Question 1

What features are available with the free version of Hue Lights?

Accepted Answer

There are many features available in the free version of Hue Lights. No accounts or subscriptions are required. You can try out the app before spending any money. Hue Lights has been helping the smart lighting enthusiast since 2013. Each release offers new features, enhancements and improvements. The app is very popular with both paid users and free users. A lot of the configuration and logic is stored on the bridge, so you can setup quite a bit of functionality without needing to launch the app on a regular basis. Some of the automated features make living with Hue a truly amazing experience. The free version of the app lets you control the All Lights system group and any existing groups...

Question 2

How do I add a widget in iOS 18 and later?

Accepted Answer

IMPORTANT Before adding interactive widgets to your home screens tap Settings → Widget & Watch. Choose the scenes and groups that you want to show up in the iOS widget configuration screen. Tap Select groups and then the trash icon at the upper right of the screen to clear the pre-selected groups. Now tap each group row that you want to control with widgets. Return to the previous screen and tap Select scenes. Tap the trash icon at the upper right of the screen to clear pre-selected scenes. Tap each shared scene row that you want to control with widgets. Interactive widgets can be added to any screen on your iPhone or iPad. Hold your finger for 1 second on the screen where you want to add...

Question 3

Can I turn on my lights, scenes, or groups with a single tap?

Accepted Answer

When the app first starts it is showing your first few scenes, lights, and groups. You can expand these lists by tapping the See All button in each section. Tap a scene to quickly activate it. Hold a row for half a second to open a pop-up menu. This gives you more control options. Each time you tap a light or group, the app toggles the light or group. You can also tap the Edit button to open a detailed edit screen. Scroll down to see effects and settings. Each scene is classified as Local or Shared. Local scenes are stored only on your device. When you start the app for the first time all of your scenes are local. Shared scenes are stored on the bridge. You can share any local scene by ta...

Question 4

Can I transfer my purchases to a new iPhone?

Accepted Answer

Any purchase you make on your Apple ID can be transferred to a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Make sure you are using the same Apple ID on the new device that you used for the original in-app purchase. Follow the steps in How can I use the app on multiple devices?

Question 5

How do I make a sequence that repeats blue and amber?

Accepted Answer

Premium sequences can be created by tapping Effects → Sequences and then tapping + Add premium sequence. The Premium Sequence detail screen defaults to a repeating sequence. Choose the group you want to use for the sequence by tapping Change next to the Group row. The other configurable items that apply to all steps in the sequence are Step duration and Transition time. Add steps by tapping the + add step row in the Steps table. Tap + add step and then choose blue for the color. Tap + add step again and then choose amber for the color. Tap Save in the upper right of the screen. When your premium sequence is saved on the bridge there will be a Start button to the right of the Status line. ...

Question 6

My group and light timers are not working

Accepted Answer

If group or light timers are not working, confirm that your bridge time zone is configured. Tap Settings → Bridge Information → Bridge Time Zone.

Question 7

How do I create a custom scene for use with Amazon Alexa?

Accepted Answer

IMPORTANT!Changes to the brige firmware with API Version 1.28 broke multi-room light control with Alexa. If you are using API Version 1.28 firmware you will need to restrict your scene to a specific room. Only the lights in that room will work with Alexa. The bridge will delete any lights in a scene that are not associated with your room. You can create precise scenes with the Hue Lights app that let you configure every possible value of each light attribute (hue, saturation, color temperature, brightness, on/off status). These scenes can use any light connected to your bridge regardless of room configuration. To make your Amazon Echo device recognize a custom Hue Lights scene follow thes...

Question 8

Does remote control work with the old round bridge?

Accepted Answer

On April 30, 2020 Signify/Philips will stop supporting the original, round V1 bridge. This means that remote access will no longer work and that new firmware updates will not be available. Remote control performance is much faster with the square bridge. If commands are taking a long time or timing out, rebooting the bridge often helps. Make sure you update to the latest bridge firmware to help improve performance.

Question 9

How many time intervals can I create?

Accepted Answer

You can create multiple time intervals for multiple motion sensors. The exact number of time intervals available depends on bridge rule availability. Recent bridge firmware supports 200 rules. Each time interval uses 2 rules. Other devices using rules include sunrise/sunset actions (1 rule each), Hue dimmer switch (1 rule per button; 2 rules per button for long-press and short-press actions), Hue Tap (1 rule per button). In general the Hue Lights app uses the bare minimum number of rules for each function. Other apps can use a lot more rules. This may become an issue for anyone adding a lot of devices.

Question 10

What is the purpose of the Daylight Sensor?

Accepted Answer

Each bridge has the ability to determine daylight conditions at your geographical location. This particular sensor does not use any ambient light sensor, but instead leverages your GPS coordinates. Sunrise and sunset times change throughout the year based on your location. The Daylight Sensor can be used with rules to take specific actions at sunrise, sunset, or a time offset from these events. To stay updated on the development of this feature please follow @HueLights on X.

Question 11

How do I start a sequence?

Accepted Answer

You can access sequences by scrolling down to the Effects section and tapping Sequences. There is also a shortcut available to access sequences without scrolling. Tap the item list button at the upper right of the home screen. This button has 3 vertical dots followed by 3 horizontal lines. Tap Effects and then Sequences. To start a sequence, scroll to your desired sequence, tap it, and then tap the play button.

Question 12

Can I use Siri to activate scenes?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but there are several steps needed. Make sure you have the second generation Philips Hue bridge and have basic HomeKit functions working. In future versions of the app this will be easier and only the Hue Lights app will be needed. Here are the steps needed to have Siri control the Hue Lights Movie scene (you can use any scene): Open the Hue Lights app and activate the Movie scene Confirm that all of your desired bulbs have changed Open the Philips Hue app v2.x and select the room containing your lights Tap the Scenes tab towards the top of the screen Tap the + button towards the lower right of the screen Tap Store current light settings Give the scene a unique name and tap Save Now ...

Question 13

Can I choose which lights are used in the effects?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Thunderstorm, Fire, and Water effects use the same method for picking lights. When you first start the app and select an effect all of your lights are used. To pick a subset of lights tap the + button towards the upper-right of the effect configuration screen. You can now tap each light you want to add or remove from the effect. When the light has a checkmark next to it the light will be used in the effect.

Question 14

The perfect sunrise feature is starting more often than scheduled

Accepted Answer

In addition to scheduled actions the sunrise feature can be activated from motion sensors, dimmer switches, Hue Taps, temperature thresholds, light level thresholds, and local sunrise/sunset times. If you have any motion sensors or switches, check the motion/no-motion action rule. There is a configuration row called Effect. Make sure this is set to No Effect and not Perfect Sunrise. You can also find this Effect row for other devices. Make sure it says No Effect.

Question 15

Where can I find the Water effect?

Accepted Answer

Special effects, including Water, Thunderstorm and Fire, are in the Effects screen. You can access these effects by scrolling down to the Effects section and tapping the effect you want to use. There is also a shortcut available to access effects without scrolling. Tap the item list button at the upper right of the home screen. This button has 3 vertical dots followed by 3 horizontal lines. Tap Effects and then the effect you want to use.

Question 16

Where can I find the Thunderstorm effect?

Accepted Answer

Special effects, including Thunderstorm and Fire, are in the Effects screen. You can access these effects by scrolling down to the Effects section and tapping the effect you want to use. There is also a shortcut available to access effects without scrolling. Tap the item list button at the upper right of the home screen. This button has 3 vertical dots followed by 3 horizontal lines. Tap Effects and then the effect you want to use.

Question 17

Where can I find the Fire effect?

Accepted Answer

Special effects, including Thunderstorm and Fire, are in the Effects screen. Tap the effects image towards the upper left of the screen or tap the left arrow until you see Effects in the upper-center of the screen.

Question 18

What is the difference between Scenes, Groups and Shared Scenes?

Accepted Answer

Scenes are stored locally within the app. Each scene can contain individual lights with different light attributes. For example, you could create a scene that turns on light 1 with the color yellow, turns off light 2 and turns on light 3 with the color orange. Activating scenes is slower that activating groups or shared scenes, but you can have over 100 of them. Groups are stored in the bridge, so up to 64 of them can be shared with all of your devices on the same Wifi network. Groups apply the same light attributes to every light in the group. You can have device-specific light attributes for all of the shared groups. For example, if you have a group called Kitchen with 8 lights, you can...

Question 19

How do I animate my lights for Thanksgiving?

Accepted Answer

There are several animations available that produce different dynamic lighting effects. Here is a simple example showing the shuffle animation with the built-in Thanksgiving scene: Scroll down to the the Effects section and tap Animations Tap the Scene row and select Thanksgiving Tap the Animation row and select Shuffle Watch your Thanksgiving themed lights slowly shuffle

Question 20

How do I add the Widget to my Today Notification?

Accepted Answer

You must be running iOS version 8.0 or higher to enable the Hue Lights Widget. Before using the Widget you should launch the Hue Lights app and set up a few scenes and groups. Once you have some scenes and groups created follow these one-time steps to enable the Widget: Unlock your device Swipe down from the top middle of your device Swipe right to see your widgets Scroll to the bottom and tap the big Edit button Tap the green circle with a plus sign next to the Hue Lights icon Drag the Hue Lights Widget to the top using the rightmost icon Tap the Done button in the upper right

Question 21

How do I add scenes and groups to the Apple Watch?

Accepted Answer

You must be running iOS version 8.0 or higher and have an iPhone 5 or later to use Hue Lights with your Apple Watch. The Apple Watch uses the same scenes and groups you set up for the Hue Lights Widget. See How do I add Scenes and Groups to the Widget? for the detaied steps.

Question 22

Can I program the Hue dimmer switch Off button with a 20 minute fade off?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each button on the Hue dimmer switch and Hue Tap can be configured to control scenes, groups, or brightness. Map up to 8 scenes on a single Hue dimmer switch. Select different scenes or groups from the same button. Change the brightness button speeds to 10 distinct velocities. Here are the steps to make the Off button slowly fade out the lights over a 20 minute interval: Tap the Settings tab at the bottom center of the Home screen Tap Devices and then the Hue dimmer switch that you want to configure Tap the Off button Tap Change button type and select Group Under the SHORT PRESS section tap the No group selected row Tap Group and select All Lights Tap Action → Turn Off Tap Fade time ...

Question 23

How do I program the buttons on a Hue Tap?

Accepted Answer

There are 4 available buttons on a Hue Tap. You can program each button to control a scene, group, or brightness. A scene is a collection of lights where each light has a distinct color, brightness level, and on/off state. See How do I create User Defined scenes? for help creating your own custom scenes. A group is similar to a scene, but all lights use the same color and brightness level. When you assign a brightness action to a button you can brighten or dim any of your groups using 5 brightness rates: very quickly, quickly, normal, slowly, and very slowly. Here are the steps to make the small, bottom, center button turn all of your lights off: Tap the Settings tab at the bottom center ...

Question 24

How do I turn lights on or off?

Accepted Answer

ATTENTION - There were some changes to turning lights on and off in Hue Lights v3.0. You can tap on any light to toggle its state. If the light was off and you tap it, then it will turn on. If the light was on and you tap it, then it will turn off. You can also hold your finger on the light until a pop-up menu appears. Select either On or Off from the pop-up menu to turn it on or off. If you select Edit from the pop-up menu, you will get a detailed light screen. You can also tap the power button on this detailed light screen to turn the light on or off. When the app first starts it is shows your first few lights. You can see all of your lights by tapping See All next to the Lights section...

Question 25

How do I create a scene and schedule it?

Accepted Answer

You create a scene and all associated schedules related to this scene from the Scenes screen. Tap the Scenes tab at the bottom of the Home screen and then tap the + button at the upper right of the screen. If you want to schedule an existing scene, just go to the Scenes screen, scroll to your desired scene, and hold your finger on the scene. When the pop-up menu appears select Edit. If you need to create a new scene, please follow the steps in How do I create User Defined Scenes? IMPORTANT - If you are using Hue Lights v3.0, then you should share the scene on the bridge before creating any schedules. This will allow you to edit the scene after the schedules are saved on the bridge. To sav...

Question 26

When I leave my local Wifi I am not able to control the lights. Why?

Accepted Answer

Once you leave your local Wifi the app can't talk to your bridge using the standard communication path. The Hue Lights app is one of the few apps allowed by Philips to use their Remote Access API. To control your lights while away from home tap Settings → Remote Access. You will need an account on the meethue.com portal to control your lights remotely.

Question 27

Nothing is working

Accepted Answer

If you can't connect your iOS device to the bridge, try to tap on the bridge image at the upper left of the screen. The next screen will show several connection options. In most cases you can tap, Find new bridge, and the app will search and connect to your bridge. Your iOS device should be connected to the same WiFi network as your bridge. Make sure you didn't connect to a different WiFi network (e.g., guest network). If the above doesn't work or you have other intermittent connectivity issues, the best solution is to power down your bridge, router, iOS device, and lights for 10 seconds. When you power everything back up the app should connect to your bridge. Make sure your bridge is plu...

Question 28

Do iOS Shortcuts work with the app?

Accepted Answer

The best way to use iOS Shortcuts with Hue Lights app is to use the huelights URL scheme. You can invoke sequences by name. This is useful with the Shortcuts app. For example, create a shortcut to invoke huelights://sequences/name/sunset. Sequences can be started from external sources using the huelights URL scheme. For example, to start the sequence with identifier 10002 you can open the following URL within the Safari app: huelights://sequences/10002 Shared scenes can also be activated from external sources using the huelights URL scheme. The scene identifier can be copied to the iOS clipboard within the scene detail screen. Tap the share icon at the upper right of the scene detail scre...

Question 29

How do I make a holiday sequence and schedule it to run?

Accepted Answer

Tap Effects → Sequences and then tap + Add premium sequence. Enter a name for your premium sequence in the Name field near the top of the screen (e.g., Holiday). The Premium Sequence detail screen defaults to a repeating sequence. Choose the group you want to use for the sequence by tapping Change next to the Group row. Change the step duration from 10 seconds to 2 seconds. Change the transition time from 2 seconds to Instant. Tap + add step and then choose Red for the color. Tap Back and then + add step again. Choose Green for the next color. Tap Back and then tap Save in the upper right of the screen. When your premium sequence is saved on the bridge there will be a Start button to the ...

Question 30

How do I create User Defined Scenes?

Accepted Answer

To create a User Defined Scene go to the Scenes screen. When the app starts it is already showing your first few scenes. You can tap See All to see all of your scenes. The user defined scenes are stored in the app, but can also be pushed to the bridge and shared with your other iOS devices on your WiFi network. When storing scenes on the bridge some data is stored within the bridge (i.e., scene name, scene id, light numbers) while detailed light attributes are stored within the bulbs (i.e., hue, saturation, brightness). As of v2.0 and API 1.11, you can see the individual light states for any scenes stored on the bridge. Here are the steps to create a new scene: Tap See All next to the Sce...

Every question, answered.

Getting Started

Widgets & Shortcuts

Widgets

Classic Widget (very old iOS versions)

Shortcuts

Lights, Scenes & Groups

Lights

Scenes, Groups and Shared Scenes

Schedules & Sequences

Schedules

Sequences

Premium Sequences

Timers

Effects & Animations

Effects

Fire

Water

Thunderstorm

Perfect Sunrise

Animations

Sensors & Switches

Motion Sensor

Daylight Sensor - Sunrise/Sunset

Hue Dimmer Switch

Hue Tap

Apple Watch, Siri & Voice

Apple Watch

HomeKit

Voice Control

Remote Control & Connectivity

Remote Control

Connectivity

In-App Purchases

Troubleshooting

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