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Philips Hue Discussion

I installed a starter kit with three bulbs at the weekend and added dimmer switches to each bulb,. So far so good, all installed using the Hue app, and all updated to the latest firmware according to the app. A couple of small niggles though...

1) In the Apple Home app, it shows the dimmer switches with an exclamation mark in the tiles for the individual rooms and also on the favourites page, and looking at the details of each switch it says “This accessory requires a home hub to be used with the Home app”. I’m not sure what this means, as I believe they are all connected to the bridge... Any ideas?

2) Is there a way to change the colour temperature with Apple Home app? I can set the brightness and the colour from a set of presets, but can’t see a way to change the colour temperature. Is there a way to do that?

I might just end up using the Philips Hue app, but it would be nice to have it all working in the Appl Home app...

Thanks,

Dave.
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digitaldave said:
1) In the Apple Home app, it shows the dimmer switches with an exclamation mark in the tiles for the individual rooms and also on the favourites page, and looking at the details of each switch it says “This accessory requires a home hub to be used with the Home app”. I’m not sure what this means, as I believe they are all connected to the bridge... Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I’ve just managed to solve this one... apparently it needs a ‘hub’ of some kind, either an Apple TV or an iPad that’s on the home network. I was playing around to see if I could get it to work when I’m away from home, set up my iPad as the hub, and the exclamation marks disappeared .
 
digitaldave said:
2) Is there a way to change the colour temperature with Apple Home app? I can set the brightness and the colour from a set of presets, but can’t see a way to change the colour temperature. Is there a way to do that?
Click to expand...
If all the bulbs and the bridge firmware are up to date, colour temperature setting can indeed be set with the Home app. When you 3D Touch (or long-press) the light bulb icon, you'll see the Color button below the brightness slider. Press that, and then press the Edit circle in the center. You'll be given options for both the colour and the temperature there. Yes, it might be a bit misleading to see that the button to get there is just labeled "Color", but it's the same for the Hue White Ambiance bulbs, which can only change the colour temperature, so at least it's consistent.
 
Thanks for that. I’d seen the edit button, but hadn’t actually pressed it to see what happens!
 
Dumb question, what does the temperature do? I have a number of bulbs but no clue what that is.
 
Am I missing something or is there no way to control the motion sensors in the home app? Does that still need to be configured in the Phillips app?
 
DamFu said:
Dumb question, what does the temperature do? I have a number of bulbs but no clue what that is.
Click to expand...

Just a technical way of describing the shade of a light source.

The lower the more yellow something appears, the higher the more white and then blue it appears. 2700k is typical “soft white” of incandescent household lighting. 5000k is typical “daylight” of fluorescent tube office lighting.
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bbednarz57 said:
Am I missing something or is there no way to control the motion sensors in the home app? Does that still need to be configured in the Phillips app?
Click to expand...

It being a sensor can’t it be accessed under automation?

I don’t have one so I’m not sure but you be able to use it as a trigger after their recent update.
 
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bbednarz57 said:
Am I missing something or is there no way to control the motion sensors in the home app? Does that still need to be configured in the Phillips app?
Click to expand...
You can’t, at the moment, control the parameters of the Hue motion sensor’s operation under HomeKit, that is, stuff like sensitivity or active duration. Ideally, Hue app should provide such control, but once you configure it to work in HomeKit, it just lets it go.
 
So I posted a while ago about some issues I’d been having with my Hue lights. I think I may have solved the issue, so wanted to post in case anyone else was having the same problem.

My issue was, in a house full of different kinds of Homekit devices, the Hues were consistently the one group of things that always seemed to have issues. I’d get a “No Response” on all of my Hue lights probably about 50% of the time. It was frustrating.

One thing that was suggested to me was to move my Hue bridge farther away from my router (an AirPort Extreme latest gen). It was pretty close, but given the layout of my house and where the router happened to be, there really was no way to get it like a foot or two away from the router, since the Bridge needed to be connected via Ethernet.

But then about a month ago I decided to try connecting the Bridge to a powerline adapter so that I could move it into another room, away from the router. I don’t want to jinx myself here, but since then my lights have been rock solid. The one time they gave me the “no response” error message was when the powerline adapter needed to be restarted. That happened once a few days after I set it up, and since then I haven’t noticed any issues at all. I even connected to my Home app from across the country when I was on vacation and they never gave me the “no response” error. It’s been awesome.

So, if anyone is having this type of issue, and think that the proximity of your Bridge to your router might be part of the problem, it can’t hurt to try this. And this is the type of adapter I’m using.
 
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boston04and07 said:
So I posted a while ago about some issues I’d been having with my Hue lights. I think I may have solved the issue, so wanted to post in case anyone else was having the same problem.

My issue was, in a house full of different kinds of Homekit devices, the Hues were consistently the one group of things that always seemed to have issues. I’d get a “No Response” on all of my Hue lights probably about 50% of the time. It was frustrating.

One thing that was suggested to me was to move my Hue bridge farther away from my router (an AirPort Extreme latest gen). It was pretty close, but given the layout of my house and where the router happened to be, there really was no way to get it like a foot or two away from the router, since the Bridge needed to be connected via Ethernet.

But then about a month ago I decided to try connecting the Bridge to a powerline adapter so that I could move it into another room, away from the router. I don’t want to jinx myself here, but since then my lights have been rock solid. The one time they gave me the “no response” error message was when the powerline adapter needed to be restarted. That happened once a few days after I set it up, and since then I haven’t noticed any issues at all. I even connected to my Home app from across the country when I was on vacation and they never gave me the “no response” error. It’s been awesome.

So, if anyone is having this type of issue, and think that the proximity of your Bridge to your router might be part of the problem, it can’t hurt to try this. And this is the type of adapter I’m using.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info.

I still have the odd light that doesn't respond - so I'll give it a try over the holidays.

FWIW, my hue bridge is about 4 feet from an airport access point - so definitely worth a shot.

Thanks.
 
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For those looking for Hue bulbs, Amazon currently have White & Color 3rd Generation bulbs on sale for $31.99, down from $49.99. Lightstrips are also $49 again, but are also available from other retailers at the same price.
 
We just got a lightstrip plus today and it is about to drive us insane. We tested it first and saw that we had different colors and everything seem to be working. So then we installed it above our kitchen cabinet and now the white lights never turn off, so that means that the colors are not bright. When we try to turn the lights off with our app, it only turns off the scene; the white lights stay on. The only way to turn off the whitish lights off is to unplug them. I wish I’d never bought them as I am way beyond frustrated.

We have deleted the lights from the app and readded it several times. Our hues lights and hues bloom are working fine- just the damned lightstrip plus won’t work right.

Any thoughts??
 
TexasErin said:
We just got a lightstrip plus today and it is about to drive us insane. We tested it first and saw that we had different colors and everything seem to be working. So then we installed it above our kitchen cabinet and now the white lights never turn off, so that means that the colors are not bright. When we try to turn the lights off with our app, it only turns off the scene; the white lights stay on. The only way to turn off the whitish lights off is to unplug them. I wish I’d never bought them as I am way beyond frustrated.

We have deleted the lights from the app and readded it several times. Our hues lights and hues bloom are working fine- just the damned lightstrip plus won’t work right.

Any thoughts??
Click to expand...
This is likely to be a hardware fault and is in no way how Hue Light Strips should work. Either the strip isn’t plugged into the controller properly or the controller is faulty. You should get it exchanged in any case. None of the lights should be on when the strip is commanded to be turned off. The “white” light is part of the three-LED bundle that create the colour and should never be independently in an “always-on” state.
 
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I'm convinced after reading multiple reviews and watching multiple hands on demonstrations that Phillip Hue bulbs are overrated. LIFX is brighter and better.
 
Starfyre said:
I'm convinced after reading multiple reviews and watching multiple hands on demonstrations that Phillip Hue bulbs are overrated. LIFX is brighter and better.
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate on "better"?

I can see why someone would feel Lifx is better however it becomes very subjective.

Having both if someone asked me which to get I would need details on where they would be used, what they are using it for, type of fixture use in, how many they wanted, whether color and/or color temperature was important, etc before I could give them a recommendation.
 
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Starfyre said:
I'm convinced after reading multiple reviews and watching multiple hands on demonstrations that Phillip Hue bulbs are overrated. LIFX is brighter and better.
Click to expand...

Better in this case is subjective. I can control Hue bulbs with Lutron Connected Bulb remotes in multigang switch arrangements. There’s no such solution for Lifx to my knowledge. Also, with 9 bulbs and potentially more to come, this is a case where a I prefer a hub based solution, as opposed to a bunch of separate bulbs trying to communicate directly with my router. Lifx also previously discontinued their white color temperature adjustable bulbs, which doesn’t exactly give me faith in their commitment to them. Plus I got my color Hues ridiculously cheap on cyber Monday.
 
cynics said:
Care to elaborate on "better"?

I can see why someone would feel Lifx is better however it becomes very subjective.

Having both if someone asked me which to get I would need details on where they would be used, what they are using it for, type of fixture use in, how many they wanted, whether color and/or color temperature was important, etc before I could give them a recommendation.
Click to expand...

I was watching this YouTube video.
 
Starfyre said:
I was watching this YouTube video.
Click to expand...
Curiously, while I did feel that having multiple controllable sections on LIFX light strip was quite an advantage, it is the one product that’s actually dimmer than the one from Philips Hue series (1400 vs 1600) at its default length.
 
Not interested in LIFX, and I’ve looked at it in detail in comparison to Hue.

My take: LIFX seems like more of a hobby/novelty sort of product rather than a mass-market replacement for conventional lighting.

That said, LIFX may make sense for a few bulbs for a limited purpose (e.g., dorm room) but it’s not a complete system like Hue that can grow and be installed in a typical 4-bedroom house/apartment and operated by all occupants as easily as regular lights.
 
I'm just starting to dip my toes into the smart home stuff and I'm looking at the Hue lights. Beyond the obvious, what is the difference between the White and White + Color sets besides the color version costing about 2x the White only version?

If I buy the white only version, will I be able to add color lights down the line (is the hub the same between the two versions)?

For people who have the color version, why did you choose that over the white only version?
 
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