Philips Hue App Gets Design Overhaul

[justperry]

Now...rebuilt for hardware...🤔

There's one major issue with Hue, no feedback to in wall switches, therefor it a no go for me.
There are (Far) better and cheaper solutions than Hue.

One positive, the light output/quality is top notch.

 

[caligurl]

I would still like to see an option to pick the color temperature. Not the named scenes but an actual kelvin number.

THIS! although I do it now because I purchased a separate app that allows that. but it should have been/should be included in the official hue app!

 

[ericgtr12]

This app is and has always been terribly designed, it seems like they focus way more on aesthetics than actual functionality, it's clunky and not at all intuitive. I have Hue bulbs setup all over my house and use Smartthings to control them, I'll open the Hue app maybe once a year for updates and that's about it.

 

[Razorpit]

Anyone have crazy issues with Siri saying lights aren’t responding but they in fact do?

I have scenes that I haven’t touched in 2-3 years suddenly change. For example “Goodnight Siri” turns off the living room lights, but dims the kitchen light to a nightlight mode. Now it turns the kitchen light off, and Siri tells me one of the other lights is not responding, but they do.

Siri then says you can ask me which one of the lights is not responding but every time I try to ask that question I always get some other stupid Siri response. I have no idea what the Proper syntax is to ask her which light isn’t responding (but actually is). 🙄

I don’t know if it is my router, my bridge, or something else I haven’t thought of. All software (lights and bridge) is up to date according to the Hue app.

 

[sojer2005]

It was badly designed before, and having now played with the new version for a few minutes it's still badly designed, but in a new way. They've copied the Home app, which also has stupidly over-sized buttons and horizontal scrolling needed. Eurgh.

Yes I agree with you. Additionally, the previous version was much smoother. I have the impression that the new one is not well optimized

 

[chris4565]

Yes I agree with you. Additionally, the previous version was much smoother. I have the impression that the new one is not well optimized

Yeah, it's not great performance wise. I closed it out of the app switcher and restarted it. It's now better but still not as smooth as it was in the past.

 

[symphony]

Does it properly sync between iPhone and iPad?

 

[ZzapDK]

They have made it worse…they have removed widgets and made it go through shortcuts
You can have a shortcut to turn one light on…it’s all or nothing

Not true, but the user interface is now quite complex.

An iOS "Shortcuts" shortcut can have many actions, allowing you to add multiple lights to a shortcut.
But you would be better off creating a shortcut based on a room or a zone. A zone allows you to control a selection of lights across room boundaries (in my case - all the lights for several rooms at once).
You create zones in the Hue app (the "..." on the app home screen, top right).

The Shortcuts app allows you to create folders and you can place a shortcut in in multiple folders - so it works more like a "tag" than a "folder".
First you want to add a widget of the size you want. When you have completed this, you long-press the widget to edit the widget. Here you can select the folder you want the widget to expose.

It works well, although I find the 8-size widget to be waaay too large. I would have liked the option of a widget only being shown by it's custom icon

EDIT: I wanted a set of shortcuts with identical settings, the only difference being the scene. I only found out later, that I could have created the initial shortcut and then just used long-press to make duplicates

 

[alexandr]

They have made it worse…they have removed widgets and made it go through shortcuts
You can have a shortcut to turn one light on…it’s all or nothing

did you always use the hue app, or home?

 

[Shin-Ra]

It’s stupid that you still need to activate a scene to edit it. It should just be a long press to edit or delete.

Hue Labs is even more hidden than before (Automations tab — '…' button)

And there’s no Adaptive Lighting (or equivalent) support in the Hue app so if you rely on Hue Labs for a sensor pair or other advanced config, you have to manually set colour temperatures for (usually 3) time periods which is nowhere near as smooth and doesn’t match lights that are using HomeKit Adaptive lighting.

 

[Feek]

Really good news - The old app was painfully slow for me, just opening it took between thirty seconds and a minute and doing anything within the app was just as slow. The new one is super-speedy, just how it should be.

 

[clcnyc]

That’s great, but I wish Apple would just make the adaptive lighting feature work properly with the hue bulbs! I have to adjust them daily, then though they’re all set to AL. 😡

 

[Khedron]

"Modern" trash design. Why do I need to horizontally scroll scenes and lights when 1/3 of the screen is empty?

 

[svish]

Looks like a good update

 

[dohspc]

If anyone uses Hue Labs it was moved to the Automations area. Scroll to the bottom and select the toggle under Other.

 

[iansilv]

Why can't they bring the color flow out of the hue labs? Why can't we get that as an option in the standard scenes??

 

[Powerbooky]

I hope that the Hue app doesn't mess up my Homekit rooms and zones again. Older Hue app versions did move random lights to the "default room" when syncing with Homekit. That crippled some Homekit rules and timers.

That’s great, but I wish Apple would just make the adaptive lighting feature work properly with the hue bulbs! I have to adjust them daily, then though they’re all set to AL. 😡

I find HomeKit "Adaptive lighting" not very perfect. The colour temperature curve seems to fit a place that is near the equator where it is always summer. It doesn't really match the conditions and timing of my location. Also... I mis the option that the lightness also changes.

But again... Homekit also misses the option of a transition time for a light. Now I have to mix Hue routines with Homekit rules to get the most out of it.

 

[MareLuce]

It's not letting me switch to my second bridge.

 

[Alwis]

The new App does not connect to the bridge when the bridge has no internet connection. That worked fine with the previous version

 

[pcdsl]

I wish they would update the Hue Labs screens. Also it seems like the app UI doesn't run very smoothly, I guess Flutter jank.

 

[adrianlondon]

The new App does not connect to the bridge when the bridge has no internet connection. That worked fine with the previous version

Yep - I've ran the app, checked for updates for my bulbs, and now won't use the app any more (as by default I don't connect home automation stuff to the internet, only my LAN).

 

[McScooby]

Looks like a good update

Just installed it, it's mince, reminds me of web-apps way back in the day, slow & sluggish that & having to set stuff back up again (within reason).

 

[McScooby]

I wish they would update the Hue Labs screens. Also it seems like the app UI doesn't run very smoothly, I guess Flutter jank.

Exactly my thoughts, rather than be a link to a webpage, there should be a dedicated section within the app for the chosen formulas, too clunky the way it is.

 

[Neil Harrison]

Not true, but the user interface is now quite complex.

An iOS "Shortcuts" shortcut can have many actions, allowing you to add multiple lights to a shortcut.
But you would be better off creating a shortcut based on a room or a zone. A zone allows you to control a selection of lights across room boundaries (in my case - all the lights for several rooms at once).
You create zones in the Hue app (the "..." on the app home screen, top right).

The Shortcuts app allows you to create folders and you can place a shortcut in in multiple folders - so it works more like a "tag" than a "folder".
First you want to add a widget of the size you want. When you have completed this, you long-press the widget to edit the widget. Here you can select the folder you want the widget to expose.

It works well, although I find the 8-size widget to be waaay too large. I would have liked the option of a widget only being shown by it's custom icon

EDIT: I wanted a set of shortcuts with identical settings, the only difference being the scene. I only found out later, that I could have created the initial shortcut and then just used long-press to make duplicates

Will have look, I only spent 5 mins on it and got frustrated..I too have the 8 widget and it’s far too big

 

[Neil Harrison]

did you always use the hue app, or home?

I used both but before I would use the home app to create automations and control the lights. I used the hue widget to control scenes, which was easy to get to