Philips Hue Lighting - owners thread

[Alex L]

I go to home and then selected the lights in my living room and saved a new scene with the required colour and brightness, did the same for dining room and then went to my routine and the new scene doesn't show.

[Oakey]

Delete the routine and create it again? Scenes is between Defaults and Light Recipes or should be

[Alex L]

It transpires you can't use "scenes" if your routine is for multiple rooms.

I had both living room and dining room combined but if I separate them out and have two different routines it allows me to select a scene.

Problem solved.

Thanks

[Oakey]

Ah that explains it.

What are the routines? If you use IFTT you can have them come on at sunset, etc

[Alex L]

The routines are a simple on and off at a set time. The default recipes were either too bright or too dim so needed a mid point.

[RammyMP]

I was thinking of installing a lighting strip under my kitchen units, am I best buying a starter kit with a hub bridge? Does the hub bridge need to be plugged into the network or is it wireless?

Cheers chaps!

[Oakey]

Wired. It does have wifi built into it but it's not enabled for some reason.

[RammyMP]

That's the end of that plan then. It will have to be a strip light on a time switch.

Cheers!

[djdest]

Hold on, you need to have the bridge connected via a Ethernet cable to your router, then everything else is wireless

[RammyMP]

So if I've got a bridge connected to the router in the hallway the strip would work with a hub in the kitchen. This could get expensive!

[Alex L]

Yes, assuming your kitchen isn't miles from the router and there's a wifi connection.

[RammyMP]

It should work then.

Thanks fellas!

[Mattt]

As I understand it the lights also operate as a kind of mesh network so they automatically extend the range of the bridge

[Lucas Ayde]

Mattt said:

As I understand it the lights also operate as a kind of mesh network so they automatically extend the range of the bridge

Yes, the Hue Hub talks to the lights via a wireless protocol called 'zigbee' and together the hub and all the bulbs form a mesh network.

Wifi is not used at all by the lights. There is WiFi from the smartphone/ tablet to the router which then talks to the Hub via wired ethernet.

[jmorgan]

At the moment I have a fluorescent strip in the kitchen. Not sure what k but bright and does what I want, that is I like to see what I am doing. What are the hue ships like? Is that a silly question with these?

Going for a starter kit and the strips piqued my interest.

[djdest]

Ikea bulbs now work with Hue, they've released a firmware update to sort it

https://www.smarthomegeeks.co.uk/news/ikea-tradfri...

[Oakey]

Is there a massive saving between the IKEA bulbs and the Philips ones?

[djdest]

They are cheaper, I've not done any proper comparisons yet, but you also get a wider range of bulbs and lights too

[Oakey]

Philips do B22, E27, E14 and GU10, what else is there?

[jmorgan]

Dipping my toe in the water today with a hue kit. Had run ins with Ikea electrics over the years so will await reports before going down that route.

Still would like to know how good the strips are with regards replacing a fluorescent tube.