HomeKit Philips Hue HomeKit- Seeking Someone Test An Automation

[Itinj24]

I recently completely nuked my HomeKit, factory reset everything, installed the HomeKit Reset Profile, switched my networking gear (to be clear, these were all done for other reasons) and I’m still getting this issue. Had it for all of iOS 17 pretty much.

Seeking someone using Philips Hue in HomeKit to test this so I know it’s not a bug affecting just me and I can start submitting bug reports.

The automation: (very simple but any time works for testing purposes)
- At 1:00 am, turn the porch lights to red.

The result:
- The actual porch lights turn red.
- HomeKit in iOS and iPadOS status reports the last color it was on before the automation even though the actual color of the bulb is red. In other words, while the bulb is physically red, the HomeKit app is saying it’s white.
- WatchOS status reports the correct red color (strange).
- Philips Hue app and other third party apps (Eve, Controller, Home+) all report the correct red color status.

I haven’t tried this with other brands of colored bulbs but most of my home is outfitted with Hue lights. The only thing I haven’t tried for kicks and giggles is using a convert to shortcut automation. I’m looking for a one stop shop and not really interested in creating automations in the third party apps. Thank you in advance.

Edit* All devices up to date with latest software/firmware. Didn’t make a difference using the convert to shortcut option. Other iPhones/AppleID’s associated with this home also reporting the wrong color in the Home app.

 

[haralds]

Are you originating the automation from HomeKit or the Hue app?

Another thing to check into is how are the bulbs set up to restore after power failure. This might interfere with how the tow systems are synced up.

 

[Itinj24]

Are you originating the automation from HomeKit or the Hue app?

Another thing to check into is how are the bulbs set up to restore after power failure. This might interfere with how the tow systems are synced up.

This is all originating from HomeKit. I don’t have any automations set up in the Hue app.

All the bulbs are set to power loss recovery as they always were. I’ll try setting to a different power failure restore and see if that changes anything but I’m skeptical. It’s just HomeKit on the iPhone and iPad that are showing the incorrect color status. Apple Watch and all the third party HomeKit apps show the correct color.

 

[waw74]

sounds like it's a bug in the home app itself then, since eve and controller show the correct thing.

if you force quit, does it show red when you re-launch the home app?

When you've got the light on before the automation runs, is it a color or a white (color temperature)
it's possible the home app isn't picking up the mode change from color temp to color

Try setting the light manually to a white-ish color, and see what happens when the automation runs. (you can ask siri to set the light to "champagne" and it will do a warm-ish white)

what happens when you manually run the automation using the test button? if you do that on your phone, does the iPad update?

And the obligatory... reboot everything, router, homehubs, and phones/iPads

 

[Itinj24]

sounds like it's a bug in the home app itself then, since eve and controller show the correct thing.

if you force quit, does it show red when you re-launch the home app?

When you've got the light on before the automation runs, is it a color or a white (color temperature)
it's possible the home app isn't picking up the mode change from color temp to color

Try setting the light manually to a white-ish color, and see what happens when the automation runs. (you can ask siri to set the light to "champagne" and it will do a warm-ish white)

what happens when you manually run the automation using the test button? if you do that on your phone, does the iPad update?

And the obligatory... reboot everything, router, homehubs, and phones/iPads

Ok I’m about 99.9% sure this is a bug to do with Adaptive Lighting now. I ran some more tests. This problem only occurs when the previous light setting was set to Adaptive Lighting. Otherwise, if it was previously set to any other color or color temperature, the light color status shows correctly upon completion of the automation. Makes sense for the Eve app which doesn’t recognize Adaptive Lighting but I’m stumped with the Apple Watch which does.

To answer:
1. No
2. See above.
3. No

To add, this worked fine with a VOCOlinc humidifier which doesn’t support Adaptive Lighting.


This is coming fresh off a complete factory reset of HomeKit and all devices, along with a completely new network and my iPhone, Watch and iPad. It was happening before also so I don’t think the reboots will help this time lol. Pretty sure this came with iOS 17. The new color picker has also been very buggy since.

 

[flynz4]

Ok I’m about 99.9% sure this is a bug to do with Adaptive Lighting now.

I haven’t started with lighting yet. What is adaptive lighting?

 

[Itinj24]

I haven’t started with lighting yet. What is adaptive lighting?

A HomeKit specific feature where if you have a smart light that supports changing color temperature (i.e. warm white, cool white, soft white, etc…) and the manufacturer supports it (Philips Hue and Nanoleaf are two I know of without researching), then depending on the time of day, the light bulb will change color temperature automagically. So in the morning when you’re getting ready for work, it will be a cool energizing white. During the day, it will be more of a natural sunlight and at night, a warmer white for relaxation.

Just to note, this does not work with Matter. They haven’t implemented any feature like this. Strictly HomeKit.

From Apple’s support page:

 

[waw74]

small side note, in adaptive, they also "dim to warm" sort of like standard incandescents.
So at the same time, 2 of the same bulbs both in adaptive lighting, one at 100%, one at 50%, The 50% one will be set to a warmer white than the one at 100%.

it's always been a bit buggy, they did the basics of timing the color on the lights, but really fell though on the app and control side of it.
not sure if it's fixed now, but when they're off, hue bulbs will ignore everything but an "on" command. last time I tried to use adaptive, Apple would send the color change command before the on command, meaning if the bulb was off the color got ignored. The bulb would come on in the state it was in when it was turned off, and would change color 2-3 minutes later when the color temp changed again. If the bulb was already on, it worked properly. You could also play the scene a second time so you didn't have to wait for if to change on it's own. I kinda gave up on adaptive.

 

[flynz4]

Thanks to both of you for your explanations.

 

[Itinj24]

small side note, in adaptive, they also "dim to warm" sort of like standard incandescents.
So at the same time, 2 of the same bulbs both in adaptive lighting, one at 100%, one at 50%, The 50% one will be set to a warmer white than the one at 100%.

it's always been a bit buggy, they did the basics of timing the color on the lights, but really fell though on the app and control side of it.
not sure if it's fixed now, but when they're off, hue bulbs will ignore everything but an "on" command. last time I tried to use adaptive, Apple would send the color change command before the on command, meaning if the bulb was off the color got ignored. The bulb would come on in the state it was in when it was turned off, and would change color 2-3 minutes later when the color temp changed again. If the bulb was already on, it worked properly. You could also play the scene a second time so you didn't have to wait for if to change on it's own. I kinda gave up on adaptive.

From my experience, after the “on” command, the bulbs would change to their correct temperature after a few seconds. Usually one of the bulbs in a grouping would be stubborn though and take a little longer.

What’s boggling my mind is why WatchOS is reporting the correct color when iOS isn’t. I thought the Watch pulls the data from the phone. No clue.

Thing is, I switched from an all Lutron Caseta system to an all Philips Hue specifically for the Adaptive Lighting feature. Very intriguing and my wife didn’t like my preferred daylight white temperature for fixed bulbs. When it works it’s great.

I use the LIFX switches all around the house to control my Philips Hue bulbs. You can set the bulbs to Adaptive Lighting mode with a push of the button on the LIFX switch. So no matter what time of day, using the physical switch on the wall sets the correct temperature at any given time. But using this method causes the bulbs to report the wrong color per my bug. I set my porch lights to red at night.

I can use the Convert to Shortcut feature to have the LIFX switch set to a specific temperature depending on the day without using Adaptive Lighting. This will complicate the automation some. Not a huge deal but now what happens when I want to ask Siri to turn on a light instead of the LIFX switch? Do I have to create a completely separate set of Shortcuts for each bulb group specifically for use with voice control? That’s the issue.

This bug I’m experiencing is new. Since iOS 17. Granted it’s not a mission critical bug but it’s nice to have the correct color of the bulb being reported in the Home app so I know what’s going with my system when I’m not there.

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

@Itinj24 did you reset the Philips Hue or updated it to "Matter"?

The Philips Hue lights on my Home app are constantly shown as "updating..." or sometimes "not responding" and as a result the automation can be delayed or just doesn't work!

 

[Itinj24]

@Itinj24 did you reset the Philips Hue or updated it to "Matter"?

The Philips Hue lights on my Home app are constantly shown as "updating..." or sometimes "not responding" and as a result the automation can be delayed or just doesn't work!

I recently did a complete nuking of my network and HomeKit so yeah, the Hue bridges were reset but I did not update them to Matter so I can keep the Adaptive Light feature.

However, before nuking my system. I was getting that issue with my Hue lights always updating and/or showing a spinning circle every time I make a change (dimming, color, power state, etc.). Not sure if this is a Hue issue or a HomeKit issue but I feel it’s been like this since the first iOS 17 release and the new light bulb UI.

I’m not having an issue with any automations, it’s that the color doesn’t show the correct status after an automation is run and the color was previously set to Adaptive Lighting. It’s shows the previous Adaptive Lighting color instead of the red it should that was part of the automation.

Would you be able to test that for me real quick? Just set a bulb to adaptive and create an automation to turn that bulb to red at a certain time (5 mins from now works). After the automation is run, does the color of the bulb show as being red in the Home app?

 

[Bl0ckHe1d]

Would you be able to test that for me real quick? Just set a bulb to adaptive and create an automation to turn that bulb to red at a certain time (5 mins from now works). After the automation is run, does the color of the bulb show as being red in the Home app?

I have updated my Hue to Matter thus no longer have Adaptive Lighting (for now)! However I have ran an automation to switch a bulb on colour red (Swatch) and can confirm that the light appears as red on my Home app

Thanks for this, sounds like I will need to go for the Hue Bridge nuke option and start again.

 

[Itinj24]

I have updated my Hue to Matter thus no longer have Adaptive Lighting (for now)! However I have ran an automation to switch a bulb on colour red (Swatch) and can confirm that the light appears as red on my Home app

Thanks for this, sounds like I will need to go for the Hue Bridge nuke option and start again.

Ok thanks anyway. I’ve submitted bug reports so hopefully this gets fixed. I figured it was something to do with Adaptive Lighting.