Hue’s Latest Update Makes the App Finally Worth Using
iOS / Android: Philips has released a major update to their Hue app that really makes it useful. And I’m not exaggerating when I say this; until today, the Hue app was a complete mess. It seemed like it took forever to download; the user interface was complex, to put it mildly; and that made me go on a hunt for the best third party apps I could use to control my fancy Hue lights without the headaches and stress of the official Hue app.
With Hue version 3.0 released yesterday for iOS and Android , Philips seems to finally want to create a decent user experience with smart lighting. While the app still has a little fabulous time to go, it is really usable right now, and I give the company credit for that.
Faster loading times
I have kept the Philips Hue app on my iPhone ever since I bought my first smart light bulb, checking the app from time to time to see if Philips has made any improvements to its functionality. From the start, I love that this latest version of Hue loads quickly . It always seemed like older versions of the app had a slight delay before the app appeared, which was annoying and always made me go to widgets or smart helpers whenever I wanted to switch my lights to a different color.
(Slightly) smarter interface
As before, you can turn the lights in the rooms on and off from the main screen of the app, or simply adjust the brightness of the lights up and down. While not listed in the app, you can now press and hold the room icon to open the quick select window. Here you can choose one of the four most recently used scenes, or do a little bit of work and choose a completely new color temperature (for white) or a completely different color. This little trick, combined with faster application loading, makes it incredibly easy to change the light at any time. And I love that.
More scenes to choose from
Click on a room and you’ll see all of the scenes you’ve created in a smaller, easier-to-navigate grid (a big improvement over the huge volumetric circles that the app previously provided). The same color wheel controls are also present as before, giving you another way to transform the colors of a room to whatever you want (either by setting all of its lights to the same color, or by placing different lights at different points on the color wheel or the wheel of warmth.). Every time you split or combine lights, the app vibrates to let you know you’ve done something – a nice touch.
Click to create a new scene and then click on the camera icon at the bottom and you can choose from several new preset scenes (30 in total). They are fine, although I would like to have them live in the app section where you can click on the scenes you create, as it will save you a little time to find them. As with previous versions of the Hue app, you can also customize the app to create a scene from the colors of any photo you take, if you want your room to look like, say, a giant Pusheen cat .
The tap-and-hold Hue trick also works with individual lights.
If you go back to the basic “room view” – for lack of a better way to describe it – you can click on what appears to be a bulleted list to bring up all of the individual lights you’ve set up for that room. You can then press and hold each light to bring up the same quick select menu as before, making it much quicker to customize your lights the way you want.
I was most impressed by this and the aforementioned color wheel / warmth wheel selection. Regardless of how you do it, it won’t take you at all to set up a custom lighting configuration in the Hue app, making it much easier to set up lighting for your next party or Tiny Desk Concert .
What’s next?
I think Philips ran out of paint before it got to the Routines, Explore, or Settings tabs of their app, as they look unchanged from previous versions of the app. I’ll be curious to see if Hue can handle them, as well as the somewhat fussy app, “Are you signed in? You are logged in. So now you are not logged in. ” (Hue sometimes upsets me when I try to remotely control my lights or set up one of his “laboratory experiments”.)
I am also looking forward to the day when the Hue app will also allow me to set animations for lights. I want my room to look like a shimmering fireplace, a thunderstorm, or a (glowing)inanimate carbon rod . It’s time, Philips. Mastered static scenes; let me design a light show.
My personal wishlist aside, you have absolutely no reason not to use the updated Hue app if you regularly love light turners or turner suggestions. And if Philips’ past troubles with Hue have permanently disconnected you from the app, I recommend extending the olive branch and checking out this latest version. We hope it won’t take Philips years to implement some of the new features in version 4.0.
Do you have an iOS or Android app that you really like? Tell me about it: david.murphy@lifehacker.com .