No let me stop you right there. All the good Hue stuff works with Zigbee so you can (and should) totally just run your own hub and bypass all of this; yes with home assistant!
That's really the best solution. You can just control the lights directly how you see fit without even talking to Phillips.
yes they are zigbee, yes they work better with the Hue Hub (e.g. colour transitions). Phillips is significantly reducing the usability and value of their own products with this shitty decision.