Leave a Review Philips Hue
Everything I Dreamed It Would Be
I am happy to put a $35 bulb in a $10 lamp if I don’t have to walk up to said lamp to turn it on or off. Since the concept of smart lighting creeped into my brain, I have been obsessed. I read somewhere that Hue was the best. Admittedly I didn’t read much further than that and kind of jumped the gun, but I have not been disappointed. The price can be daunting, but thanks to little credit pockets here and there and a couple great sales, we are up to 11 bulbs, spread out over four rooms. Again, the biggest plus for me is controlling lights without having to move. The colors, scenes, third party apps…icing on the cake. I love playing around with color recipes and mood lighting. It’s just fun. I recently used an automation feature to help my teenager wake up in the mornings. The lights gradually come on for 30 minutes, going from barely on to fully bright. We’ve used this twice, and both times, it worked. I feel like I’m just learning the basics. I’m sure there are a ton more fun and useful things these bulbs can do. I highly recommend!Show lessFlyBaby79
Straight forward app
Not sure what else I would need from the app, as it does everything I’d want it to. The only thing that I’d like more is for it to have more preprogrammed scenes….like, an infinite number to choose from. I realize I can create my own. But the scenes included seem quite limited and for no apparent reason at all. There need to be scenes regularly added, immediately and quickly, until there is such an extensive collection to choose from that it becomes almost impossible to choose one in a given moment. That’s not to say that the ones included aren’t great. They are, truly. And that this is my only complaint says everything about my feelings towards this app. Thanks Phillips, for a tremendous product and for the support in place for your product. I love my lights, and that’s something I’ve never would have said prior to purchasing Hue.Show lessAlwaysChilly
Setting automations
Why do you force the light to flash when setting automations? We’re fully aware what light we're choosing because you already forced the setup, configuration, naming, grouping, zones, etc. So it’s insulting to think we can’t comprehend what light we’re selecting when creating the routine. And it's especially bothersome when making even the slightest change to automations that control outdoor lights, because now you’re forcing these lights to flash. Outside. Just crank that light up to 100% for all the neighbors to get annoyed by. I love having them stop by late at night asking me to stop flashing my lights because I’m trying to adjust time or dim settings. At least make this an option?
But instead Philips continues to improve on useless features that absolutely not one user requests, unless you count all the fake reviews generated in china by spam farms. And they still haven’t done anything about arranging automations. The most atrocious layout that makes me cringe anytime I open those settings.
Like other users, I’m waiting for the day these lights stop working so I can go with a competitor, which there’s starting to be more and more with far less greed and better decision making, and listens to the user base.Show less-Thisappblowswhales-
Great if you have less than 50 devices total
I o the other hand have:
Bridges
3
Accessories
32
Lights & Plugs
141
I know i’m not your typical end customer, in that I am pushing the limits of the Hue architecture. I’m finding it really difficult to all manage my devices the way I want to be able to and the way Philips markets the products. Here is a rough inventory: Bridges (3), Accessories (32), and Lights & Plugs (141). I recently had to move many lights and accessories among my bridges because of memory issues (inability to program any new routines). Now that I have solved that pain, I have a new one. All voice assistance uses (1) Philips hue account and (1) bridge, means I cannot use Alexa to control devices on my other bridges. So I can only manage them via the app. Also, having to select a bridge before controlling devices is real also a pain. This architectural limitation also limits my availability to have automations that control all devices. I have to create the separate authorizations on each hub to achieve what should be a simple task. If I decide to change an automaton, I have to do it on all three. Can’t claim easy of use. This architectural limitation is only going to get worse as more devices are added. I do have iConnectHue app which helps, but is still not ideal and that doesn’t solve my “voice assistance” (Alexa, Google Home, Etc.) issue. Do you know of a work around and when Philips intends to address this major limitation.Show lessNorcalwaverider
Update removed very important feature
The new update is joke. It removed one of the most important features which is the master color wheel. Before, there was a “master” color wheel for all the scenes combined, and a master color wheel for each individual scene. For example, i used to be able to control ALL the lights inside my house with one color wheel. If i wanted all the lights in my entire house to be “blue”, i would simply drag my finger on the master color wheel to blue and they would all change at the same exact time. Same goes for room scenes. If i had 5 lights in my “bedroom”, there was a master color wheel for the entire bedroom in which i could do the same as i mentioned above. It was very easy…. Now with the new update, they removed the master color wheel, and if i want to make all the lights blue, i have to individually set each light to blue. This makes zero sense as they have regressed the functionality of the app. I have reached out to Philips Hue support about this issue several times and they don’t seem to understand or care. The app developer needs to understand what is going on here and fix this. It is completely unacceptable.Show lessBobdeli13
Much Happier User Experience
Overall I’m much happier with the ease of use and scene selections available in the upgraded Hue app. I’ve been a long time user of Hue products and have always thought their app was kinda crap compared to the others available and their associated scenes. Thanks Phillips Hue Team for your dedication and effort in making sure you offer a user experience that’s uncomfortable to any other product/ service on the market. I also appreciate seeing the outdoor line expand as my lights are definitely my favorite feature in my home and I’m unsure of hat I would do without it in my life. Definitely increases my quality of life by a drastic amount. I’ve been passionate about lighting for years now as this is the second home to have Color Hue bulbs throughout and after working for a new home builder I was able to really pitch your product to quite a few homeowners that are now hopefully lifetime customers as well. I’m in the Seattle area but if their were ever a career opportunity within your organization that involves Sales and Marketing, I’d love to work with your incredible team. Thanks so much!
James Schneider - SeattleShow lesssophjame
Most Recent Update Made the App Infuriating to Use
I don’t know what happened with this most recent update, but I have had nothing but problems since. Routines aren’t functioning properly (turning the wrong lights at the wrong time), setting specific times for routines is a nightmare because the time keeps snapping back to whatever time it defaults to when you first create one, it takes forever to connect to it, the lights aren’t responding to what I do in the app (I have to do the action over and over before they finally respond). I also can’t add lights to zones anymore. The app will act like it added them, but then they’ll disappear from that zone a minute later. It’s also not been working properly with Alexa since the update. Only a select few lights will respond to Alexa commands, and they keep showing up as unresponsive in the Alexa app. I’ve never had problems with the app until the most recent update (the one that also changed the look of the GUI), which is why I will change my rating once this all gets fixed.Show lessdchandler380
Unbelievably frustrated with app update
I have never reviewed an app before, but this recent app overhaul has basically ruined my experience and clearly has for many others. We have 44 different Hue lights and accessories inside and outside our home which cost almost as much as my first car, and I absolutely loved them until this app change.
The original app was intuitive, scenes and automations were easy to set, and I never had a single issue with connectivity or performance. Now, the app is horribly unintuitive, adjusting the color of a whole room or zone at a time is incredibly difficult, scenes do not work well, automations are buggy and often do not work at all, brightness cannot be set with scenes any more, and the app has a hard time connecting about 20% of the time.
This app is so bad, I truly wish I could return all of the products I’ve purchased over the last year which total over $4k. I went from telling all my friends and guests about how great Hue products are to telling everyone not buy them. Please give us the option to go back to the last app!! It looks like many loyal customers will be leaving the Hue ecosystem based on the poor user experience.Show lessfrustrated_with_hue
The App Downgraded Itself With an Update
For all it intends to do, it works.
However, for anyone who updated into this recent version, you will likely be annoyed by the lack of TOGGLE features for lights and the removal of widgets* in light of Shortcuts*. Whether they were forced to do this or not, I dislike this change and believe that if this is not corrected by the time I need to replace my lights or wish to expand what rooms have lightbulbs in them, then I will switch brands.
In regard to looks, I personally prefer the old layout. This version gives me the feeling of it being bulky and unappealing. The toggles for lights or rooms appear as if they are intentionally designed to be vertically expanded, which I find does not look right <ie: too much spacing>. Additionally, the Menu or Hotbar at the bottom looks really dull for me and maybe too small. This may be a side effect given everything else seeming too tall, unsure currently.
—Side note: Can a developer remove the option of both WIDGETS and SHORTCUTS from the settings menu to prevent confusion that we still have widgets*? This short be bundled into one option or specifically said that “Widgets are no longer a feature, please see the Shortcuts setting.”Show lessHwolfe0911
User Experience Who?
i’ve always loved my hue bulbs and have never had any substantial problems with the app, until now of course. for some reason, someone on the development team decided to ruin the user experience and make the interface unbearable. the new way of scrolling through scenes, not being able to move scenes, the placement of the scenes above the option for the bulb settings, the uncomfortable way of adjusting brightness and hue once picking from the scenes or selecting your bulb, are just a few reasons i feel compelled to write this review. options are not intuitive and don’t seem to follow any sort of logical structure as to why elements are arranged in the way they are. before the redesign, the app was easy to use and every step was easy on the eyes to follow linearly on the screen. now, there’s odd mixes of vertical and horizontal sliding and scrolling that really is not necessary and makes things worse. it breaks the flow of the rest of the app too since the rest of the app besides Home appears to be unaffected. In conclusion, I can’t avoid the terrible UX when i’ve already invested in the hues ecosystem. please make the interface bearable and easy to use again. thank you.Show lessstrawberryfawnx
