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Hue Light Hack

atomic14.com

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Re: Hue Light Hack

#31

Post by JKCalhoun »

davidy123 wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way, though maybe not at the hardware level, to get these bulbs to go dimmer. In many circumstances, especially at night when avoiding glare off windows, just enough light to prevent tripping over things post eye adjustment would be ideal. But the lowest setting is far brighter than that.

I've wanted to build a bulb from scratch that contains, let's say, 32 LEDs such that when they're all on you get the full light intensity you were after.

But then dimming is then bucketed to 32 discreet steps where we enable anywhere from 1 to all 32 LEDs for the different levels.

No flicker, and perhaps at a single LED you get that very low-level dimming.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#32

Post by inconceivable »

davidy123 wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way, though maybe not at the hardware level, to get these bulbs to go dimmer. In many circumstances, especially at night when avoiding glare off windows, just enough light to prevent tripping over things post eye adjustment would be ideal. But the lowest setting is far brighter than that.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=red+led+night+light

i just have these all over my place. i don't need to turn anything on or off or mess with settings.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#34

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

aardvarkr wrote: post #29

@OP, what are your thoughts on Dubai bulbs/“ultra efficient” led bulbs? I was annoyed to learn that modern led bulbs are overclocked by design so that they fail quickly, and have been seeking a solution ever since the Dubai bulbs made it to the front page here.

Couldn't you avoid that with these Hues just by running it dimmer than 100%?

Re: Hue Light Hack

#35

Post by bigyikes »

maxbaines wrote: post #23

I have found Hue to be a rare example of how IoT can be good, they have a pretty open platform using the bridge and api, with good quality if a little pricey product. Be great if hue made a devkit for the kind of projects in the post.

People laugh at me for my $40 dollar smart lightbulbs, but I laugh at those with $20 smart lightbulbs that have all sorts of annoyances

Re: Hue Light Hack

#36

Post by ericzawo »

I have about 10 hue bulbs throughout my apartment, which I've only purchased on Black Friday sales (they tend to go up to 50% off, I've found, which puts them more in line to what I feel is a reasonable price.)

My biggest gripe is the unserious development of their iOS app, which has really been a hurdle to get them setup correctly.

The app underwent a rebuild maybe 18 month ago, which forced users to allow for phone Widgets to ONLY be created via the Apple Shortcuts app. Shortcuts, to be clear, is a great app on the iPhone, but this introduces an extra step, requiring you to ALSO create the correct Scenes for your particular Rooms, with particular Lights, FIRST, ensure they're named / setup in a clear manner, THEN add them to Shortcuts, THEN create a Shortcuts, and export, add to your homescreen. The previous method, was Hue app itself was a Widget, independent of a second app.

It honestly boggles the mind the Philips team went in this direction and speaks to how little user feedback they did. It has deliberately made using their product harder, and make life a little easier. It no joke took an entire day to get like 6 scenes setup properly.

I know there are 3rd party apps that quickly solve this. But such a basic feature like "Make a button on my homescreen I can tap to instantly turn on/off all the lights in my home" a chore is ludicrous. I thought IoT was supposed to make life easier.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#37

Post by huseyinkeles »

bigyikes wrote: post #35
maxbaines wrote: post #23

I have found Hue to be a rare example of how IoT can be good, they have a pretty open platform using the bridge and api, with good quality if a little pricey product. Be great if hue made a devkit for the kind of projects in the post.

People laugh at me for my $40 dollar smart lightbulbs, but I laugh at those with $20 smart lightbulbs that have all sorts of annoyances

I have 3 Hue light bulbs + 3 IKEA Tradfri light bulbs ( + bunch of other zigbee stuff, in total ~40 devices in my mesh network)

I started home automation with a Philips Hue starter kit but built my own zigbee network with Home Assistant later on. I'd say IKEA light bulbs, being around half the price of Philips, are pretty much on par with them.

The worst lights I had were OSRAM, they kept losing the zigbee connection and were PITA all the time.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#38

Post by stetrain »

aardvarkr wrote: post #29

@OP, what are your thoughts on Dubai bulbs/“ultra efficient” led bulbs? I was annoyed to learn that modern led bulbs are overclocked by design so that they fail quickly, and have been seeking a solution ever since the Dubai bulbs made it to the front page here.

For what it’s worth I’ve been using Hue bulbs for about 10 years and have yet to see a single failure.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#39

Post by davidy123 »

wafflemaker wrote: post #12
davidy123 wrote: post #4

I wish there were a way, though maybe not at the hardware level, to get these bulbs to go dimmer. In many circumstances, especially at night when avoiding glare off windows, just enough light to prevent tripping over things post eye adjustment would be ideal. But the lowest setting is far brighter than that.

Both Hue Color and White Ambient (that go from cold white to warm white) have a Nightlight predefined modes that give barely any light. I also have a dimmable lightbulb from hue that looks like these hipster 19th century lights and this one doesn't go that low. There are 3 types of regular Hue bulbs, maybe you need to see the.other ones?

Nightlight on the colour & ambient bulbs I have don't go nearly dim enough. I haven't tried the hipster bulbs, but I don't want a lightbulb that calls attention to itself.

Re: Hue Light Hack

#40

Post by sippeangelo »

huseyinkeles wrote: post #37
bigyikes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People laugh at me for my $40 dollar smart lightbulbs, but I laugh at those with $20 smart lightbulbs that have all sorts of annoyances

I have 3 Hue light bulbs + 3 IKEA Tradfri light bulbs ( + bunch of other zigbee stuff, in total ~40 devices in my mesh network) I started home automation with a Philips Hue starter kit but built my own zigbee network with Home Assistant later on. I'd say IKEA light bulbs, being around half the price of Philips, are pretty much on par with them. The worst lights I had were OSRAM, they kept losing the zigbee connection…

I’ve found the IKEA bulbs to be significantly worse than the Philips ones, so I would definitely say the price difference is warranted.

The IKEA bulbs aren’t as bright, get overwhelmed if you send a lot of commands quickly (so you can’t implement a dimmer for example, without the light jittering as it dims), and don’t have the “turn power on-and-off quickly to reset to full brightness” feature (though this is nice if that’s what you specifically want).

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