Everything You Need To Know About Philips Hue

Philips Hue has been around for a few years now and it truly is a must-have for any smart home. It’s a wireless system that allows you to control the lights in your house with a smartphone, instantly changing the look and feel of each room.

The energy efficient LED bulbs connect to Wi-Fi and have the ability to emit any colour on the spectrum – 16 million to be precise.

Brought to you by Philips Hue. Light your home smarter with Philips Hue – your personal wireless lighting system, allowing you to easily set scenes, turn your lights on and off and dim them, with simple control using an app or even your voice.

You’ll need just three things to make it work seamlessly – the bulbs, the bridge and the app. Here is everything you need to know about getting the most out of Philips Hue.


Getting Started

The Philips Hue Starter Kit contains all you need for initial set up, so it’s recommended for new users. There are then just three simple steps to follow:

  • First, screw the new bulbs into your existing fittings and turn the power on.
  • Second, plug the bridge into the power and connect it to your Wi-Fi router using the network cable provided. The bridge acts as the middleman between the bulbs and your home network.
  • Finally, download the official Philips Hue app for iOS or Android. It will automatically connect to the bridge and take you through a quick process to detect the lights.

The most popular bulbs available are the White and Colour bulb, which enables colour and temperature changes, and the entry level Hue White bulb.

They come with standard Edison screw fittings so should be compatible with your existing lights.

You can connect up to 50 bulbs and group them into rooms to easily manage the lighting in each area of your home.

It’s also possible to control using virtual assistants like the Google Home, Amazon Echo or Apple HomePod, which will be life-changing next time you’re in bed and have forgotten to turn off the lights!


Going Pro

Once you’re set up, now comes the fun part. You can use the app to change the colours and brightness of the bulbs to match your mood or decor – simply move your finger around the colour wheel.

If you can’t decide on a colour, there are also preset scenes, which adjust the lights to create the perfect ambience for common situations such as ‘relax’ or ‘concentrate’.

With the Home And Away geofencing feature, you can set the lights to switch on when you are almost home and switch off shortly after you’ve left, based on your location.

You can even control the lights remotely using your phone. Perfect if you’re on holiday and want it to appear as if someone is home, or if you’re out late and want to turn on the lights for your pet. This can also be automated for added peace of mind.

Speaking of automation, the lights can be set to gradually wake you up in the morning along with your alarm clock – it mimics the sunrise, so no more rude awakenings!

Advanced users should check out the IFTTT app, which can be used to set up a whole series of rules, such as automatically changing the light colours if it’s raining or if your favourite sports team scores – the possibilities are endless.


Create A Scene

The Philips Hue app is based around scenes and routines – scenes meaning what your lights do, and routines meaning when they do it.

With scenes you can transform rooms with one tap to recreate the feeling of, for example, a sunset or sophisticated bar.

For a more personalised look, choose a photo through the app and the impressive algorithm will bring it to life by extracting relevant colours and intelligently applying them to your lights.

And there you have it! The lighting in your home can reflect your mood, productivity, and even your sleep, so you can easily see how Philips Hue can be a welcome addition to your life.

Check out more Hue hacks, tips and tricks here.


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