Getting started with hue

robfosters · 30 Sep 2017 at 09:44

I'm a bit confused about the hue lights.

Basically, I only want them in one room atm. I want one in an ordinary bayonet cap room light and one in a small screw lamp. I want to be able to do the colours using the disco app for parties and the like.

I’m not interested in motion sensing, just the ability to be able to control them on my iOS devices. I suppose it would be good to be able to turn them on via a wall switch like a normal light.

Can anyone give any advice on the best and most cost efficient way of starting out this way please?

Dammit, I just saw the hue thread. Can this be merged pretty please mods?

stewski · 1 Oct 2017 at 09:57

I just bought a 3 bulb starter pack from the river peeps for £120
They were screw e27 so I needed bayonet b22 adapters from maplin £5 each.
£135 for living room and bedroom, expensive but for colour temperature on white alone they are worth it!

Biggest gotcha is not retaining colour temp setting when you switch the light off and on manually!

I'm keeping an eye on mycroft ai integration, as home automation severely needs some open standards!

Also interested in plex integration with a view to ambilight type settings in the future!

glitch · 1 Oct 2017 at 11:26

You’ll need a suitable Starter kit with three of the colour bulbs and Bridge, plus the Remote Control.

As stewski has alluded to, switching on and off from the wall does not work with Hue. That’s where the Remote and an App like iConnectHue come in. The former gives you lots of lovely control options for your lights and the latter helps program it.

I don’t touch the Hue App so it might do the job, but I know iConnectHue works like a charm.

poosemon · 1 Oct 2017 at 13:59

If your near an IKEA, they do a 2-pack of b22 to e27 adaptors for £1. Works fine on my setup...

HungryHippos · 1 Oct 2017 at 18:57

poosemon said:
If your near an IKEA, they do a 2-pack of b22 to e27 adaptors for £1. Works fine on my setup...

Makes the bulbs deeper though just bear that in mind, best to just buy the right bulbs from the start if you can.

poosemon · 1 Oct 2017 at 19:45

HungryHippos said:
Makes the bulbs deeper though just bear that in mind, best to just buy the right bulbs from the start if you can.

Adds circa 5cm or so I believe, the lightshades we had were sufficient that you wouldn't notice but certainly worth bearing in mind (b22 starter kit with hub not available for instance so get hub and first couple of bulbs needed to stick to e27 and use adaptors, starter kit was on offer for £49 at the time)