21 secrets and techniques for mastering your good lights

And you should definitely take a look at our Philips Hue tremendous information for extra helpful hints on establishing and utilizing your good lights.

1. Add a movement sensor

Splash out on a Philips Hue Movement Sensor to your lighting system and you may have sure bulbs come on and off when motion is detected in a room – very helpful for these nighttime lavatory journeys or post-party stumbling into mattress.

The movement sensor is easy to arrange and use. Contained in the Hue cell app, go to Settings then choose Accent setup so as to add and configure the sensor. You’ll be able to set what occurs when motion is detected, wherein room, and for a way lengthy.

There are each indoor and outside fashions out there.

2. Set power-on behaviour

Typically your Hue lights do not at all times activate primarily based on a command from the Hue app: perhaps you flicked the sunshine swap, for instance, or there was an influence minimize.

By way of Energy-on behaviour within the Settings web page of the Hue app, you may set what every Hue bulb ought to do when energy is restored.

3. Join Philips Hue to Google Dwelling

Need to management your Philips Hue lights together with your Google Dwelling audio system or through Google Assistant? It is simply achieved, by the Google Dwelling app for Android or iOS: from the entrance display screen, faucet Add (the plus icon), then Arrange system, then the Works with Google choice.

Decide Philips Hue from the following display screen, and you may join your bulbs. As soon as that is achieved they’re going to be seen within the Google Dwelling app and could be managed through voice instructions like “hey Google, flip off the bed room lights”.

4. Join Philips Hue to Amazon Alexa

In the event you personal an Amazon Echo moderately than a Google Dwelling good speaker, you are not unnoticed. Open up the Alexa app for Android or iOS, then select Units. Faucet the Add icon (the plus image), select Add Gadget, and choose Philips Hue from the listing.

As with Google Dwelling and Google Assistant, you may then management your Hue bulbs together with your voice or although the Alexa app (the Hue app carries on working as regular too). It is a neat approach to mix good lights from totally different producers.

5. Join Philips Hue to Apple Dwelling

You may get your Philips Hue lights related to the Apple Dwelling app too, if it is HomeKit that is connecting your whole good dwelling units. Open up the Dwelling app in your iPhone, then faucet Add (the plus icon) and Add Accent.

You will be prompted to both scan the code on the packaging of your Philips Hue system, or enter it manually. As soon as the system has been added to the Dwelling app, you may incorporate it into your automations and scenes.

6. Use an Amazon Echo Plus, Echo Present or new Echo as a hub

The Amazon Echo Plus was the primary Alexa good speaker to come back with a Zigbee hub inbuilt. That connectivity has additionally been added to some Present fashions, together with the Third-gen Echo Present 10, and the 4th-gen 2020 Echo as nicely.

With these units you may really arrange and function Hue bulbs by the Alexa app and ditch the Hue Bridge utterly. The method is identical as within the earlier step for including the good lights, although you may’t do as many tips with the lights as you may with the official app. We have a full information right here.

7. Add Ikea Trådfri lights to a Philips Hue system

Talking of good lights from totally different producers… As a result of Ikea TrÃ¥dfri bulbs assist the Zigbee normal, you may add them to a Hue Bridge and use the Hue app to regulate them, moderately than the TrÃ¥dfri app.

They need to seem as new bulbs so as to add as soon as you have gone by the steps we have outlined right here.

8. Sync your Hue lights with motion pictures and video games

Because of a free, official Home windows and macOS desktop app, your Hue lights can well sync with the audio and visuals of a film or online game operating in your pc. Setup is easy and solely takes just a few steps, and we have written concerning the course of intimately right here.

You’ll be able to take this a step additional – and streamline the method – in the event you fork out for the superior Hue Play Sync Field, which works with lights just like the Hue Play Gradient lightstrip to supercharge your house film watching.

9. Sync your Hue lights with music

The Hue Sync app we talked about within the earlier tip works with music coming out of your laptop computer or desktop too, however we’re breaking this out as a separate entry in our listing as a result of there are a variety of third-party apps that do the job very capably.

If the Hue Sync app does not fairly do what you are searching for, otherwise you want one thing in your cellphone to match your good cycles with the beats of your music, then Huegasm, Hue Disco, and iLightShow are all value a glance.

10. Cycle by scenes dynamically

Do not ignore the huge array of third-party Philips Hue apps that may add additional capabilities to your lighting system.

Certainly one of our favorites is OnSwitch for Android and iOS (which additionally works with Lifx bulbs, by the best way); it permits you to cycle by every kind of dynamic scenes, from flickering candlelight to colourful strobe lighting.

11. Alter lights primarily based on the daylight

By way of the Hue Labs entry within the Discover tab of the Hue app you may entry some experimental options that the event staff is enjoying round with – like the choice to have routines be depending on the out there daylight.

This one is known as Conditional schedules and solely prompts the required lights if it is darkish outdoors.

12. Cycle by colours mechanically

In the event you’ve bought shade Hue bulbs someplace in your setup, then you should use the Residing scenes system from the Hue Labs part of the app to cycle by totally different shades mechanically.

The app lets you choose a palette of colours and a brightness degree, and you may tweak the transition time between colours too.

13. Scare away burglars with randomised lighting

One other Hue Labs experiment we might like to attract your consideration to is known as Mild schedules with randomness.

That is most useful whenever you’re away from dwelling, as a result of you may set instances to your Hue lights to come back on and off, with a bit little bit of randomness launched to make any potential burglars suppose you are still in the home.

14. Get social media notifications through your lights

Philips Hue is a totally paid up member of the IFTTT (If This Then That) membership, a service that connects totally different apps and platforms collectively (from Fb to Dropbox to Fitbit). It means you may develop Hue’s capabilities with a number of additional triggers and actions that IFTTT refers to as applets.

Join a free account, join your Hue account, and you may then click on Create to construct new applets. For instance, choose Twitter and New point out of you as a set off, and Philips Hue and Blink lights because the motion, and your chosen bulbs will flash each time somebody mentions you on the social community.

15. Get climate warnings through your lights

There are every kind of the way you should use IFTTT to do extra together with your Philips Hue good lights, however here is only one extra instance: create a brand new applet, choose Climate Underground and Present situation adjustments to, then choose Rain and select your location on the map.

For the motion, choose Philips Hue then Change shade. You will then be capable of have one among your Hue lights flip blue every time rain is forecast, and naturally you may adapt the applet to swimsuit no matter form of forecasting necessities you have bought.

16. Slowly flip off or flip in your lights

Head into Routines within the Hue app and you may discover Get up and Fall asleep choices – these allow you to slowly fade up or fade down a specific set of bulbs at a particular time, so you should use them to softly get up within the morning or fall asleep at evening.

17. Use your lights as a timer

Whether or not you are cooking within the kitchen or making an attempt to prepare for work, you should use your lights as a timer – have chosen bulbs activate or off, change brightness, or change shade after a sure time has elapsed.

To get this arrange, select Routines then Timers contained in the Hue app, and observe the prompts on display screen.

18. Robotically flip the lights off whenever you go away the home

Nobody desires to depart a bulb burning unnecessarily, and in the event you’ve bought the Hue app put in in your cellphone then it is aware of the place you might be (or the place your cellphone is no less than).

In the event you faucet Routines, then Dwelling & Away, then Leaving dwelling, you may have some or your whole lights swap off whenever you head out. Simply verify nobody else in your family goes to be plunged into darkness whenever you do.

19. Mimic a thunderstorm together with your Hue lights

One other third-party app we actually like: Thunderstorm for Hue for Android and iOS. It pipes by the sound of a storm (join some Bluetooth audio system to your cellphone for optimum impact), then pulses, flashes and sparkles your chosen Hue lights in time to the sounds. A really cool trick.

20. Customise your lights

As you begin to add increasingly lights to your Philips Hue setup, you may shortly lose observe of which one is the place – that is an issue whether or not you are tapping on icons contained in the app or making an attempt to name out your lights with a voice command.

In the event you faucet Settings after which Mild setup contained in the cell app, you may change each the title and the icon of any of the Philip Hue lights you have put in. Giving them descriptive names will provide help to work out which is which.

21. Get the timings proper

In the event you want your lights to activate or flip off at particular instances of the day – when it’s worthwhile to be reminded to do one thing, perhaps – then that is no drawback for the Philips Hue app on cell.

Select Routines, Different routines, Create routine and At a particular time, and configure the timings as required.