Connecting Hue Essentials to Diyhue

Evening all, not sure if I am setting this up correctly but I have HA installed with DIY hue and want to connect Hue Essentials to it. If I go into diyhue and press the link app button to connect to Hue essentials, that app crashes, I can add my ip if I go through he adanced setting and it works for about a minute and then cant connect.

Basically I want to use this through HA and remove my hue hub and try to create a Zigbee mesh network.
I am currently running HA on a Qnap nas on virtualisation station and a Sonoff E dongle with mqtt setup.

I am new to this so I mightt have it all the wrong way around but hopefully someone can help. Ideally I would like to use all my hue devices and add some Ikea lights etc and control them through HA and an app on my phone, is this possible?

if you need anymore details just let me know

Cheers