hue-platform VS diyHue

Re-enable OPKG and install various packages from the official repository. There's already a lot you could do just with that.

yes, you can https://github.com/lyuzashi/hue-platform

Check out diyHue to use the Hue app with Zigbee2MQTT without a physical Hue bridge. I've been running it for almost a year with zero problems using the Hue Essentials app.

I would highly suggest you run diyHue on either an old computer, or a Pi. diyHue is a hub emulator, it can take many sources, e.g. a Hue hub, Home Assistant, etc, then make them appear as a single hub in the Hue app.

Finally, i'd like to mention DiyHUE, (HA addon and integration availables) which is basically a HUE emulator that allow you to add a lot of non-hue lights into the HUE ecosystem, and control them using the official HUE app, which has a really nice UI and the whole "hue labs" formulas and custom effects included, which is awesome

Maybe diyHue is what you're looking for. As a warning, consider it in alpha stage.

There’s a few projects out there like this: https://openrgb.org/ and https://diyhue.org/ there’s probably a few others too.

Ther also exists a Hue Bridge emulator called DIYhue. I didn‘t try it yet but it seems promising. This Software can run on a Pi and emulates a Hue Bridge. Therefore your official Hue app can discover it. On the other end the Software connect with the real Bridge but also with third party devices. For example over the ConBee II ZigBee USB Stick.

Get a Pi and a Zigbee gateway stick and install diyHue instead. Don't let Philips pull the rug on you, like they did with the v1.

My solution when family and work will let me is to see if an alternate zigbee controller can be used with diyhue.org and Zigbee2MQTT.io and see if I can use some of the Chinese switches but still use the app that the family are used to.

Ahh ok. There's about a 50 device limit per hub on Hue. When you hit that, you could either move everything over to the HA server, or you can run multiple hubs, and then use diyHue to emulate a hub, and create a new virtual hub with both hubs merged. We have everything connected to the HA server through Zigbee2MQTT, but we still run diyHue as it works with HA as well. We use it because people like the app, and personally I like the app as well as it has some features that aren't easy or reasonable to add in Lovelace. We're also staying on version 3.8 of the app, before the new shitty redesign (I have a 3.8 apk I've modded to not update if you would like it).