Leave a Review Philips Hue
Phillips hue lights are great and flexible and work mostly
Mostly I am very happy with my Phillips hue lights. They’re very flexible, they work great, they give you a good level of control depending on the bulb. Disadvantages include that if somebody flips the switch off, then lights are useless. Probably my biggest complaint is that whenever there’s a software upgrade the bridge loses communication with the mobile app on my phone. It seems they do these updates on long weekends, and I’m often out of town. Therefore it can be very frustrating to be away and find that none of my Philps Hue lights respond to my commands. That’s the bad news but The good news is that if you have automation turned on, the automation usually keeps working even though you can no longer control the lights while you’re away. Usually this requires you to come push the reset button on the hue bridge, after you come home. Then everything works fine again.Show lessARC-TREK
New design is nice, but sluggish and unreliable
I was surprised a few weeks ago to see the Hue App had been updated again from the ground up. It is definitely simplified and made easy, however, even in the latest hardware and fast internet connection, behavior is slow. Out of your network no longer works, so I’m not able to turn off/on any lights out of my home. This was one of the best features. Additionally, the app is insanely slow on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It appears this update was a little rushed and it’s super buggy. Sometimes lights don’t even respond at all and you have to turn them all on and back off again to turn them off. Siri HomeKit integration is okay, but this app seems like a step backwards even as someone who welcomes change and progress. I’m hoping for some fixes very soon.
Update: latest release has drastically improved performance. It has gotten a lot better.Show lessPeelage
Now impossible to replicate colors
With the new update, the recently used color palette has been removed, and it is now impossible to copy colors to new lights and new scenes. I don’t understand why this feature would be removed, but doing so has made the app almost entirely useless for setting up new lights, or moving lights to new rooms. Speaking of which, the biggest problem with this app from the very beginning has been the fact that you can’t easily copy scenes to new rooms. Why can’t we create scene templates with our own preferred colors, like the built in Hue scene gallery options (Bright, Dimmed, etc)? Even when we had access to a palette of recently used colors (before it was removed with the new update), it was still an incredibly tedious task to go through and recreate every scene for a new room. But now it’s no longer inconvenient, it’s literally impossible. Please bring back the recently used color palette, and then finally add the ability for users to save their own custom scene gallery. Also, why have we never been able to apply the same color to all lights in a scene?! Why do we have to go through every light individually? 99% of scenes are going to be the same color for all of the lights. The entire purpose of this app is to allow us to customize our lighting, and it has never made any attempt at streamlining that process.Show lesscfanaic
Need to have a single login for all hue bridges
It is really annoying trying to keep this app working for more than on house. The way Philips has designed the app you have to have a separate account on their server for each Hue Bridge unit. So if you have two or more houses to monitor when youu try to switch from one house to another from a remote location the pp frequently fails because it is trying to use the wrong login id for the bridge you are trying to access. You then must manually log out of the server and login using the id for the bridge you want to talk to and HOPE that the app remembers the connection. There should be one single login id on the server and you should be able to have as many hue bridges reachable thru that id as you need. Somehow the Nest folks got this right on there remote access connections as did many other venders. I really generally like the hue light system; but the ISO app can be very painful to use.Show lessHawkflyer
Pretty UI, $#|+ UX
I (like many people) have heavily invested in the hue brand. My favorite part of the technology was the old app, which had all the functionality and usability I was looking for in an app to control the lights in my home. And that’s saying something, as I develop software for a living and work daily with app developers, so I’m a critic of UX design.
The new app is total garbage. It’s semi-aesthetically pleasing and takes nice screenshots for the App Store. That’s the end of it’s nice features. It goes downhill from there. Vertical + side scrolling is idiocy and only useful in a demo by the product owner to stakeholders. Again, stop making app usability decisions based on what takes nice screenshots. Dimming individual lights is now impossible. You can’t even be consistent on where the x button is on the screen. Or whether it’s and x or a back arrow. And different types of lights in a room causes a different screen to show up with equally horrendous but different UX. All I want to do is see my lights in a list and dim them in the same screen. And for the love of Pete, the side scrolling scenes DO NOT need to be the first thing on the screen. How many times do I need to say it, stop designing for screenshots. Have you used your own app in the real world? I use this app 50 times a frickin day. What if someone moved all of the light switches in your house and now you have to go hunting for them all over the place? This app is worse than that. Try again.Show lessUncle Pennybags $$
What did they do?
The software was recently updated and now I have no idea how to change the color of the lights without creating a new scene. Why would they take away this feature? There used to be a colored gradient circle where you could drag any light to exactly the color you want. Now instead of just adjusting the colors from the circle, you have to click to create a new scene (whether you want a new scene or not) and then the lights are all listed separately, and if you have a lot of lights you have to scroll horizontally to access them. This feature might be OK for people who just constantly use a few scenes, but if you like to adjust the lights and not save a bunch of unnecessary scenes, it’s now a bit of a hassle. Also, regarding the programming, each new scene defaults to the words “new scene” and you have to delete those words before typing a name for the scene. In less clunky programming as soon as you start typing, the words “new scene” would just disappear because no one is going to name their scene new seen ___. I don’t know, this update just is a step backwards for me.Show lessseeingimonkey
Failed migration to updated app, removed timer features.
The migration process did not complete properly. Several of my schedules were simply deleted. It seems that every time philips hue updates itself I lose some schedules or features. The last time they updated they removed fading time on timers. This time they removed timers completely. Since I use timers repeatedly to turn on or off rooms that I want to change randomly this new update renders the philips hue app useless for my needs. Why would they remove timers? IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT. After reading the most current reviews (after update 4) it's obvious that the programmers are not getting a bonus this time around. Removal of features such as timers, widgets and basic control and adjustment features. App crashes or locks up, unable to connect to bridges, unable to connect to lights, etc,etc,etc. You are alienating customers that invested $.$$$ in your products. We expect smart updates that provide added functionality and that actually work! Instead we are FORCED into garbage updates that don't migrate properly, remove relied on features, are counter intuitive and crash.Show lessHfnjgbfdhyffd
One fatal flaw
I have used Hue products for many years. They were a pioneering group in the beginning. Hue products are solid and lasting. I like all those things, and I haven’t balked too much at their pricing.
That said: There is one problem with the Hue App that we have endured from the start that I have asked Hue to fix and finally grown weary of - weary enough to start looking elsewhere for smart bulbs and such. The Hue app is the only one I have I have ever used that requires the user to verify their account and connect to the app by pressing a button on the hub - not just initially, but everytime the app is updated. That is a real problem when you are a person who must travel a great deal - and a person who depends on online ability to control devices at the remote location. I am left with two choices. Search through the apps set to update on my devices when I am away and make sure Hue is not among them or update (on purpose or by accident) and lose connectivity. Luckily some control remains via third party apps such as Alexa, but they require more intervention to use. There are other ways to accomplish verification. I can only assume Hue can’t figure that out.Show lessMyEdPlace
Hue was fine till changed app.
What bothers me is. These systems run over WiFi. So when you update the app and this is not the first time this happen. Just so we are on the same page. I have 2 systems in two different homes. Many many miles away from each other. When you update the app. To make the system work. You need to be in the house to push button down to sync them. So you can make light go on and off. Well again. I’m not near the other system. So now the other system stop working from the app. Why. Because I need to push button down to sync it. I just wish they update the app without syncing the lights all the time. The lights and the 2 units are already synced to my phone. Now the other system is worthless after spending money for them. I get time off of work to get to the other house synced. Now It won’t sync. I even reset the system lost all my lights I save for time and colors and did not get it to work. So I disconnected it and put it in closet. I’m so done with these idiots that don’t understand what the units they sell. How they are used and work. It’s sad and I’m done with this company. There are other companies I can use and will use. Good luck to all of you.Show lessMybigballs101
Very annoying UI issues in the new version
I have used Hue now for about two years and just recently updated to the new app. I like some of the the new features, but three are VERY annoying:
1. Why when in a room do you have to scroll left to right to see all the lights and scenes? Why not just list them to fit in the mobile device screen and allow us to scroll up down? It’s a much easier/faster action. Scrolling now means you have to touch one of the small light or scene widgets and not just the screen. Plus, you can grab a widget for a light or scene and move it, but only in the horizontal layout it is in. Why can we not arrange the screen?
2. Why is it not possible to just set a scene on ONE light now? If you turn off all lights but one and then want to set a scene for that one light, you cannot. You get the color selection wheel for color selection and the scenes are gone (for example nightlight). If you go back and set a scene, all the lights in the room turn on. This is confusing and not very user friendly. Scenes should be available for the room AND each light.
3. The brightness selection bar is not very precise. You can get to a brightness, but when you let it go, it often jumps 2 or 3 percent up or down from the setting. The Touch Bar plus a +/- button set would be nice. For those of us that like consistency without having to keep adjusting or using Google/Alexa.Show lessmjmattson
