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Smart Bulbs come in all different shapes and sizes, the vast amount of bulbs on the market differ in communication methods, wattage, color spectrum, bulb fitting, and integrations, but still, like them or not, Philips Hue has been dominating the smart lighting market for the last bit of time, and you probably have thought about purchasing some to add to your collection, if you haven’t already.
Philips Hue bulbs are pretty popular in the smart lighting space, due to their robust functionality, ease of use, reliability, integration, the large number of customization options, and most importantly, their beautiful colors.
The Best Philips Hue Ideas
Sync Your Lights With Your TV
Having Your Lighting sync with what’s on your tv is one of the best ways to be immersed in the content you are consuming, and while other smart TV Light Syncing options do exist, The Phillips Hue Sync Box can integrate with as many hue lights as you want, unlike other options where they only work using the supplied LED Strip.
One problem with the Sync box is the price, and that it doesn’t come with any lighting equipment, as these have to be purchased separately. The best product to use with the sync box is the Gradient Light Strip, which is addressable, unlike other options which can only pick one color at a time.
Integrate With Your Twitch Stream
Twitch Streamers Setup is usually full of RGB Lights, From Nanoleafs to Cololights, Streamers Setups could always use smart lights. One of Hue’s biggest features is the large amounts of great integrations on the market, one of which is called Lumia, Lumia is a tool that helps twitch streamers integrate their smart lighting products, for example, flash when a new user subscribes to the streamer.
Lumia Also Integrates with the streamers Elgato StreamDeck, as well as LIFX, NanoLeafs, ColoLight, YeeLight. You can enable Chat Commands for any of the aforementioned smart lights, as well as more complex uses, like a color picker while rewarding your stream with points.
Integrate With Your Razer Gear
Do you Know Who also likes RGB? Gamers! A common trope in gaming gear is RGB lighting in everything imaginable, from the PC case to the headset, every piece of gaming gear has an RGB version. Razer is a prominent manufacturer in the gaming gear space, and their products have always been high quality in my experience.
The Philips Hue line of products works with Razer Chroma, which is a piece of software that Razer uses to change the lighting of their products. When you Link your Philips Hue Hub with your products, this lets you change your lighting with your keyboard and mouse, you can also integrate your lighting products with the game you are playing (if compatible)
Let’s take the Sims 4 as an example, you can let your Philips lighting change automatically according to your sim’s mood. Other games change colors when you die or have other effects.
Sync your Spotify Music with Philips Hue
Other Lighting Products also sync with the music, like the Nanoleaf Panels, which use an onboard microphone to sync to the beat of the audio playing in your room. The Philips Hue Lighting line uses a different way of syncing than other products. Hue Links with Spotify directly using the app to sync to the beat of your music, and you can play the audio from any device using your Spotify account.
Other Products are more useful if you use another music service like iTunes or Pandora, but for Spotify users, this may be the best option.
Blink Your Lights When You Receive a Specific Notification
Never miss an important email again when using this IFTTT Routine, You can set up a routine using IFTTT (if this then that) that triggers, or flashes your Hue lights when you receive a specific notification. You can set the routine to flash when your android phone receives a notification from your business email app. Sadly, this only works with android phones. (using IFTTT requires a subscription to unlock capabilities mentioned in this article)
Turn The Lights To Blue When it Starts Raining
Another Great Use of IFTTT is the Integration with weather apps, using your local weather information can be of value to be notified when drastic weather changes happen. The automation will trigger a Philips Hue light to change its color to blue when the weather app detects changes in your local area. This doesn’t stop at rain however, you can use it to notify you of other metrics, like when you should leave to arrive at work on time.
Notify Children of Dinner Time using google home and Philips Hue
The Google assistant is a must-have assistant for every smart home, one of its nice features is a feature called Dinner Bell. When you trigger the routine, all of your speakers will ring a bell, and notify your house that dinner is ready. You can also add more conditions with this feature, like making lights blink or TVs turn off. This feature is especially nice for homes with children.
Get Notified When Your Smart Doorbell Rings
If you frequently use noise-canceling headphones, you will frequently miss out on the doorbell ringing, and you might also frequently miss packages being delivered as well. The Philips Hue Flashing Feature can also be utilized here. The easiest way to do this would be to use a SmartThings or Alexa routine. Just set the trigger to be a doorbell ring and the action to be flash hue lights.
Turn Your Lights To Warm White When it’s Night-Time
It’s proven that a warmer color of lighting triggers a tiring sensation in the human brain, but no one will actually do it manually every night, but that is what automation is for! This Routine is also easy to set up, just change the color temperature when nighttime comes.
You can also purchase the Philips Hue Filament Bulbs, which make your kitchen area look more unique and exquisite.
Turn Your Smart Lights on Slowly
A light turning on suddenly is very jarring to the eyes, especially if you were in the dark for a significant amount of time. It’s advisable to let your lights turn on slowly for the comfort of the eyes, if you have your lights turn off automatically as well, you can also set it up that it goes to 20 percent brightness for a few seconds before turning off.
Randomize Your Lights To Deter Burglars When You aren’t Home
Most homes are broken into when the homeowner isn’t home. A good deterrent is a light turning on randomly to trick the burglars into thinking someone is home. If you are in the US, you can use a feature called Alexa Guard which randomizes all your smart Lights, if you arent, however, you can also set up a normal Alexa automation that triggers when you aren’t home and turns on the lights randomly.
Be Notified When Your Front Door Is Opened
Another Great Security Measure is being notified when your front door is opened, and while receiving a notification is fine, it’s inevitable that you will miss it once, especially if you frequently use noise-canceling headphones, or leave your room in another room. Having the lights flash when a sensor is triggered is sure to grab your attention. You can also use this on your yard gate as well.
Be Notified When Your Cooking Timer Runs Out
Using Alexa to set timers is very helpful, especially when cooking, but if you also want a visual cue for when the food is done, then this idea is for you. Just create an automation to trigger your lighting when the Alexa timer is over.
Take Your Lighting To The Next Level Using Motion Sensors
Controlling The Lights from your phone or your voice is fun, but if you want to take it to the next level, then using motion sensors is the next logical answer to improve your smart home. Philips Hue already makes a motion sensor for this use case. The possibilities are endless with this one.
Have More Lighting Control Using External Buttons
Another way to improve your lighting setup (other than buying more lights) is by using external buttons and remotes. Philips already makes external buttons like the Dimmer Remote and Hue Button, which are portable and use batteries.
These are very useful if you have a family member which doesn’t like using a voice assistant, or just wants another way to control your lights other than a voice assistant.
Turn Off Your Lights When You Leave Home Automatically
This is very useful to cut down on your electricity bill. If you have children getting ready for school in the morning, then you know that they always forget to turn off the lights when they are in a hurry.
This Automation is sure to help with that. And there are multiple ways to do that, either adding it as an automation that triggers when you leave home using your location, just telling your assistant to turn off all of your lights before you leave your home.
Elevate Your Movie Experience Using Philips Hue
Other than using the Sync Box mentioned in the first idea of the article, there are other ways you can use your lighting to make your movie experience better, one of which is dimming your lights when you turn on your tv or projector. Another Idea is using Light Strips to light up the underside of your couch or chairs, like the seating in the theater.
Never Miss Your Bus Again Using Philips Hue
Some Public Transportation Services Integrate With IFTTT, and if yours does then you can use it to create an automation that flashes your lights when it’s time to leave for the station so you don’t miss the bus.
If your transportation method doesn’t work, however, then you just tell it to flash 15 minutes before the usual bus arrival time, so you have time to get to the station.
Protect Your Eyes Using Backlighting
If you work late nights, or just like to game in the dark, then you are really hurting your eyes. And while we already mentioned adding light strips on the back of your monitor, there is another option.
The Philips Hue Play Bars are great for this use. They come in a 2 pack and produce a large amount of lighting. Just stick them to the pack of your monitor and pick your desired color and brightness.
Build The Ultimate Gaming Room Using Philips Hue
Thanks to the large number of Philips Hue products on the market, this idea will have multiple variations depending on how you want your room to look (and how much you want to spend)
In the first couple of ideas, I mentioned that you can integrate your Razer Gear with your lighting, as well as Spotify. And using the Sync Box will also add a lot of color to your setup. Like a lot of other ideas on this list, the only limitation is your creativity.
Under Cabinet Strip Lighting
If your kitchen doesn’t have bright lighting, then this is for you. Strip Lights are very versatile in places like the kitchen because you can attach them under the wall cabinets in a light strip channel to diffuse the light and make it look better. You can also hide the cable pretty easily.
You can use one of the smart buttons mentioned above and attach it somewhere on the kitchen so you can turn it on easily when you are cooking. The added color really does improve the look of the kitchen.
Hide a Light Strip in The Corner
Another use of light strips and channel covers is to hide light strips in obvious places. And one place it hides things particularly well is a room corner. It looks amazing, especially in an office or bedroom so it supplies accent lighting, but doesn’t look bad when it’s off.
When you are purchasing your channel cover, make sure that your light strip will fit inside, and close the cover over it nicely. Another option is using the Gradient Light Strip, which has a diffuser built-in, but it’s pricey.
Turn Your Porch Light on When Your Doorbell Detects Motion
A repetitive task someone has every day is turning on the porch light for visitors, but you might forget to turn it on or forget to turn it off at the end of the night. If you have a smart doorbell or a motion-sensitive porch camera, then you can enable it to turn on the light when it senses motion.
Never Hit Snooze Again
I hate waking up just to hit snooze and wake up again, and probably you do too. That’s why using smart lights as an alarm is very practical. If you already use your google home or Alexa as an alarm, then it’s as easy as adding the light turning on slowly in your automation or you can just create an automation to turn on slowly for a specific time, but this isn’t the best smart way to wake up. We also talked about the best smart bedroom tech gadgets which you can read.
Turn On Your Garage Lights When Your Garage Door Opens
Turning on the lights automatically when you get into the garage is a very small thing, but it is very helpful. There are multiple ways to do this, and if you have a smart garage door opener, then it’s as easy as creating an automation that turns on the lights when your door is triggered. However, if you don’t have one, then you can use a smart contact sensor to track if the door is opened or closed, and then use it in an automation.
Conclusion
As you can see, all of these ideas either improve your quality of life, save you time, or both! And this is what having a smart home really does.
Philips Hue isn’t the only smart light you can use to do all of these automatons. Other smart lights do similar things, or do them in a different way, like communicating with their hub differently. So don’t feel constricted to only use Philips hue.
