Phillips Hue - iOS LED light bulbs

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

Interesting,

They are opening up the hue app for dev’s… Wonder if any synergy with Vera can be found

Philips claims they’re working on future features, such as the ability to integrate Hue bulbs with sound and video, and even geo-location services so that the lights turn on automatically when you are close to home. Philips has also opened the Hue app to the developer community and created an open source platform to help unleash possibilities that haven’t been thought up yet.
Read more at http://www.cultofmac.com/198646/philips-futuristic-ios-controlled-lightbulbs-will-be-an-apple-store-exclusive

2

Interesting indeed. Anyone planing on buying a few and testing them out?

There seems to be a Z-Wave alternative but they don’t seem to be available yet and the prices i found were a bit too high:

http://fujikom.com/index.php/ledenq-english/

3

Nice to see that unlike their older Living Colors stuff they have opened up the interface. A Vera plugin would be great!

I’ll probably order a set. Though my guess is that they won’t hit the Apple store here for another few weeks and will be priced at around €239. (And Philips is a Dutch company, go figure :slight_smile: )

4

looks like the Philips Hue will be using ZigBee Light Link specs. http://ledsmagazine.com/news/9/10/25 . they will be publishing an API.

5

This might be a dumb question but would this new ZigBee hub interfere with my existing Z-Wave network?
In the UK, there are both using the same frequencies.

6

Does anyone understand if ZigBee Light Link profile devices are compatible with ZigBee Home Automation Profile devices? My guess is probably not.

7

Just ordered a set, but it might be a while before they are actually available. :slight_smile:

8

[quote=“dreamgreenhouse, post:5, topic:173127”]This might be a dumb question but would this new ZigBee hub interfere with my existing Z-Wave network?
In the UK, there are both using the same frequencies.[/quote]

I don’t think so, I’ve seen Control 4 systems running z-wave and Zigbee together happily - also if you think about all the things that runs on 433.92mhz (Lightwaverf, X10 etc.) the different protocols i think allow them to co-exist)

9

Just got word from Apple, expected delivery date is 28 Feb 2013 :frowning: Especially bad since I already paid for them.

10

wow. looks like they are selling well.

11

I received my Philips Hue! it’s pretty neat. Very easy to install and configure, very vibrant and responsive. Only take, is that the Android app functionality is a bit lacking in comparison to the iOS app.

Philips didn’t release the API yet, but people already started reverse engineering it. There’s a Python library for controlling the Hue: Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.

what’s really needed now is a plugin for Vera 8)

12

I got mine in the post today as well! Apple’s order system must have had a bad day when it gave me the estimated delivery date…

I am well pleased with the quality of the light from these bulbs. The warm / cold white is nice and bright, so you can use these to actually light a room instead of just using them for decorative purposes. It’s not so easy to judge the color spectrum of the white light in daylight, but it already looks better than many other LED bulbs I’ve had.

Whenever the lights are powered on, they default to a warm white (instead of defaulting to a stupid demo mode with cycling colors, as some other colored lights do). This means you can switch them on and off using your existing switches. They are not suitable for dimmers, though. The app (iOS) is a bit wonky but does what it needs to do: control the lights individually or apply a preset.

13

I’m working on a plugin for this thing :slight_smile:

Going well so far, I got a master device that can be paired with the Hue hub. This device creates an ordinary dimmer device for each lamp; at the moment it can only control the brightness of the individual lamps, not the color.

14

looking forward to this ;D
I managed to manipulate the lights in my scenes by invoking cURL from LUUP and talking to the hub directly. Let me know if you need any help in testing…

15

Check the Plugin section for the first alpha release :slight_smile:

By the way, if you want to mess with colors using cURL calls in conjunction with the plugin, use luup.hw_key as the key (a.k.a. username) in the url. This is the key the plugin uses to register wit the hub

16

I have about 20 of the Hue bulbs around. I like the color options, the fact that you can use them as normal bulbs by just using the switch.

Pros:

  • Nice colors
  • Well designed iPhone/iPad app, easy to understand and use
  • Simple to set up - just plug them all in. Then you can name them etc. But literally no configuration if you don’t want to.
  • Website is pretty nicely designed and easy to use.

The cons:

  • The scene sharing between devices seems broken.
  • The timer function - to turn them on and off at particular times - seems to be broken. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

All in all, I like them. They are much easier to setup that z-wave devices, something my mom could do.

Vera control would be a handy function.

:slight_smile:

17

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12536.0.html

18

That’s my biggest gripe about Z-wave: the horrible inclusion process. My 3 Hue lamps came pre-paired to the hub; but many of my Z-wave devices came pre-paired to… some factory test controller, presumably. I often have to un-pair or factory reset Z-wave devices before they can be included. And if it’s a battery powered one, then the challenge begins to keep it awake long enough for Vera to configure it. Not something my mom could easily deal with, especially given the usually terrible manuals that come with Z-wave equipment.

19

I have 2 of these lights that turn themselves on during the day, for some reason (and it only happens during the day, not sure exactly at what time or if it’s always the same time). It’s not the hub or Vera that turns them on; both report the lights to be “off” when polled. Has anyone else noticed this?