What are /r/huelights' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

You're absolutely delusional if you think that the support for Hue is anything less than excellent.

The strength of Hue comes with their free and open access. Any developer can make API calls to do the things that you're describing. Hue Disco won't sync to music, but will respond to sounds. Philips even has their own list of apps they like.

The Philips Hue app isn't meant to do it all. It's meant to satisfy the needs of 90% of consumers, and the app ecosystem is supposed to fill in any gaps with what more involved consumers want.

And if you want something completely custom? Feel free to build it yourself. You can.

TL;DR: You're wrong; Hue is amazing.

Hue bulbs only have two blue LEDs (vs. 4 yellow and red). This is also the reason why colors don't quite match if you have a living colors/friends of hue lamp paired on the same hub, those are "standard" RGB.

http://www.cnet.com/news/taking-a-closer-look-at-color-changing-smart-led-bulbs/

I have a buddy that played around with getting RFID tags to be read by an arduino but a little bit of googling I found this:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47466

Describes how to setup a raspberry pi to be a general bluetooth sensor. Have the Pi look for your phone and use it as the trigger.

I still have yet to find an app for controlling Hue that I am (mostly) completely happy with. After trying a number of different apps, I mainly use LampShade.

Lately, I've been playing around with another one that seems rather fun, especially for dynamic scenes—OnSwitch.

Do you know f.lux? It's a software that adjusts your monitor's color temperature to match to your local daylight.

In a blog post they stated that you can now connect it to Hue, but i haven't tried it. Might be a way to do it!

The tool / borderless windows has no impact on the performance. Hue Immersive of cource. With my setup (4GHz processor) it takes 7-9% processor performance.

Borderless Gaming: https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases

Hey thanks for the feedback! Glad that it works for you.

I'd love to expand on the app. Honestly I'm a new-ish programmer so I'm just thrilled it's working at all for you haha. I've seen other similar programs that do the localized color thing (color of left side goes to the left bulb, right side to the right, etc), so I'll look into that for sure. Latency would likely be unaffected, think there is a bit of headroom still.

Keep in mind you can get it running with just about any game, but it needs to be in windowed mode. This program will run any windowed application as a fullscreen borderless one, it's a miracle worker.

Been getting some reports about the admin rights. The program doesn't have write permissions by default for some reason (for the config file). I'll have to look into it. Thanks!

Pretty sure you can do that on the official hue site but honestly I haven't used the official app since the first week or so that I had hue lights (other than to do updates).

fake edit: just checked the meethue site and it's laid out differently now (no sorting) so I guess it's more just a matter of browsing and looking for ideas. Honestly I just make my own since there are only so many combinations out there. I think sites like http://www.colourlovers.com/ can also be good for general color schemes and palettes to try out for inspiration. I've just found that everything looks different when it's applied to lighting due to the other colors in your house so I get the best results just by experimenting.

I'm guessing you might be able to do something with IFTTT? They have a Hue channel and a Withings channel, so it might be possible to automate things this way.

https://ifttt.com/withings https://ifttt.com/hue

For your bookcase you may want to look at the new Lightstrips Plus. They use color gamut C, similar to the Hue Go, and look good under cabinets or bookcases: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014H2OXYU/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?tag=huelig-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B014H2OXYU&adid=11ZK621N6588E4200SF0&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fhuelights.com%2F

I use this one with a GE Link bulb. Works great, no issues at all.

http://smile.amazon.com/Adesso-3138-01-Wright-150-Watt-62-5-Inch/dp/B000PRLPZ2/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1443019073&sr=8-6&keywords=floor+lamp

Hue bulbs are not, by themselves, wifi bulbs. You must buy a bridge which you plug into your router in order to wirelessly control them. The bridge doesn't come on its own and costs a different amount depending on which starter pack you buy. With Hue Lux, its its about $40 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ME9CDQE/ .

I'm not convinced that the Hue bulbs are the best available, but the Hue bridge probably is, it has an open API which means that there are lots of 3rd party apps available for it. Some alternative bulbs which you can use with your Hue bridge include GE Link and Osram Lightify. The Lightify are good, but I can't comment on the GE ones as they're only available in the US.

LED light bulbs will last longer than non-LED bulbs, and usually consume less power, but it depends on the specific bulb. Hue will last as long as similar LED bulbs on the market.

They're designed for you to never turn off the light switch again, they're an aftermarket home automation solution, there are other options which require you to change your switches etc, but those are all more complex. So, yes, its safe to leave them turned on at all times. Just be aware, if you have a power cut, they will all turn on to full brightness.

Holy crap. Had no clue you he to buy another thing. Seems like a bit much for this, especially when I am doing it just for fun and to make my life only slightly easier/cooler.

Would I be correct in assuming all other iPhone controllable light bulbs would also require this?

Such as this:

Flux WiFi Smart LED Light https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SGLKWQW/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_c4RMvbH2HZQ0D

GE Link, Wireless A19 Smart LED https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NOL16K0/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_x5RMvbW8HSYKV

Maybe I should ask if there are any bulbs that do not require an additional pry that needs to be connected to the router? Looks like I'll have to consider a switch, or remote co trolled bulbs or none since I'm not looking to spend a huge amount on these. Thanks!

I just want to point out you're talking about putting $120 worth of lights in a $12 lamp. If you really like that lamp, great, if not find something you love. Shop through some closeout stores and see what you can find. Here's my favorite lamp http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IJJQ5RQ

The below adapter, when put in client mode, will connect to your WiFi network and give you an ethernet port to plug your bridge into.

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR702N-Wireless-Repeater-150Mbps/dp/B007PTCFFW

To clarify, the Hue bridge does not need to be "ON" the router, it just needs to be on the network, and accessible by other devices on the network. Normally this means people plug it directly into the router, but it could be connected to a device like this, or connected through a few ethernet switches.

As for warranty, I don't take that into account, not worth shipping the bulbs back to the US from EU. @eurusdfr I took a look at amazon.fr and those are still magnitudes more expensive than buying it from the US.

Anyone have any info about these? Amazon answers have two responses in regards to 220v one yes and one no.. Figures... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NOL16K0

Or you can use this route: http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-electronic-ballast-interface-certified/dp/B00NMSQ4QQ/

They support RGB and RGBW light strips and integrate fully with the HUE system. Make them as long as you want!

I'm not sure about the dimmer switch, but I use Tasker https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en and Autohue https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuberob.autohue&hl=en on my Android phone to control pretty much everything do to with my Hue lights. I created an 'autolight' shortcut on my homescreen which will turn on the lights throughout the house and continuously adjust the lighting based on time of day and current weather.

I use a sunrise alarm everyday, and have used one for quite a long time now. The easiest way I've found is using an Android app called Lampshade. With the paid Pro version, you can set multiple alarms, which makes it extremely simple to change the time of the sunrise alarm. You can even set different alarms (and therefore different times) depending on the day of the week.

No problem. I found this app on Android that allows you to create animations of any second length. So for instance, 10 seconds of blue, then 10 seconds of red.

I guess my problem with this app is that I can't then add like 10 minutes of a single color...I'd have to add 10 seconds of blue a million times over. Something more easily editable would be good too. I'll keep searching.