I have a few Philips Hue lights around the house, but I haven't used the official app in over a year. Even though it's recently been updated to add some nifty features and a modern design overhaul, the app is still limited to only controlling your lights (and even then, only a specific brand of lights).
I don't want one app to control half my lights, one for my TV, and one for reporting sensor data. In fact, I don't want to control any of them manually unless something is broken. A smart home is supposed to be smart enough to do everything automatically!
So here are 6 ways you can make your Philip Hue lights more useful, and augment - or ditch - the default Hue lighting app. Don't be a slave to your so-called "smart" devices!
If-This-Then-That is probably the easiest upgrade you can give your Hue lighting system, and it requires no additional purchases. All you need is to sign up for a free IFTTT account, then find any “recipes” that interest you.
By installing the IFTTT app on your phone, you can use your phone's GPS signal to trigger actions when you get home or leave for work. Here's a simple recipe to get you started:turn off all the lights when you leave the house:
You can also use the same recipe with other family members' mobile devices, perhaps activating a light to indicate when they've arrived at work, home, or elsewhere. This is called geofencing, and it has a variety of uses. How you can use Geofencing to improve your privacy and security. How you can use Geofencing to improve your privacy and security. Geofencing uses GPS to define geographical boundaries and can be very useful for managing your staff. security. Read more.
It's easy to pair your Hue bulbs with any of the hundreds of services available on IFTTT (most of which aren't particularly useful, like using the weather channel to change the lights to blue if it's going to rain), but the service is very limited. You can't have conditional scripts or combine different recipes, so you're limited to one trigger connected to one action (for multiple users, this would mean all the lights go off while someone is home). Zapier offers multi-step automation. Create stunning life automations with multiple steps. Create amazing life automations with multiple steps. Zapier, IFTTT's biggest competitor, announced that it now offers users the ability to create multiple action automations called multi-step zaps. Read More
There is also often a delay, sometimes up to 5 minutes, so IFTTT is not suitable for use with a motion sensor, for example. For more complex and time-critical interactions, you'll need to spend a bit.
Zuli's smart plug uses your smartphone and Bluetooth scanning to perform presence detection for multiple users. Place a Zuli smart socket in one of the sockets in the room, and it's detected when you're in that room (or rather, when your phone is in that room ).
The principle is identical to our self-locking office door project. Make an auto lock office door with proximity sensor for smartphones. Make an auto lock office door with proximity sensor for smartphones. We will be configuring a Raspberry Pi with a Bluetooth adapter so that it is powered on. look for the when your smartphone is out of range and activate a relay to lock the door. Read More Having recently added Hue support, you can now specify lighting profiles for different users and rooms; so when you walk into the living room, Zuli's smart plug detects that you're there and turns on the lights. It also works with Nest, if you have a home with individual thermostatic room control. A 3-pack is available for $120; iOS only.
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If that's too limited for your needs, you'll need to...
If you have a selection of disparate smart home products, each with their own control apps, the most important upgrade you can make to your system is to purchase a smart home hub.
“But I already have the center of Hue.!” you cry Unfortunately, that little white box that comes with your Hue starter kit isn't actually a hub, it's just a network bridge between the proprietary Zigbee network that the lights go on and your home computer network. . There are no brains inside the Hue bridge, so to make your Hue lights smarter and more autonomous than the simple smartphone app allows, and to connect them to other smart home devices, you'll need a hub.
This device will sit on your network and act as a central controller to replace all those different applications. At a deeper level, it will allow you to automate actions based on time, user presence, and other sensor readings. This allows you to, for example, turn on your hue lights when motion is detected and light levels are low - a huge improvement over pulling out your mobile phone just to turn on a light!
There is a wide variety of smart home hubs. Battle of the Smart Home Hubs:What's Out There and What's Next? Battle of the Smart Home Hubs:What's Out There and What's Next? Read More Samsung SmartThings is generally considered the easiest to use, and there's a range of proprietary sensors you can integrate, as well as compatibility with a wide range of Z-Wave devices (a well-established standard for home automation devices). .
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Use a SmartThings arrival sensor to turn lighting on and off when you arrive and leave home. A motion sensor will give you more granular control for lighting in specific rooms. For your living room, use this Kodi add-on to control and react to media playback states, like "dims the lights when Kodi is playing".
One word of advice though:Stick to the big established brands and ignore smart home hubs that promise to be compatible with any smart home device or those that require a connection to a cloud server to work. Revolv was an up-and-coming company that integrated many different smart home networks; was bought by Google and shut down, citing higher cloud server support and maintenance costs (despite originally being sold on a "lifetime subscription").
Revolv hubs are now as useless as a hockey puck. Facebook Helps Blind People See, Google Bricks Smart Home Devices... [Tech News Digest] Facebook Helps Blind People See, Google Bricks Smart Home Devices... [Tech News Digest], Smart Devices for Google's Revolv Home, play a 3D version of Zelda in your browser, stream the Beatles Anthology online, and get Chromecast working on an old TV. Read more . Klug is still in the crowdfunding stages, but it promises to “just plug it into your router” and it will magically make all the smart devices in your home work together. I won't, I promise you, nothing is that simple when it comes to smart home devices. Avoid hubs that promise too much and are not backed by a large company or established user base.
If you can't find a hub that meets all your needs, or you don't want to be tied to a particular manufacturer, don't worry, you can always make your own.
The two most popular DIY solutions to get your own home automation hub rolling are currently OpenHAB and Home Assistant; both can run on a Raspberry Pi and have a large community of programmers working tirelessly to provide free integrations with a variety of smart home devices, including Philips Hue.
In fact, there is no commercially available hub that offers nearly the same level of compatibility as any of these. I'm currently running OpenHAB to integrate:
Extensive scripting support allows me to code in some complex automation rules to trigger a large number of devices with a single scene command, as well as motion sensors with a timer for basic lighting. This is all done with a $35 Raspberry Pi and a USB Z-Wave adapter.
However, this comes at a price:you are expected to run through long and complex installations (usually with a command line), set things up yourself, and seek your own online support when things don't work. Don't worry, as I've written a comprehensive start with the OpenHAB guide Getting Started with OpenHAB Home Automation on Raspberry Pi Getting Started with OpenHAB Home Automation on Raspberry Pi OpenHAB is a mature, open source home automation platform that works on a variety of hardware and is protocol independent, which means it can connect to almost any home automation hardware on the market today. Read more, as well as a second tutorial on integrating Z-Wave sensors and MQTT protocols OpenHAB Beginner's Guide Part 2:ZWave, MQTT, Rules and Charting OpenHAB Beginner's Guide 2:ZWave, MQTT, Rules and Charting OpenHAB, the source Open source automation software far exceeds the capabilities of other home automation systems on the market, but it's not easy to set up. In fact, it can be downright frustrating. Read more.
Voice control of your home is the stuff of sci-fi movies, but you can have it now. If you have a second-generation Philips Hue bridge (that's the square one with the rounded corners, not the circular one), congratulations:your system can now be linked to Apple devices for Siri control.
To set it up, simply open the Hue app and navigate to Settings -> Siri Voice Control , which will export your lights and scenes to the Apple HomeKit profile. You should immediately be able to control your lights with Siri; try something like “Turn on the light in my room and change it to pink.” or just set the scene “set bedtime” .
You'll need an Apple TV if you want to use this when you're away from home. To set up more complex commands that chain multiple actions together, use the free Elgato Eve app, which works with anything compatible (not just Elgato products). We even show you how to make your lights faux hue with a Raspberry Pi. How to make a DIY Siri controlled Wi-Fi light. How to make a Wi-Fi light by DIY Siri control. In this guide, you will learn how to create a Wi-Fi controllable light and control it with Siri. Read more.
Amazon's Echo and other devices that integrate Alexa voice services can also control your Hue bulbs. To enable this new skill, open the Alexa app and go to Skills -> Refine -> Smart Home Skills , and find the Philips Hue option. Unfortunately, you're limited to brightness and on/off; there is no color control, at least not without some complex workarounds.
Like most things, there's also a DIY option for voice control:there's a Hue module available for Jasper, an open source voice command system that can always be run on the Raspberry Pi.
“Ambilight” has become a generic term for screen backlights that change to match on-screen action, but the term originated as a branded feature of certain Philips TVs. It's like surround sound, but for light. The new Ambilight-capable Philips TV now also integrates with the rest of the Hue room lighting, and the effect is quite amazing:
Unfortunately it appears that Philips no longer makes TVs for the US market so you should either import or look at DIY options.
The HueImmersive Java application achieves a similar effect by averaging the colors on your monitor. There's also a faster, Mac-specific option that runs on Python. There's even a MineCraft Hue plugin, which adds a huge amount of immersion to the game.
There are many useful and entertaining ways to use connected tone lights, so I'm sure we've missed a few. Have you tried immersive gaming or TV experiences, or do you prefer more practical solutions, like waking up with a color to indicate the current weather? What is the most useful way you have found to automate your lighting?
