Philips Hue Lighting - owners thread

Philips Hue Lighting - owners thread

Author
Discussion

fizz47

Original Poster:

2,846 posts

218 months

Sunday 11th January 2015
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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.


ecsrobin

17,855 posts

173 months

Sunday 11th January 2015
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Bookmarked. I've been tempted buy the hue lightning system but initial cost has put me off so hopefully this thread will convince me. A friend did say that for reading he changes the colour of the lighting as you get a better light but I can't remember what colour.

Skier

488 posts

231 months

Sunday 11th January 2015
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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

onlynik

3,982 posts

201 months

Sunday 11th January 2015
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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.

Otispunkmeyer

13,077 posts

163 months

Sunday 11th January 2015
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Do these work with IFTTT?

onlynik

3,982 posts

201 months

Monday 12th January 2015
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Otispunkmeyer said:
Do these work with IFTTT?
Yup

gpb1

572 posts

152 months

Monday 12th January 2015
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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.

MuffDaddy

1,439 posts

213 months

Monday 12th January 2015
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I'm looking at these for a SAD setup. Am I correct in thinking I can use a white light with gradual brightness to simulate sunlight in the bedroom. Linked to the Sonos for some morning music? I have a Smart Things controller to aid with this.

sly fox

2,236 posts

227 months

Monday 12th January 2015
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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!

Skier

488 posts

231 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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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.

TimJMS

2,584 posts

259 months

Friday 6th February 2015
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DOH! just seen this warning while searching for solutions cry

Jamster123

485 posts

211 months

Saturday 14th February 2015
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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 )


Digger

15,202 posts

199 months

Saturday 14th February 2015
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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!

Church of Noise

1,497 posts

245 months

Saturday 14th February 2015
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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.

Digger

15,202 posts

199 months

Sunday 15th February 2015
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See above. Multiple Taps can be plumbed in! smile

MrCheese

341 posts

191 months

Sunday 15th February 2015
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I have a few bulbs and a Tap. The Tap is great for the bathroom even tho it isn't rated as waterproof (it doesn't use batteries or mains).

Only downside of the bulbs is that they are roughly equiv of 60W. I'm used to 100W equivs so the room does seems a bit darker.

Magic919

14,126 posts

209 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
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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.

Oakey

27,811 posts

224 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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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?

marctwo

3,666 posts

268 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I've just picked up a bunch of Bloom and Iris lights and plan to get a starter kit soon with a hub. I am hoping to use them to simulate sunrise on these dark winter mornings. What's the easiest way to do this?

Mattt

16,663 posts

226 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I use the Sleep Cycle app as my alarm clock which controls the light on and off