Home automation with smart lighting | Philips Hue (2024)

08/07/2024

What is home automation

Home automation with Philips Hue smart lighting allows you to control your Philips Hue lights with a combination of timers, sensors, and security cameras — at home or from anywhere in the world! You can set lights to switch on and off, dim, or change color at the times that you choose. Hue Motion sensors and Hue Secure cameras can even trigger your lights to make you more comfortable as you navigate your home while bringing you added peace of mind when you're out of town.

How does home automation work?

Automating your Hue smart lights works by connecting them to the Hue Bridge — a smart light hub that’s the brains of the system. Then, using the Hue app on your smartphone you can set up all your automations in the Automations tab of the app. Choose from automations to help with your daily routine, guide you when you arrive and leave home, or mimic your presence while you're away. You can even customize your own automations to control lights exactly how you want.

How can I automate my home?

The way to automate your home with Philips Hue is to use a Hue Bridge. It’s a smart lighting hub which simply connects to your internet router and acts as the brains of the whole smart light system in your home.

You’ll also need to choose a combination of Philips Hue smart bulbs, lamps, lights, sensors, and cameras, depending on your needs. If you’re just getting started with Philips Hue, a Bridge and a selection of led bulbs and lamps is the easiest way to benefit from home automations.

For a more advanced setup, consider indoor and outdoor motion sensors and cameras. These will trigger your lights by detecting movement without the use of a timer. (Of course, you can choose the windows of time when you want the sensors and cameras to be active!) As well as triggering lights automatically, Hue Secure cameras can send you alerts so you can decide if you want to activate your lights or not.

Once you have the hardware in place, it’s time to download the Hue app on your smartphone. The app is where you’ll set up, control, and tweak all your automations.

Optimize daily routines with home lighting automation

Smart light automations from Philips Hue can help with your daily routines around the home, adjusting the tone and intensity of light to help you wake, focus on work, relax, and fall asleep. In the Automations tab in the Hue app, you can set the days and times, rooms or selected lights, and the light scene to match your needs.

Wake up

Get the best start to your day with wake-up lighting designed to help you wake gently and feel more refreshed.² Simply set your lights to switch on and gradually brighten for the duration that you choose. For the ultimate relaxing alarm call with light, set the Sunrise wake-up style. Your lights will gradually transition through soft blues to warm orange tones, getting your day off to a gentle start. Signe gradient floor and table lamps are the ideal bedroom companion. The lamps feature a subtle slender design and give a blend of color light along their length. You can also set the Wake-up automation on any of your bedroom lights. LED strip lightstucked under the bed or behind furniture are another great option for creating soft diffused light that’s easy on the eyes first thing in the morning.

Home automation with smart lighting | Philips Hue (1)

Work

During your working hours at home when you particularly need to focus, automate the lights in your office or study so that they switch on with a cool bright white tone. This will give you the optimal amount of light for the tasks at hand while helping you concentrate better. Use a combination of table lamps, led ceiling lighting, and floor lamps to ensure you get a sufficient level of light exactly where you need it. You can even set the lights to start transitioning to softer, warmer tones to signal that it’s time to take a break or stop working.

Relax and sleep

When your day is done, smart light can help you fall asleep with the Go to sleep automation. When activated — either automatically or with the push of a button — your bedroom lights transition to warm, red-toned hues and then dim until off. Studies have found that blue light suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin, so our Go to sleep automation purposefully excludes it to give you the best chance to drift off more easily.¹

Feel more secure with home lighting automation

Let Philips Hue lights, sensors, security cameras, and the Hue app work together to bring you peace of mind, whether you’re home or away.

Secure automations

Using the Philips Hue app, you can set a Mimic presence automation, making it look like you’re home when you’re not. You can set a schedule for your led lights in the different rooms of your hometo turn on and off to different light scenes, either all day and night or just at night. They’ll mimic the typical activities that would be expected in those types of rooms, giving the impression that someone is home.

Home automation with smart lighting | Philips Hue (2)

Sensors and timers

Indoor and outdoor motion sensors will trigger the lights of your choice when they detect movement in and around your home. You can set a schedule for when you want the sensors to become active, so you’re lights and triggered unnecessarily. You can even automate specific lights so that when they’re triggered, they display a particular light scene, color, or intensity of light that you choose. Not using sensors? Create a Custom automation in the Hue app. Set the days and times you’d like your lights to turn on and off. Simple peace of mind!

Home automation with smart lighting | Philips Hue (3)

Security cameras

Let Philips Hue keep an eye out for you! Secure smart security cameras let you monitor your home in real time with a 1080p HD live stream. You’ll receive instant notifications on your mobile device any time your Secure camera detects motion. Arm and disarm from the Home tab in the Hue app, trigger alarms, get an overview of all activity, and receive push notifications when your cameras detect something suspicious. Place Hue secure cameras in any room or outdoor space around your home. Choose from the Secure wired camera, Secure battery camera, and Secure Flood light camera.

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Home automation with smart lighting | Philips Hue (2024)

FAQs

Can you automate Hue lights? ›

Use automations

Automations let you turn your lights on or off automatically at a certain time, set certain light settings throughout the day, and help you make sure you never forget to turn out the lights again.

What is the best automation for Hue? ›

Integrate & Automate Your Philips Hue Lighting with IFTTT

IFTTT (If This Then That) is the best platform for integrating and automating your Philips Hue lighting and Philips Hue bulbs. With IFTTT, you can connect the smart lighting in your home to other connected devices and create customized, automated actions.

Is Philips Hue being discontinued? ›

Philips isn't discontinuing Hue smart bulbs altogether. Only a recently-released line called Lightguide is getting the chop, and even then, it's just the triangle and globe-shaped bulbs being discontinued. The Verge has the scoop if you'd like to learn more. How many years do Hue bulbs last?

Can I control my Hue lights remotely? ›

Considered the heart of the Hue smart lighting system, the Hue Bridge uses Zigbee technology to connect to your Wi-Fi. This lets you control your Philips Hue smart lights using the Philips Hue app both at home and from anywhere else in the world where you have an internet connection.

Can Hue lights automatically turn on? ›

Advanced light control

Turn lights on and off automatically — to any settings you like. Wake up more naturally and fall asleep easier with light. Philips Hue controls your lights so you don't have to.

Is Hue Bridge outdated? ›

As of April 30, 2020 no software updates are made available for the Philips Hue Bridge v1 and compatibility with our online services has been terminated at that time. The Hue Bridge v1 can be only controlled locally via the dedicated Philips Hue Bridge v1 mobile application.

Why is Hue so much more expensive? ›

Philips Hue products tick all the boxes. They're made of premium components and have excellent diffusion, which prevents uneven lighting. Additionally, Philips Hue goes far beyond your basic primary color selection, offering 16 million color options in most of its devices.

Do you need Hue Bridge for automation? ›

The Hue bridge also provides access to advanced features such as scheduling. You don't necessarily need a Philips Hue bridge to automate and connect multiple Hue lights together. You can use IFTTT as the central hub tieing your Hue lights with all of your other smart home devices.

Is Hue Labs shutting down? ›

But that's all over now: As Philips Hue has announced in a support document, Hue Labs will be discontinued in June 2024. “After June 2024, automated formulas will continue to run as is, but you won't be able to edit them”, Philips Hue announced.

How many years do Philips Hue last? ›

With an average lifespan of 25,000 hours, a Philips Hue light bulb will not need replacing anywhere near as often. Exactly how often you will need to change a Hue light bulb depends on how many hours a day it is used — but it can last up to 25 years.

Is Hue lighting worth it? ›

Expensive, but quality. In nearly ten years of using their products, I've never had one fail. Everything still works flawlessly and is reliable, which is a huge factor in automation. Hue is super expensive, but they're the only smart lights I haven't regretted buying.

What are the benefits of the Hue Bridge? ›

Do you need a Philips Hue Bridge? The Hue Bridge offers some significant advantages over Bluetooth connectivity as listed below: You can control your lights remotely as long as you're connected to the internet. You can control up to 50 Hue lights compared to just 10 via Bluetooth.

How many Hue bridges do I need? ›

A bridge is used to control your Hue smart home devices - it can manage up to around 50. If you live in a large household and use a lot of lights, switches, sensors and, more recently, security cameras, you may well reach this limit. At present, only one Bridge can be used per account.

Can you turn lights on and off with Philips Hue? ›

A Bluetooth setup lets you turn lights on or off, dim, and change light colors with the Hue app. You can also set a timer, use preset light scenes, and even control lights with your voice. However, you won't be able to control your lights while away from home, set ongoing automations, or create custom scenes.

Can Philips Hue be programmed? ›

Set up and programme smart buttons, switches and sensors in the Hue app – and change their settings at any time.

How do you automate existing lights? ›

Another option for automating light, however, is the use of a photocell. The device detects the amount of light in the room and turns lights on or off accordingly. So, for example, if there is enough natural light, the lights will be turned off automatically, so you can avoid wasting energy.

Do Hue lights act as repeaters? ›

First, most Zigbee bulbs, including hue, just don't make very good repeaters on a smartthings Zigbee network. They run into what is essentially a buffer overflow type condition where they will drop messages they are supposed to be repeating, causing those messages to be lost, or have to be sent again.

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