How To Set Up Philips Hue Light Bulb With Alexa

Philips Hue is a really cool Wi-Fi-enabled lighting organization that allows you to plow on and off your lights right from your smartphone (or from other smarthome-controlling devices, like the Amazon Echo). It's one of the first steps in turning your house into a smarthome of the future. Hither's how to fix your Philips Hue lights using the new Philips Hue app.

RELATED: The Nigh Common Philips Hue Problems, and How to Prepare Them

Hue has been around for a while, but they recently released a make new app, with an all-new interface that makes information technology a bit easier to manage and control your smart bulbs. At that place tin be a bit of a learning curve compared to the old app (which you tin can still download for iOS and Android), simply once you get the basics down, yous might come up to observe that information technology's a lot improve than the old Hue app. (It is, however, missing a few features from the erstwhile app, which we'll discuss later on in this guide).

Y'all tin catch the new app here, and if you already take your bulbs fix up, skip down to the setup section of this guide. If you're new to Hue, let's talk virtually what Hue tin do, and what you lot get in the box.

What Is Philips Hue?

Lighting has advanced dramatically over the last few years, especially with the introduction of LED bulbs, which use way less power, concluding longer, and cost less to operate in the long run.

However, smart lighting takes an fifty-fifty further step forwards, and Philips is leading the way with its Hue lineup of smart bulbs. These are calorie-free bulbs that work with whatever standard low-cal socket that you lot already have in your house's light fixtures, but they accept some added internal components that allow them to exist controlled wirelessly from your smartphone.

There are a handful of different Hue low-cal bulbs that Philips offers. Its near popular, though, is the $199 Hue White and Color Starter Kit, which comes with the required Hue Span, as well every bit three Hue light bulbs that can modify colors and do all sorts of slap-up stuff. Yous tin besides get the cheaper $79 Hue White Starter Kit, which comes with the Hue Bridge and ii Hue White bulbs, which are nothing more than merely dimmable soft white bulbs.

Since the bulbs tin can't directly connect to your habitation's Wi-Fi network, the Hue Span is a hub that acts as the middleman of sorts. Your light bulbs connect to the hub, and the hub connects to your router.

This involves a bit more setup than what yous might have originally anticipated, simply it's actually very easy to set up Philips Hue lights. Here's what you'll need to do in order to become it all up and running.

How to Ready Up Your Philips Hue Lights

When you unbox your Philips Hue lights, you'll get a Hue Span, a power adapter, an ethernet cable, and either two or 3 low-cal bulbs, depending on which starter kit y'all bought. The Hue White and Color starter kit comes with three bulbs, while the Hue White starter kit comes with ii bulbs.

Start past screwing in the light bulbs into the calorie-free fixtures that you want to control wirelessly, and be sure to turn the power on for these light fixtures. The Philips Hue bulbs volition automatically turn on, letting you lot know that they're working properly and are ready to be paired to the Hue Span.

Next, plug in the Hue Bridge past connecting the power adapter to the Bridge and the other end into an available outlet. After that, connect one terminate of the ethernet cable to the Span and the other end into an bachelor ethernet port on the back of your router. You accept to plug it directly into your router with an ethernet cable–the Hue Bridge does not have Wi-Fi built in; instead, information technology uses the Wi-Fi in your router.

Wait for all four lights to light upward on the Hue Span, and one time that happens, you tin begin the setup process.

Next, download the new Philips Hue Gen 2 app for iOS or Android. Be aware that there are a lot of third-party Philips Hue apps available, so if yous search for it in the app store, you'll want to make certain to download the official one in order to ready your lights at start.

Afterward you open upwardly the app, information technology will automatically begin searching for a Hue Span.

One time it has found yours, tap on "Set up".

Next, printing the push-link button on your Hue Bridge. It will be the big round button in the eye.

Once it'south continued, tap on "Have".

Next, it'due south fourth dimension to fix upwardly HomeKit and Siri if you're an iOS user. Tap on "Pair bridge" at the bottom.

Tap on "My domicile" at the bottom and give your habitation a name. "Home" ordinarily works just fine in this case. Tap on "Create habitation" when finished.

Next, you'll need to scan the accessory setup lawmaking that's on the back of the Hue Span. Agree your phone upwards to this code and it will detect it automatically.

It'due south now time for your Hue Span to observe all of your Hue light bulbs, so tap on the "+" icon in the bottom-right corner.

Tap on "Search".

It will take several minutes for it to observe all of your bulbs, but when it'south done, it will tell yous how many bulbs it institute well-nigh the height. If information technology doesn't find all of your bulbs, you tin can tap on the "+" icon again then select "Add serial number" to manually add the bulbs to your setup. Don't worry, this is a fairly common necessity.

Once all of your Hue bulbs are found, the app will prompt y'all to grouping them into rooms for easier control. So tap on the "+" icon in the bottom-right corner on the side by side page.

Tap on the text box at the top and requite your first room a proper noun.

Then tap on "Room type" and select the type of room it is.

Side by side, under "Light pick", bank check or uncheck whatever bulbs that you don't desire associated with this room, and so tap "Save" in the top-right corner.

Unfortunately, this function is pretty poorly designed: If you're using new bulbs, they'll all have generic names similar "Hue white lamp 1", and y'all won't necessarily know which ane is which. Go ahead and approximate for at present–if it's wrong, you can get back into the settings and alter it. Nosotros'll hash out this later on in the guide.

Add together more rooms if you want by tapping on the "+" icon at the bottom. Otherwise, tap on "Next" in the top-right corner.

You're all washed with the initial setup process. Tap on "Let's become" to begin controlling your Hue lights.

How to Rename and Regroup Your Hue Lights

At present is the time to brand changes if any of your bulbs are in the wrong room. If so, tap on the settings gear icon in the meridian-left corner from the main control screen.

Showtime, select "Lite setup".

On this page, you tin tap on whatever seedling'south name to come across it flash. And then, tap on the small circular "i" icon to rename the light to whatever you want.

Tap in the text box and give the lite bulb a new proper name of your choice. This volition make it much easier to tell which bulbs are which.

Subsequently yous've renamed all your bulbs, go dorsum to the Settings and select "Room setup".

Then, you can echo the room creation process as described above, but with your lights properly named.

How to Command Your Philips Hue Lights

From the main control screen, y'all tin turn on and off a room using the switch on the correct. Yous can also accommodate the brightness using the bar below the room name.

You tin also tap on a room to control each lite seedling individually.

Tapping on the circumvolve of an private light bulb will bring up the colour selector, where you lot tin alter the seedling to any colour if y'all have the more expensive Hue White and Colour bulbs. You tin can also tap on "Whites" to select a white color temperature.

There's likewise a "Recipes" section that tin change the color temperature based on different moods and scenarios.

Command Your Lights From Afar with Remote Access

If you want to exist able to control your Hue lights when you're away from home, you'll need to create an account on Philips' website (if y'all don't have one already). You lot tin can practise this by first tapping on "More" in the bottom-right corner of the main control screen.

From in that location, tap on "Log in to My Hue".

Select "Log in" at the bottom.

The Philips Hue website will load in your web browser. Go ahead and select "Create an account" at the bottom or enter in your email address and password to log in if you already have an account.

Enter in your name, email address, password, and agree to the terms and conditions. And so tap on "Next step."

Adjacent, y'all'll need to button the Push-Link button just like you did earlier when yous get-go set up the Hue Bridge.

The website volition verify the hub and it should verify the connectedness. Hit "Continue."

On the side by side folio, you'll want to select "Yes" when information technology asks for admission to your span for controlling your lights while you're away from habitation. After that, you'll be taken back to the Philips Hue app and remote access will now be enabled.

What You lot Can Practice with Your Philips Hue Lights

Turning on and off your lights from your smartphone might exist crawly, and turning them on and off with Siri is awfully user-friendly. But there are a handful of things yous can do that don't just involve flipping your lights on and off. Here are some of the bones features of Philips Hue lights that yous tin enable in the Philips Hue app.

Create "Scenes"

In the world of Philips Hue, "scenes" is a fancy term for presets. If there'south a item color you similar, or a certain effulgence you utilise often, y'all can create a scene for it. That way, instead of changing the color on each individual bulb, you lot tin can change the entire room to your favorite preset with one tap. Even if you don't accept the fancy color-irresolute Hue lights, you lot can all the same create scenes with your white-only bulbs for specific brightness levels (like "daytime" and "nighttime").

From the primary screen in the Philips Hue app, select a room and tap on "Scenes" at the lesser (or the pinnacle, if you're an Android user).

There will be a handful of pre-made scenes, simply if y'all want to create your own, tap on the "+" icon in the lesser-correct corner.

From at that place, the Hue app will let you lot to create a scene from a photo. The app has some built-in images, merely yous can as well use a photograph that's on your phone.

Alternatively, if you lot want more fine-grained control, you lot tin create a scene by going to control page of a room and setting the lite bulbs to how you want them. Then tap on the "+" icon.

From there, give the scene a name and hit "Relieve". You lot can so access the scene on the "Scenes" page, and turning it on volition bring your lights to that exact state.

Turn Off the Lights When Yous Go out

The new Philips Hue app lets you lot utilise geofencing to turn off and on your lights when you go out and get home, that way you never have to bear upon a low-cal switch again.

Nosotros've already covered this with the one-time app, and the method is nevertheless generally the aforementioned–except yous'll tap on "Routines" at the bottom and select "Home & Away".

Create Wake-Up Alarms

You tin as well utilise the Philips Hue app to create a wake-up warning, which volition slowly fade your lights on to simulate a sunrise.

Something like this is actually overnice if you lot wake up before the sun actually comes up, or your bedroom doesn't become a whole lot of sunlight anyway.

We've besides covered this in the by with the onetime Philips Hue app, but the process is similar in the new app. Merely just tap on "Routines" at the bottom and select "Wake up" to create your wake-up warning.

The Shortcomings of the Gen 2 Hue App

While the new Philips Hue app brings a new look and layout that makes it a bit easier to command your Hue lights, it'south actually missing a few useful features from the original app–which is incredibly frustrating.

The Gen two app does not allow y'all to group lights so that you can suit the color and temperature of 2 or more than bulbs at in one case–instead, you take to create a scene for any color combo y'all may want. In addition, the Gen 1 app lets you pick out custom colors from a photo using an eyedropper tool when creating a scene–something the new app does not do.

Worst of all: the new app doesn't seem to sync over your scenes from the old app, fifty-fifty when you sign into your Hue account on the new app and sync it via the My Hue web site. Your old scenes just won't show up, and it's rubber to say that scenes overall are given less focus than earlier.

Thankfully, there are plenty of third-party apps that hands practice grouping, and iConnectHue is our favorite one, as it can practice a whole lot of stuff. Alternatively, you can notwithstanding download the Gen 1 app and utilise information technology as you did earlier. Hopefully, Philips will set these omissions soon.

RELATED: How to Re-Programme the Hue Dimmer Switch to Practise Anything with Your Lights

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/247500/how-to-set-up-your-philips-hue-lights/

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