Philips today launched a new Hue app for its range of Hue HomeKit-connected smart lights and lightbulbs, introducing a fresh, intuitive layout that makes it easier to organize and control multiple lights at one time. While the app does not support third-party HomeKit accessories, it does incorporate HomeKit-style features like organization into rooms and more expansive scheduling tools.

The Hue Gen 2 app now features a main overview screen that separates lights based on what room they're in, making it easier to set scenes by room, adjust the color or brightness of the lights in a room, or turn off all lights in a room at once. Before today, organizing HomeKit-enabled Hue lights into rooms had to be done through a third-party HomeKit app, but now it is available to all Hue users and directly within the Hue app.

hueappmainlayout
Tapping on a room offers up individual controls for each light, along with options for managing scenes. Individual light colors can be changed by tapping on the color avatar for each light and selecting a color, a white light, or a Light Recipe. Scene creation is done in the same way it was with the previous app, through photographs or specific light settings.

Also included in the app is a dedicated "Routines" section that makes it easier to set specific lighting scenes for waking up, leaving home, arriving at home, and more. A Notification Center widget, Siri voice control, and accessory support are all available and can be accessed through the Settings section of the app, which is also where Rooms and Lights can be organized.

hueappscenesandroutines
Up to 10 presets that combine multiple rooms and scenes at once can be added to the Notification Center widget for quick access, and Siri voice control with the HomeKit-enabled bridge is unchanged.

hueappscenelineup

"Philips Hue was the world's first connected lighting system for the home a little over three years ago, and since then it has become the system of choice for consumers," says Sridhar Kumaraswamy, Business Leader Connected Home Systems at Philips Lighting. "As the Philips Hue ecosystem has grown with products, apps and partnerships with leading smart home platforms, so have our consumers. They want to do so much more with our connected lights, and with the new Philips Hue gen 2 app they can. It was designed for them, tested by them, taking their feedback onboard, and today's new app gives them more control and creative freedom than ever before."

Overall, Philips' new Hue app is a lot more intuitive when it comes to managing a large number of Hue lights, especially those organized into several different rooms. Changing colors, dimming, turning lights on and off, and setting routines are all features that are easier to access in the revamped app.

Philips plans to keep both the original Hue app and the new Hue app available in the App Store, so users will be able to use the app they like best.

The new Hue app can be downloaded from the App Store for free starting today. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

TheLuckiest Avatar
113 months ago
I had the privilege to beta test this over the past few months and MAN is it a vast improvement over the current app. Really pleased with how it turned out.

The switch from thinking about rooms as "scenes" and actually as "rooms" is a very welcome change and really shows how cool smart lighting becomes once you've decked up all your major rooms with Hue.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mw360 Avatar
113 months ago
I love my Hues, but the use of all that blue and green in the app screenshots is really disingenuous. Hue bulbs can't do those colours at all. (Maybe the lightstrips can?)

iConnectHue is smart enough to show the bulb's colour gamut on its selection wheel. Doesn't stop me from messing around hoping to finally find where the blue is.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mw360 Avatar
113 months ago
Out of interest - I don't yet have any Hue products - why can't they do blue or green very well?

I own a Philips 'LivingColors Aura Colour Changing Mood Light' which has an integrated LED bulb, and it can achieve wonderfully vibrant green and blue (and turquoise).
I'd presumed I could get the same colours when I upgraded to Hue…
The bulbs aren't RGB, they are red/orange, lime green, and blue/violet. These produce great simulations of daylight and incandescent bulbs, and vivid warm colours, but the downside is that there's not enough saturation in the green and too much violet in the blue to sufficiently represent anything between pure yellow and pure blue on the hue wheel. You can get nice yellow and gentle greens, but anything around turquoise just looks like cold white. The blue/violet looks amazing mixed with some orange/red tones, deeper than anything an RGB screen can show, but you can't do anything like the green/blue underwater scenes showing in the pictures.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
IvanX Avatar
113 months ago
These should be part of "Netflix and chill" starter pack :D
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ayale99 Avatar
113 months ago
Still needs a way to recognize multiple user accounts. The current setup assumes everyone is single with no family.

- IF I leave home THEN turn off all lights.
- IF I leave home but another family member is at home, THEN do not turn off all lights.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jclo Avatar
113 months ago
I had the privilege to beta test this over the past few months and MAN is it a vast improvement over the current app. Really pleased with how it turned out.

The switch from thinking about rooms as "scenes" and actually as "rooms" is a very welcome change and really shows how cool smart lighting becomes once you've decked up all your major rooms with Hue.
Completely agree. The new app makes the Hue management experience a whole lot better, especially if you have Hue bulbs or lights in multiple rooms. It's a much better organizational system. I still think the tools for controlling the colors of individual lights could be better -- there's more focus on scenes and timers in this version.

Scenes have been tweaked so you can't drag the lights by numbers to the colors you want in a photograph, which is a feature I miss. It uses a shuffle tool to swap colors around. It's decent, but I haven't quite gotten used to it.

Also seems to be no way to change the colors of multiple lights at once without using a scene (before you could drag multiple light markers around on a color field).
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...