Hue Lights 4+

I want to be able to use this as a dashboard running on two iPads so that any light can be controlled from either, as well as Google Home and the hue app on our phones. The issue for me is that the dashboard on one iPad doesn’t update if a light is turned on by the other iPad, or any other way.

If the app could sense when a light’s status changes, this app would be excellent. Because it doesn’t, I need to find a different app unfortunately.

If you want to control your lights from a single device though, this is great.

Thanks for the feedback. There is a heartbeat message sent every 15 seconds to get the current status of lights, groups and sensors. This heartbeat can get disabled in some cases when you load different screens. On the home screen you should always see the updates. The synchronization issue should be resolved in the next release. In that case you should see the current status of all lights within 15 seconds. In a follow on release the synchronization should be instantaneous.

Edit:

The developer has been in contact with me to help address some issues, very helpful and appreciate that.

The official hue app was a little limited so took a punt on the paid version. For the life of me I can't use the pre loaded scenes independently from my colour bulbs and normal white bulbs. I can delete the white bulbs but this then removes access from the official app as well. There may be a way to set this up perfect but have given up trying after 45 mins. If you want hassle free I'd look elsewhere. Only app in hundreds I've bought that would like my money back 😕

If you would like to add or remove individual bulbs from any scene, you can follow these steps: http://huelights.com/faq.html#faq-01

There are many features available in the free version of Hue Lights. This allows you to try out the app before spending any money. There are hundreds of third-party Hue apps, so it is not practical to buy all of them. The Hue Lights 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 that are stored on your bridge. You can also individually control lights 1 and 2. These lights can be included in scenes, groups, recurring schedules, sunrise/sunset actions, Hue motion sensor rules, Hue dimmer switch short-press and long-press button actions, and Hue Tap button configuration. Groups are stored on the bridge. You can optionally save any of your scenes on the bridge to share with other devices on your WiFi network. Groups and scenes can be controlled from the app, widget, and Apple Watch.

You can turn on/off/brighten/dim any of your lights from the "Lights" screen. Tap a light to turn it on. Once you tap the light it turns green with a check box. You will also see the light's name at the top of the screen (e.g., Selected: Garage Door). The controls at the bottom of the screen can control the selected light or group. This is where you can turn the light or group on/off/brighten/dim.

Shortcuts are available on the Lights, Scenes and Groups screens. Hold a row for 1 second and a pop-up will appear with common actions.

There are also features that use a combination of local app processing and bridge logic. You can use the "All Lights" group and any scenes with the sequences and animations features.

Touchlink is also available for free. If you need to add bulbs from a second starter kit, you may have difficulty adding these to your bridge because they are already linked to another bridge. With the Touchlink feature of Hue Lights, bulbs that are linked to another starter kit can be forced to join your bridge. This also works with many third-party bulbs including OSRAM Lightify, GE Link, Cree, and dresden elektronik. Note that OSRAM Lightify bulbs can cause problems for North American users. There is different firmware in OSRAM bulbs for Europe (ZigBee Light Link) and North America (ZigBee Home Automation). The Philips Hue bridge uses ZigBee Light Link.

You can update your firmware or choose to ignore updates. If you want to check and update your firmware, tap "Settings" and then "Bridge Information" and then "Firmware." The Bridge Information screen will give you a lot of information about your bridge and can help diagnose problems. For example, some bridge features require the Bridge Time Zone to be set. You can confirm your time zone, firmware version, ZigBee channel, IP address, and many more details. For users with large deployments pay attention to the Rules row. The latest firmware supports 200 rules. These rules are used with Hue motion sensors, Hue dimmer switches, Hue Taps, sunrise/sunset actions, and other bridge features. If you are near the limit, you will soon have difficulty adding new devices. Make sure your firmware level is at least API 1.13 for correct rule behavior.

If you've tried other apps, some of the more advanced ones may store scenes on the bridge. There are two bridge scene versions supported in the firmware. V1 scenes keep track of the scene name and light membership, but not individual light state details. V2 scenes expose every detail of a scene including individual light details for each light in a scene (e.g., hue, saturation, brightness, fade time, effect). Hue lights supports both V1 and V2 scenes. With the free version of the app you can view and activate these bridge scenes. If the scenes are stored as V2 scenes (newer firmware), you can edit scene details including individual light states.

Use the free version of the app to automatically turn the "All Lights" group on or off at sunrise/sunset. You could also use a scene created with lights 1 and 2. The sunrise/sunset actions adjust their activation time based on your GPS coordinates. These run on the bridge, so they will work even when your phone is powered off.

You can use any of the included Favorites to set all lights to a specific color and brightness. Any customized hue, saturation, brightness setting that you create can be saved as a new Favorite. These will then be available in the Lights, Groups, Scenes, and Sequences screens.

Tap the pencil icon on the right-side of lights, groups, and scenes rows to go into a detail control screen. Tap the star icon on the lights and groups rows to quickly assign a Favorite to your lights.

The free version of the app lets you view, disable, or delete any of the sensors or rules on your bridge. Removing unused rules and sensors can often allow more Hue dimmer switches, Hue Taps, and Hue motion sensors to be used with a single bridge.

You can quickly disable or enable all of your motion sensors. Tap "Settings" and then "Devices" to access this feature. This is useful in cases where you want to temporarily disable motion events without changing each time interval or disabling each motion sensor one by one.

In general, any word or image that is yellow represents an action in the app. For example, tapping "All Off" on the main screen turns all lights off.

Have had this for a couple of years now and I like the functionality and scenes, but I find the app a nightmare to navigate. For reasons I cannot fathom, you can view your schedules and delete or disable them - but, if you want to edit them you have to do it in another part of the app. This seems so counter-intuitive that I don’t know what the thinking behind it was.

There have been several updates to the app since your review. All known bugs are resolved. New features have also been added. Schedules for groups and scenes can now be created, edited and deleted from the Settings => Schedules screen. If you still experience problems, please contact support for help.