Had my birthday in January and couldn't quite decide what to do with the money I had left over from it. I was considering getting my hands dirty on some Internet of Things stuff. I came to the conclusion that I sort of feel that the lights are very practical and it's something I'd use every day and wouldn't go to waste, etc.
My albinism lets me enjoy sensitivity to light - blargh - so being able to be in a room and set it from bright white to 1% yellow so I can still see enough as a nightlight without waking up for some water and enjoying a headache because I have to turn some old fashioned dimmer on or whatever.. Quite the solution.
Sceptical that this stuff would work and work the way I would want, I got the starter kit, figured out there's a bunch of options, and figured out besides white or just a color, there's ambience color and white or whatever their latest generation 3 stuff is. I got the package, tried it out and was quite impressed.
The bridge installed just fine on the router, my iPhone found it in half a second, and the lights were identified a second later. Setting up rooms, setting up their preferred scenes. Making some widgets. Logging into hue online to get remote access working properly. Syncing to homekit is automatic. Siri integration works just great. And it didn't last long before I bought 2 more extension bulbs for the other rooms.
Setting up auto off and auto on routines for leaving and coming back, fantastic. I have it set so the kitchen light goes to dimmed, as well as the hallway. And the rest gets turned off. And when I am back, they go to a relax scene and turn on the living room and bedroom.
Additional setups are like a nightlight that just leaves the hallway and kitchen on. A widget to turn it all off, or just the room im in, or everything a certain scene, like a party combo of colours, or just a smooth reading scene for late evening hours.
IoT, great, it has it's downsides, but this worked so great. I feel so stupid and old for not doing this a few years ago. And I really think -moving forward-, that I am going to just buy a bulb when they are on sale somewhere (got these for a reasonable price too).
Looking forward to learn more, look into supporting music and movies support for my iPhone and iMac. And maybe use screenbloom or something for a light behind my iMac together with VLC. I dunno.. All new to me still.
If you have a philips hue set and have some tricks or tips for me to turn this hue noob into a proper novice user, please post them. Anything to watch out for? Any places for cheap gen3 bulbs that are trustworthy to buy from?
My albinism lets me enjoy sensitivity to light - blargh - so being able to be in a room and set it from bright white to 1% yellow so I can still see enough as a nightlight without waking up for some water and enjoying a headache because I have to turn some old fashioned dimmer on or whatever.. Quite the solution.
Sceptical that this stuff would work and work the way I would want, I got the starter kit, figured out there's a bunch of options, and figured out besides white or just a color, there's ambience color and white or whatever their latest generation 3 stuff is. I got the package, tried it out and was quite impressed.
The bridge installed just fine on the router, my iPhone found it in half a second, and the lights were identified a second later. Setting up rooms, setting up their preferred scenes. Making some widgets. Logging into hue online to get remote access working properly. Syncing to homekit is automatic. Siri integration works just great. And it didn't last long before I bought 2 more extension bulbs for the other rooms.
Setting up auto off and auto on routines for leaving and coming back, fantastic. I have it set so the kitchen light goes to dimmed, as well as the hallway. And the rest gets turned off. And when I am back, they go to a relax scene and turn on the living room and bedroom.
Additional setups are like a nightlight that just leaves the hallway and kitchen on. A widget to turn it all off, or just the room im in, or everything a certain scene, like a party combo of colours, or just a smooth reading scene for late evening hours.
IoT, great, it has it's downsides, but this worked so great. I feel so stupid and old for not doing this a few years ago. And I really think -moving forward-, that I am going to just buy a bulb when they are on sale somewhere (got these for a reasonable price too).
Looking forward to learn more, look into supporting music and movies support for my iPhone and iMac. And maybe use screenbloom or something for a light behind my iMac together with VLC. I dunno.. All new to me still.
If you have a philips hue set and have some tricks or tips for me to turn this hue noob into a proper novice user, please post them. Anything to watch out for? Any places for cheap gen3 bulbs that are trustworthy to buy from?
