If you want to turn your Philips Hue lights on and off on a schedule, here’s how to turn your Philips Hue lights on automatically, which is something the Philips Hue app can’t do.
Philips Hue lights are a great way to liven up your home, not only do they add a nice look, but they are very convenient to turn the lights on and off .
The Philips Hue app has the ability to turn on the lights after a certain amount of time by setting a timer or creating an alarm for the lights to turn on at a certain time. However, you can’t turn your Hue lights on at a specific time every day and off at a specific time.
The good news is that there are other services that can control your Philips Hue lights that are capable of doing this. Let’s take a look at some of your options and set your Hue lights to turn on automatically when you want them to.
Automatically turn on Philips Hue lights
One service I like to use to automate things in my life is IFTTT, which stands for If This Then That. The service includes a ton of other services that allow you to automate certain tasks. So, for example, whenever I’m tagged in a photo on Facebook, I can have IFTTT automatically save that photo to my Dropbox folder.
Philips Hue integrates with IFTTT and you can do a lot with both. One of those things is having Hue lights turn on at a specific time and off at a specific time.
To do this, go to the IFTTT website and create an account or sign in to your existing account. After that, click on the top and then select the next page.
Next, click and then search for the channel by searching for it in the search box or search for it. Select it when you find it.
Next, you’ll need to choose a trigger, which means this is where you choose the time and day you want your Philips Hue lights to turn on. You have five options here and they are all self-explanatory. Choose the one that best suits what you are looking for.
For me, I want to turn on the lights in my office every weekday at 8:45 am, so I’ll click , and then on the next page I’ll enter the times and put check marks next to of days of the week .. Then click .
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After that, click on and then choose from the list of services.
On the next screen, click . There are also several other options, including , which can turn your Hue lights to a specific dimming you specify.
After that, you can specify which Hue light you want to turn on. You can select all the lights you’re currently connected to, or you can select an individual Hue bulb. Unfortunately, you can’t select multiple bulbs, and instead have to create the same IFTTT recipe for the second bulb. When you select a light, click .
You can change the name of the recipe if you wish. If not, click and you’re good to go.
If IFTTT isn’t your cup of tea, there are third-party Philips Hue apps available that include light-scheduling functionality.
iConnectHue is probably your best bet, but it’s a $5 app. The good news is that it’s more complete than the Philips app itself, so you’ll probably get more out of it.
The Philips Hue app isn’t that great, and you’ll probably realize that after just a few minutes of playing with it, so it’s a good idea to get a better third-party app anyway.