Philips Hue Lighting - owners thread

[durbster]

The Gauge said:

Well to answer my own question - Reddit had the answer, turned out I needed to reset the link between my Amazon account to my Philips Hue account ..

That figures. I remember having to re-authorise the integration every few months. The Echo integrations are pretty much all terrible ime, and none of it ever seems to get better.

I suspect the problem might not be at the Philips end. The whole Amazon Echo eco-system feels very badly made on the software side. Even the Alexa app is dreadful.

For one of the largest companies in the world, you'd think they'd be able to figure this stuff out. Maybe the choice was to invest in building it properly or to give Jeff more money for his personal space rockets.

[595Heaven]

We are redecorating our back room / son’s gaming room whilst he is down under with his girlfriend, lucky sod.

Room has four GU10 down lighters, of which one was a HUE White bulb. Bought a pack of four HUE Essentials GU10 from Amazon for £49.99. I’ve used some IKEA Tradfri ones before but initial pairing was a pain, and they weren’t as good as the real thing.

These are fine - the app found them instantly (I never bother with the pairing code) and they do both white ambiance and colour really well. They don’t dim as low as the full price ones but that isn’t an issue for me. 4.7W so they go really bright if you need it.

Good value for money if you have lots of down lights to manage. Bear in mind they are not quite as good looking when off - you can see the LEDs within the enclosure (The GU10 lights replaced some huge eyeball style ones so they have a larger ceiling plate than usual to cover the bigger hole).



I also found an unused pair of HUE Play light bars still sealed in their box! - I though I’d used one of them to add to a pair in the garden room, but I must have bought a single and these?? They can go behind the TV when we move stuff back in. Hopefully he’ll be pleased with the new look, but won’t be happy his knackered gaming chair is going to the tip…

[dave7108]

I have the tap dial switch. I was hoping to be able to tap a switch then be able to dim those lights but it seems you can only dim one zone. Quite annoying.

[dave7108]

Also what is the difference between the hue dimmer and hue smart button?

[The Gauge]

One of my Hue white bulbs randomly turns on and I have to tell Alexa to turn it off. Annoying

[Zoon]

dave7108 said:

Also what is the difference between the hue dimmer and hue smart button?

They look a bit different but more or less do the same thing.

[dapprman]

Thought with the button you could just program on/off on a device or a room, where as on the dimmer you can set 4 options, and with 3rd party software such as Hue Essentials (Android, not sure it is available for iOS) you can completely reprogram each button with about 5 options each.

[Zoon]

dapprman said:

Thought with the button you could just program on/off on a device or a room, where as on the dimmer you can set 4 options, and with 3rd party software such as Hue Essentials (Android, not sure it is available for iOS) you can completely reprogram each button with about 5 options each.

I think you can set automations as well.
There are also different settings depending on the time of day.

[smithyithy]

Hi all, wondering if the following scenario is possible, maybe not entirely with Hue, possibly the cheaper IKEA stuff?..

I have two hard-wired outdoor wall lights, one front, one rear. Both are controlled via manual wall switches, just inside the house.

What I'd like to roughly achieve is:

• Indoor wall switches can be kept 'on', no need to manually switch on/off
• Light comes on dim at sunset / evening, gradually goes up to about 50% brightness, then at say 11-12pm, ramps back down to dim, then switches off at sunrise
• Light switches to 100% brightness via a motion sensor, to essentially act as a soft security light

It seems that for example with the IKEA bulbs, I can use their own app, or Alexa / similar, to setup a 'routine' that would achieve the sunset / sunrise ramping, maybe with a bit of tweaking, but it's possible..

IKEA also do a cheap battery powered motion sensor, which I could attach to the porch, so if me or anyone else approaches the door, the light goes to max brightness. But I'm not sure if that will work in conjunction with the 'routine' setup via an app.

Has anyone else done anything similar? I'm honestly not one for smart home automation etc, would rather keep things as basic as possible But I think some kind of 'smart' setup in this scenario could get the results I need, I just don't fancy having to connect a load of hubs and controls and multiple apps etc...

[MBBlat]

smithyithy said:

Hi all, wondering if the following scenario is possible, maybe not entirely with Hue, possibly the cheaper IKEA stuff?..

I have two hard-wired outdoor wall lights, one front, one rear. Both are controlled via manual wall switches, just inside the house.

What I'd like to roughly achieve is:

• Indoor wall switches can be kept 'on', no need to manually switch on/off
• Light comes on dim at sunset / evening, gradually goes up to about 50% brightness, then at say 11-12pm, ramps back down to dim, then switches off at sunrise
• Light switches to 100% brightness via a motion sensor, to essentially act as a soft security light

It seems that for example with the IKEA bulbs, I can use their own app, or Alexa / similar, to setup a 'routine' that would achieve the sunset / sunrise ramping, maybe with a bit of tweaking, but it's possible..

IKEA also do a cheap battery powered motion sensor, which I could attach to the porch, so if me or anyone else approaches the door, the light goes to max brightness. But I'm not sure if that will work in conjunction with the 'routine' setup via an app.

Has anyone else done anything similar? I'm honestly not one for smart home automation etc, would rather keep things as basic as possible But I think some kind of 'smart' setup in this scenario could get the results I need, I just don't fancy having to connect a load of hubs and controls and multiple apps etc...

Definitely possible with Hue, I have almost exactly that setup. The Hue outdoor sensor measures ambient light and temperature as well as motion. The other thing you can do is link to indoor Laoighis, I have almost exactly Hue light strip just inside the front door that comes on with the outside lights.

[ZesPak]

Just went to ikea and bought 4x TRETAKT smart plug. 8 EUR per piece, synced them to the Hue Bridge, works a charm, all the Christmas lights can now be easily activated and set on a timer.
good value I'd say