Philips Hue Lighting - owners thread
Discussion
Hi all
Having just got the Philips hue starter pack at pretty much half price thanks to amazon deal of the day I though I would start a thread to see how others are making use of theirs.
Any hints tips and suggestions would be great.
So I only have 2 bloom lights so far on alarms for when we are out of the house. Plan to get more lights and set them up so what are people using theirs for?
Any must dos or tips when using these?
So far loving the lights except not so keen on the app. For some reason I don't find it that intuitive.
Having just got the Philips hue starter pack at pretty much half price thanks to amazon deal of the day I though I would start a thread to see how others are making use of theirs.
Any hints tips and suggestions would be great.
So I only have 2 bloom lights so far on alarms for when we are out of the house. Plan to get more lights and set them up so what are people using theirs for?
Any must dos or tips when using these?
So far loving the lights except not so keen on the app. For some reason I don't find it that intuitive.
I've had the Hue lights for around 18 months or so and think that they're, now, excellent. When they first came out the connectivity with the App was flakey. I agree with you that the App isn't well designed and it can still take a couple of presses of 'Off' to make the lights go out, despite the App background going grey (to indicate everything is off). This makes them unreliable for manual use when away from home in that you don't know for certain whether they're actually off or not. I rarely use mine manually when away from home.
I have them set up as follows:
1 desk lamp in the living room
1 desk lamp in the hallway (White only Lux bulb)
2 x bedside lamps in the master bedroom
I have alarms to switch all of them on and off at various fixed times of the day and night when I'm in the country. When away, I randomize the bedroom and living room alarms. I don't mess around with scenes (colours) that much as once set appropriately for the room I have little need or desire to play around.
For anyone thinking about it I would strongly recommend them but think about which bulbs you will want to have the full colour spectrum and which you'd be happy with being white for half the price. I haven't had a bulb failure in 18 months and, given the cost of them I'd be disappointed if I had.
Skier
I have them set up as follows:
1 desk lamp in the living room
1 desk lamp in the hallway (White only Lux bulb)
2 x bedside lamps in the master bedroom
I have alarms to switch all of them on and off at various fixed times of the day and night when I'm in the country. When away, I randomize the bedroom and living room alarms. I don't mess around with scenes (colours) that much as once set appropriately for the room I have little need or desire to play around.
For anyone thinking about it I would strongly recommend them but think about which bulbs you will want to have the full colour spectrum and which you'd be happy with being white for half the price. I haven't had a bulb failure in 18 months and, given the cost of them I'd be disappointed if I had.
Skier
I've got 12 of the bloody things.
Have them set up to come on when it gets dark. I also have a schedule to turn them off at night.
I have different settings for different theme, low level red for when we watch films.
Have a nice orange scene for when we eat food.
I have hue-topia for my Mac which I can control the lights from. http://peacockmedia.co.uk/huetopia/
I also an app called Light Control on Android which is easy to use and much better than the Phillips one.
Have them set up to come on when it gets dark. I also have a schedule to turn them off at night.
I have different settings for different theme, low level red for when we watch films.
Have a nice orange scene for when we eat food.
I have hue-topia for my Mac which I can control the lights from. http://peacockmedia.co.uk/huetopia/
I also an app called Light Control on Android which is easy to use and much better than the Phillips one.
I also got the Amazon starter kit in the sales, along with the strip lights and a single bloom lamp. I already had a LivingColor lamp which I've also managed to link to my bridge (though it was a bit fiddly - didn't know I could do this when I bought the Hue kit so pleased that I could).
I got a bit frustrated with the Philips app, and others in the app store, not supporting things like colorlooping and detecting sunset/sunrise in my location. Tried using IFTTT, but it lacks support for groups of lights, so ended up writing my own applescript to control the lights.
I've got them set up in the following groups.
Living room - 2 bloom lamps
Dining room - 1 LivingColor lamp
Kitchen - 2 light strips
Bed room - 1 bloom lamp
The script runs constantly. It turns on the lights in the kitchen a warm white between 6:00 and 8:30. Once a day it also picks up the sunset time in my location (from the Yahoo weather website) and uses that time to trigger turning all the lights on, as follows:
1. Turns kitchen on warm white
2. Turns the lights in the living room and dining room (I created a group via the API to hold these) red.
3. Enable the colorloop feature on the living room/dining room group (the reason I initially turn these on red, then colorloop them is that if you don't start them at the same colour they go through the spectrum out of sync. It was this that stopped me using IFTTT functionality to do this.)
4. Turn on the bedroom light a soft purple.
At a configured time, currently 23:00, I turn off all the lights.
I added some logging to file and emailing options (to notify when lights are turned on and off), plus have set up some other simple scripts which can be run from email rules so we can turn them on and off, and colorloop them, by sending ourselves emails with specific subject texts.
Have enjoyed playing with them and the API interface is relatively easy to use.
I got a bit frustrated with the Philips app, and others in the app store, not supporting things like colorlooping and detecting sunset/sunrise in my location. Tried using IFTTT, but it lacks support for groups of lights, so ended up writing my own applescript to control the lights.
I've got them set up in the following groups.
Living room - 2 bloom lamps
Dining room - 1 LivingColor lamp
Kitchen - 2 light strips
Bed room - 1 bloom lamp
The script runs constantly. It turns on the lights in the kitchen a warm white between 6:00 and 8:30. Once a day it also picks up the sunset time in my location (from the Yahoo weather website) and uses that time to trigger turning all the lights on, as follows:
1. Turns kitchen on warm white
2. Turns the lights in the living room and dining room (I created a group via the API to hold these) red.
3. Enable the colorloop feature on the living room/dining room group (the reason I initially turn these on red, then colorloop them is that if you don't start them at the same colour they go through the spectrum out of sync. It was this that stopped me using IFTTT functionality to do this.)
4. Turn on the bedroom light a soft purple.
At a configured time, currently 23:00, I turn off all the lights.
I added some logging to file and emailing options (to notify when lights are turned on and off), plus have set up some other simple scripts which can be run from email rules so we can turn them on and off, and colorloop them, by sending ourselves emails with specific subject texts.
Have enjoyed playing with them and the API interface is relatively easy to use.
I've got 8 lightstrips around the house, an Iris light for the bedroom and some GU10/ Hue bulbs in various rooms.
I spent quite some time creating timers/schedules , and use a Blue 'wake up theme almost every day'.
Actually i've just looked and i have about 20 different themes for different times of the day/ watching sport/films/ low mood lighting etc.
I've got some lightstrips near windows to use as security lighting, and have the +- 30 mins option to randomise timings a little. Works well.
The 'concentrate' theme works well in a Kitchen by the way, as well as in my office ( i like to cook ).
I have lights near my front door that use the Geolocation feature to come on when i pull up in the car outside.
Quite a convert in fact!
I spent quite some time creating timers/schedules , and use a Blue 'wake up theme almost every day'.
Actually i've just looked and i have about 20 different themes for different times of the day/ watching sport/films/ low mood lighting etc.
I've got some lightstrips near windows to use as security lighting, and have the +- 30 mins option to randomise timings a little. Works well.
The 'concentrate' theme works well in a Kitchen by the way, as well as in my office ( i like to cook ).
I have lights near my front door that use the Geolocation feature to come on when i pull up in the car outside.
Quite a convert in fact!
Just discovered these, I had planned to do a colingwood dmx install but looks like these could be a cheaper alternative with less wiring too.
Question, Providing I can find a garden spike that will house the lamp ( I know they are slightly bigger than normal u10 ) will these work as a replacement to the 8 spikes in my garden? Will the network work if they are in a enclosed metal fitting ? ( There was recommendation not to enclose somewhere, but others have said its fine )
Question, Providing I can find a garden spike that will house the lamp ( I know they are slightly bigger than normal u10 ) will these work as a replacement to the 8 spikes in my garden? Will the network work if they are in a enclosed metal fitting ? ( There was recommendation not to enclose somewhere, but others have said its fine )
Skier said:
Do not update the Philips Hue app to the version released on 5 Feb 2015 (v1.7.1). I, and others, made this mistake and the app will not open on either my iPhone or iPad rendering the whole lighting system useless.
I'm on 1.7.3. On ios 8.1.3 all good. I feel the Hue Tap to be a worthwhile purchase. Quite handy tbh!
Another happy customer here.
We currently use them in our living room, to set lighting conditions in line with the activity (work, eat, read, relax, watch tv...)
Once we move in our new place, it looks quite likely that we will add several lights across the living room, dining room, kitchen and office.
Some 'hardware' controls might improve the userfriendliness though.
We currently use them in our living room, to set lighting conditions in line with the activity (work, eat, read, relax, watch tv...)
Once we move in our new place, it looks quite likely that we will add several lights across the living room, dining room, kitchen and office.
Some 'hardware' controls might improve the userfriendliness though.
Thought I'd revive this thread for any new Hue ideas.
I've just acquired a few bulbs and some LightStrips. I have the new Hue Bridge on order, but Amazon are saying it could be a few more weeks. I didn't want the starter kit and suspect that's where some of the new bridges went. It seemed worthwhile having the option of Apple Homekit integration.
I've just acquired a few bulbs and some LightStrips. I have the new Hue Bridge on order, but Amazon are saying it could be a few more weeks. I didn't want the starter kit and suspect that's where some of the new bridges went. It seemed worthwhile having the option of Apple Homekit integration.
I have the new hub, 2 white bulbs and I've connected two living colours. All works great, I can communicate with Hue remotely when away from home, however, I cannot get IFTTT to work. It's been authorised in MeetHue, I see it in the list of apps, the bulbs all appear on IFTTT when creating recipes but whenever I test nothing happens. Anyone have a solution?
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