Philips Hue App Gains Support for Widgets

[Onelifenofear]

There's only one excellent Hue feature, dimming is the best you can get.

Otherwise the Hue system is meh, example:
When someone switches off the wall switch (EU standard switches) connected to the bulb the light won't work, that's a huge issue and to me the biggest nono for home automation.
Also, way overpriced.

I use shelly's with custom homekit firmware, the (Shelly) dimmers suck though.

I wish, someday, Apples homekit will be able to control a lot more and includes all kind of sensors, that'll be great.

You can get covers that go over the light switches so they are on all the time and magnetically hold a Hue dimmer. I have 18 of these in my house. When you remove theHue dimmer you can poke your finger though a hole to turn the physical switch on / off if you need to.

The benefit of this method is you don’t need 2/3 way wired switches for bedside lights or dual light points… You can stick them anywhere. Much cheaper for a lighting install.

I am using homekit switches in a couple of places where the lights are static Like the garage

Only 2 lights in the house that are Not hue or HomeKit controllable. Hob extractor downlight and utility cupboard

 

[darthbane2k]

You can get covers that go over the light switches so they are on all the time and magnetically hold a Hue dimmer. I have 18 of these in my house. When you remove theHue dimmer you can poke your finger though a hole to turn the physical switch on / off if you need to.

The benefit of this method is you don’t need 2/3 way wired switches for bedside lights or dual light points… You can stick them anywhere. Much cheaper for a lighting install.

I am using homekit switches in a couple of places where the lights are static Like the garage

Only 2 lights in the house that are Not hue or HomeKit controllable. Hob extractor downlight and utility cupboard

Or this. Problem solved.

Hue Wall switch module | Philips Hue UK

Installed behind light switches, the Hue wall switch module lets you use existing switches with your Philips Hue smart lights. Order now!

www.philips-hue.com

 

[alexandr]

I was never able to get the Home app to work properly with my lights, every now and then they would show as unreachable, I guess because I have regular switches installed in the house (non-smart) and the lights would occasionally be offline, but there was no way to "refresh" their status - also had lots of issues with colored lights, there was no way to easily pick the colors or the scenes etc. I felt more comfortable with the Hue app, despite its flaws... i would still love to switch to the Home app and its widgets as they're supposed to be better integrated in the system, but I have never been able to make it work for me.
It might have something to do with me not having an official Appple enabled Hub in the house? I only have the Philips hue hub which doesn't seem to be supported officially by HomeKit as a hub.

Well yea, there is no workaround a light that has been physically switched off)
So not sure what you mean about the hue hub not being supported by HomeKit... You can't use it as a Home hub, no (that would be odd), but it is fully supported by HomeKit.

 

[alexandr]

I used to until it stopped seeing the Hue bridge. Nothing I seem to do can find it again. Any advice?

Have you tried to reset the bridge in the Hue app? I'm assuming you attempted an on/off without my advice)

 

[alexandr]

… and as for the Matter mess with Hue and Apple HomeKit. I’m not sure my setup is back to normal yet.

What happened with that? Remind me, was there a step that you needed to take in order for this to go into effect? I never did anything and haven't had any issues.

 

[alexandr]

Oh man I think the dynamic scenes in the Hue app are pretty great though

They totally are, but I got bored with that in about five minutes, and chose convenience over scenes. Completely a matter of preference though.

 

[alexandr]

you cant control hue dynamic light features with the home app. i failed in trying this

Nope, you can't. If that's something you care about — hue app it is

 

[cad871]

Widgets are blank. Can they improve the HomeKit integration

Yep, then I accidently discovered that when adding the widget, AFTER you hit Add Widget (after select which one), you need to click on the wiggling widget BEFORE you hit done. Then a window opens and asks you to choose your options. Then can click done. Or if already added the widget, click on widget until it wiggles and then choose edit and do same, choose options. Hope that helps! Not intuitive at all.

 

[philstubbington]

What happened with that? Remind me, was there a step that you needed to take in order for this to go into effect? I never did anything and haven't had any issues.

I think I reset the Hue Bridge and paired. I’ve still got one solitary lightbulb that doesn’t come on properly.

 

[alexandr]

I think I reset the Hue Bridge and paired. I’ve still got one solitary lightbulb that doesn’t come on properly.

Yea, I never did that. I think I heard that people were having issues. I have had bulbs crap out on me over the years too... Have you tried resetting the bulb in the Hue app?

 

[StanleyOmar]

Why wouldn’t you just use the Home app/shortcuts for this? Seems like a waste of development effort

I had the Home widget and Shortcuts before this and find the dedicated Hue widget gives you better access to the scenes and full range of color options in the Hue app than at least what the Home widget did. The Home widget (assuming I had it set up correctly), basically only allowed you to turn a light on and off, and the Hue widget definitely looks nicer than the Shortcuts widget.

 

[Neil Harrison]

Yep, then I accidently discovered that when adding the widget, AFTER you hit Add Widget (after select which one), you need to click on the wiggling widget BEFORE you hit done. Then a window opens and asks you to choose your options. Then can click done. Or if already added the widget, click on widget until it wiggles and then choose edit and do same, choose options. Hope that helps! Not intuitive at all.

You are genius! Thank you. I didn’t think about that. Need to add some scenes to make it better to choose

That said, Still feels like they have just copied the home kit widget.

 

[OTACORB]

No more Hue Phillips lighting or any of their other products. Over priced and honestly what they offer over the competition is very minimal. I have slowly moved away from Hue and I cannot recommend them to anyone because they are so over priced. Save your money and look at the options.

 

[macjaffa]

There's only one excellent Hue feature, dimming is the best you can get.

Otherwise the Hue system is meh, example:
When someone switches off the wall switch (EU standard switches) connected to the bulb the light won't work, that's a huge issue and to me the biggest nono for home automation.

this is a great feature it means people can still use the lights without faffing with apps and things the normal way lights are used

 

[macjaffa]

No more Hue Phillips lighting or any of their other products. Over priced and honestly what they offer over the competition is very minimal. I have slowly moved away from Hue and I cannot recommend them to anyone because they are so over priced. Save your money and look at the options.

What do you use instead?

 

[J InTech82]

Have you tried to reset the bridge in the Hue app? I'm assuming you attempted an on/off without my advice)

I've tried everything. Reset the bridge in the Hue app. Removed it from both the Hue app and HomeKit and tried to re-sync and nothing. It only now works on the Hue app. I do have a HomePod too.

 

[alexandr]

I've tried everything. Reset the bridge in the Hue app. Removed it from both the Hue app and HomeKit and tried to re-sync and nothing. It only now works on the Hue app. I do have a HomePod too.

Hm, so Hue app sees your Hue bridge, but HomeKit won't? TBH I would call apple support — they've helped me in stranger situations. You could also try to reach out to Hue, but I think apple might be better.

 

[baking soda]

Well yea, there is no workaround a light that has been physically switched off)
So not sure what you mean about the hue hub not being supported by HomeKit... You can't use it as a Home hub, no (that would be odd), but it is fully supported by HomeKit.

View attachment 2365099

Yeah I meant using it as a Home Hub. Guess I'll buy an Apple TV eventually, we own an iPad but my gf takes it to work every day, would that work still? I guess it wouldn't be of much use though when I'm back home but she's still out. Apple TV that sits at home all day (or HomePod) would make more sense.

 

[ds2000]

Why wouldn’t you just use the Home app/shortcuts for this? Seems like a waste of development effort

Some of us run home assistant, I personally really diskliked Apples Home app

 

[baking soda]

No more Hue Phillips lighting or any of their other products. Over priced and honestly what they offer over the competition is very minimal. I have slowly moved away from Hue and I cannot recommend them to anyone because they are so over priced. Save your money and look at the options.

Agreed, way overpriced, surprised they're still in the market lol. I managed to get a bunch of unused lamps for a fraction of the price, can't see myself paying full price for any of those though, considering most of the bulbs are 806 lumen which is nowhere as decently bright (which means I need several light for each fixture to obtain an acceptable result). the 1000+ lumen models are rare and even more overpriced, it's outrageous.

 

[philstubbington]

Yea, I never did that. I think I heard that people were having issues. I have had bulbs crap out on me over the years too... Have you tried resetting the bulb in the Hue app?

Tried that - not entirely sure it's worked as for some bizarre reason it only seems to be one scene (in HomeKit) this particular bulb doesn't work properly with. It showed up in the HomeKit app as 100% but clearly wasn't.

.... and now I've removed the bulb and added it back in (the Hue app) it's not showing in the Home app....

 

[gimmesomemo]

Great no option to start tv syncing 🫥. The one thing which would actually save having to open the app regularly…

I guess it will be nice with a small
Widget just to start one or two dynamic scenes, which don’t work when starting with HomeKit.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I run all my Hue lights through the Home app — can't stand the native Hue app, it's just blah. But good for them, I suppose.

I’m the opposite but then I think whatever you use first and get used to. When I open the home app it confuses me as I see all the bulbs separately rather than in the sets I have set up on hue. But probably I’m missing something there.

 

[alexandr]

I’m the opposite but then I think whatever you use first and get used to. When I open the home app it confuses me as I see all the bulbs separately rather than in the sets I have set up on hue. But probably I’m missing something there.

It's super easy to group bulbs into sets — otherwise it would be crazy annoying — as I'm sure you've noticed Hue bulbs aren't the brightest, and I go way back before the 1600L bulbs ever existed, so I have several bulbs sitting on each 'light'. If you'd like I can send a screenshot, but yea — totally doable!

 

[alexandr]

Tried that - not entirely sure it's worked as for some bizarre reason it only seems to be one scene (in HomeKit) this particular bulb doesn't work properly with. It showed up in the HomeKit app as 100% but clearly wasn't.

.... and now I've removed the bulb and added it back in (the Hue app) it's not showing in the Home app....

I'm not even sure) I've emailed Hue — they aren't bad at helping out with such issues. Or Apple, they've helped me solve issues too.