will have successfully granted Portal permission to access your local network and connect with your Philips Hue Bridge.