Philips Launches New 'Hue' App With Revamped Look and Support for Rooms

[keiths29]

Can I assume you haven't 'decked up all your major rooms with Hue' then? If so you wouldn't be quite so excited by this update, to set your whole house to an evening mode or a daytime mode would take so many clicks it would probably be easier to run round and turn all the lights on and off in each room.

This is better than the first gen app in some respects, but Philips need to totally rethink Scenes and approach them in a similar way to many third party apps allowing you to set your entire house with one click, or ideally via a tap of an icon in the widgets.

If you have a few bulbs or lamps in one or two rooms then this could work well for you, but anything more than that there are apps much more suited to controlling your homes lighting, and some of them are free without in app purchases too. I do like iConnectHue but it isn't free, there is an initial fee and then an in app purchase for a few thing,s it is the only app that can control multiple bridges though, either in the same home and treat them as the same network or across multiple homes / settings. It's hardly expensive considering the cost of one bulb though, I'm always amazed people will pay hundreds for some bulbs and complain about a small charge for an amazing app.

I really like the Huemote app, it's free and should be how he official Hue app works, it's so simple but so effective and makes it really easy to control your house full of lights. It's my app of choice - try it out

[doublepost=1461939077][/doublepost]I completely agree. The new app is lacking a lot of features of the old app. If I'm controlling 5 bulbs for an area/room, but only want one bulb on in the room (nighttime lighting), can't create a scene with that option. I can only turn on 4 rooms when I geofence. Some 'rooms' are individual lamps, thus this new limitation is bothersome. Rooms should be able to be linked in scenes, similar to the first gen app. I see this version as a downgrade. If anyone has tried the other apps available, please post. I just downloaded Huemote and will be trying it out. But in summary, the new app is definitely a downgrade in its present iteration.

 

[MillieWales]

Had a chance to play with this new app last night. So far I think it's a huge improvement over the original. Thinking of the lights in terms of rooms makes infinitely more sense than the way the old app did it. It took me a bit to find scenes, you have to click on the room of lights you want to control, then at the bottom theres a tab for Scenes. The scenes themselves still baffle me as much as ever. I'm not sure why I'd want a "Mount Everest" scene that makes several lights white, a couple blue, a couple green. Beach scene? Have some orange, some red, some yellow, and some in between. None of it ever resembles what it's labeled, or anything at all really.

I've never understood the picture scenes either, all very strange!
[doublepost=1462039322][/doublepost]

[doublepost=1461939077][/doublepost]I completely agree. The new app is lacking a lot of features of the old app. If I'm controlling 5 bulbs for an area/room, but only want one bulb on in the room (nighttime lighting), can't create a scene with that option. I can only turn on 4 rooms when I geofence. Some 'rooms' are individual lamps, thus this new limitation is bothersome. Rooms should be able to be linked in scenes, similar to the first gen app. I see this version as a downgrade. If anyone has tried the other apps available, please post. I just downloaded Huemote and will be trying it out. But in summary, the new app is definitely a downgrade in its present iteration.

Not sure what you mean about one light on in a room. Do you mean some of your bulbs in the same room you have setup as if they were in a different room? If so then yes it won't work, scenes are per room - that's why you will like Huemote. Eyes no learning curve, it will make sense at soon as you open the app.

If that is the case what's the reason for having the bulbs in the same room setup as if they were in individual rooms? I'm not sure how it could be useful. If you haven't done that just ignore me!

 

[groovyf]

I'm struggling to like the new app too.
Can't find a way to change the colour of all lights at once in a room, (without using scenes).
If I tap on the Room, I see my list of lights but can only alter colour individually.
With the Gen 1 app and grouped lights you could move them around the colour screen.

 

[steve knight]

man I had to go back to the old. only 5 rooms can be made and since you can only turn on the lights in a room with routines you can't do much. like in the bedroom I have the light strip slowly ramp on for 30 minutes then another light comes on and ramps on then the rest of the lights ramp on. so thats three separate rooms to get that done alone. You can't even make a widget to turn off al the lights if you have 5 rooms.

 

[MillieWales]

I'm struggling to like the new app too.
Can't find a way to change the colour of all lights at once in a room, (without using scenes).
If I tap on the Room, I see my list of lights but can only alter colour individually.
With the Gen 1 app and grouped lights you could move them around the colour screen.

You can't do this unfortunately, you need to change the bulbs individually and if you want to go there again in future save it as a scene.

man I had to go back to the old. only 5 rooms can be made and since you can only turn on the lights in a room with routines you can't do much. like in the bedroom I have the light strip slowly ramp on for 30 minutes then another light comes on and ramps on then the rest of the lights ramp on. so thats three separate rooms to get that done alone. You can't even make a widget to turn off al the lights if you have 5 rooms.

You can add as many rooms as you like - there may well be a limit but I don't know what it is - not sure how many rooms you can add to the widget as I already have two widgets for other Hue apps and saw no need for a third. The app is really not designed to be used how you are using it, a room is a room, not an area of a room, you will find other apps give you what you want a lot more effectively until the Philips app gets more updates. Have a look at iConnectHue. It's not free but considering the price we pay for the bulbs it's an absolute bargain, it's so flexible and does pretty much everything you will want.

 

[ipedro]

I'm disappointed that you can't control multiple rooms at once anymore. Homes today are far less about separate partitions and more open spaces. You can no longer set a "watch tv" scene that turns off the kitchen lights, dims the dining room and changes the colour in the living room or a "dinner" scene that dims the kitchen lights, turns off the living room and lights up the dining room.

Scenes took some getting used to but ultimately worked very well once you stopped thinking about your lights as a bunch of individual switches and more like an ambiance for your home. That's no longer possible with the new app. It's too bad, they had it real close. All they needed to do was add one more tab with overall home scenes. Maybe it'll come in a future update but for now, I've had to go back to the old app.

 

[MillieWales]

.....Maybe it'll come in a future update but for now, I've had to go back to the old app.

Have you tried any third party apps? If not you should, so,e are just full of gimmicks and flash your lights and make them do strange effects, but the majority are really good. Some are free - try Huemote as your 'go to' app for scenes - and some are paid, iConnectHue is brilliant. Yes you pay for it but considering the price of each bulb a few dollars on an app should be an easy decision really.

 

[ipedro]

Have you tried any third party apps? If not you should, so,e are just full of gimmicks and flash your lights and make them do strange effects, but the majority are really good. Some are free - try Huemote as your 'go to' app for scenes - and some are paid, iConnectHue is brilliant. Yes you pay for it but considering the price of each bulb a few dollars on an app should be an easy decision really.

I have a bunch of Hue Taps scattered around my home. I need the original app to program them with multi room scenes. The new app only allows for up to 3 rooms.

It really is a big mistake to have left entire home scenes out of the app. They're essential to how HomeKit works, yet Phillips walked away from it. Here's a scenario: arriving home triggers a scene where your garage door opens, the garage light turns on, your home door is unlocked, your hallway is lit, your living room and kitchen turn on and your tv starts up. You can do that with HomeKit Scenes and you could do it with the previous app but now you'll have to use a third party app to accomplish the same thing.

However, I do like the way the app is organized now and adding home wide Scenes is an easy fix. Just add one more tab for Scenes and allow multiple rooms to participate.

 

[MillieWales]

I have a bunch of Hue Taps scattered around my home. I need the original app to program them with multi room scenes. The new app only allows for up to 3 rooms.

It really is a big mistake to have left entire home scenes out of the app. They're essential to how HomeKit works, yet Phillips walked away from it. Here's a scenario: arriving home triggers a scene where your garage door opens, the garage light turns on, your home door is unlocked, your hallway is lit, your living room and kitchen turn on and your tv starts up. You can do that with HomeKit Scenes and you could do it with the previous app but now you'll have to use a third party app to accomplish the same thing.

However, I do like the way the app is organized now and adding home wide Scenes is an easy fix. Just add one more tab for Scenes and allow multiple rooms to participate.

Oh you don't need to tell me how it works and doesn't, I've been very vocal about the changes and how they got it so wrong! Not sure how you can like how the app is organised, it's very slow to connect and isn't flexible in how you use it. What other apps have you tried? Don't stick with the Philips app through any sense of loyalty, Philips don't mind, they just want you to buy the bulbs, they actively suggest other apps for you to use within their app now.

I don't get what you mean in your example of arriving home. All the Philips app could do was create the scenes - you know that obviously. So use a third party app to create the scenes, the Philps app couldn't have any control over anything other than the lights anyway. Philips are promoting third party apps themselves so they don't want to be the app of choice I'm sure, so just go with what works for your needs.

How many bulbs and lamps do you have in how many rooms or areas of your home? Depending on your setup you may find some apps more useful than others. Have you looked at myHome by Joerg Wissemann? I don't know of any other app that can come close to what Joerg has done with HomeKit control, Apple should give the guy a medal - please don't buy the app Apple, you might mess it up! It can control your Hue lights with ease, and pretty much anything else. Fantastic app.


You can also program the Taps with iConnectHue, I have several Taps and each has multiple multi-room scenes programmed into each button. Each Tap is different depending on the room it's in - the guest room Tap really doesn't need to control any outside lights obviously and it shouldn't have any control over other bedrooms etc. The best thing about iConnectHue is you can control more than one bridge, not just by choosing a different bridge either - you could select it as if it was a second home or place for example. You can actually add it on to your network in the same building and link it altogether via this app. It's the only app that can do it, you pay a teeny in app purchase price to unlock it but well worth it if you are near your limit.

What apps are you making good use of? Be good to hear what works well for you. I like the way some apps work more than others but I love the features of other apps. I use several currently, not managed to settle on just one yet, but I'm sure I will in time.