New Philips Hue app makes it easier to automate your lights

Signify, formerly known as Philips Lighting, has released a brand new version of the Hue application that gives you a quick way to control your smart lights. The company has redesigned the Philips Hue app from the ground up, starting with the Home tab that now shows all your lights and scenes in Tile view. 

You don’t have to go digging if you want to set the each light’s brightness, temperature and color or if you want to create and edit presets for groups of them. In addition, you can discover and preview scenes crafted by Hue’s lighting experts from the tab’s new Hue scene gallery. If you have multiple Hue bridges, the tab will give you the ability to switch between them quickly, as well.

As for the Routine tab, it’s been replaced by an Automations tab that offers more advanced options for customization. For the Coming home or Leaving home automation, for instance, the app can now check if anybody is home before running it, thanks to the new multi-user geofencing feature. That way, it won’t switch off all the lights if anybody else is home when you (assuming you’re the one controlling the automation) leave the house. In addition, Signify has also upgraded the sunset and sunrise automations, allowing you to choose a specific time for the automation to start and to turn off the lights after it’s over.

Among the other new features and small improvements that make the app more user-friendly is the ability to add a new light to a Room from within the Room tab itself. The redesigned Hue app is now available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play, and the update will automatically hit your device in the coming days.