Hue Essentials
August 19, 2024
More About Hue Essentials
Feel more in control with schedules and automation from sunrise to sunset. Widgets, Shortcuts, Quick settings, and Wear OS help you get more out of your smart lights.
Control multiple bridges simultaneously without switching between them.
Supported devices
• Philips Hue bridge
• Philips Hue Bluetooth lights
• IKEA TRÅDFRI gateway
• deCONZ (ConBee)
• diyHue
• LIFX
Scenes & effects
Create the perfect ambiance from your photos or the included photo library. Experience special animations like lava, fireplace, fireworks, or lightning.
Wake up at sunrise and go to sleep at sunset with fading lights.
Get into the party on the beats of your music. Sync your lights for a night of disco with strobe effects (updates 25 times/sec).
Quick access
Create rooms and groups to organize your lights. You can even put a light in several groups. Place widgets for temperature sensors, easy control of lights, setting color and brightness without opening of the app.
Add shortcuts to your home screen for quick opening of your room. Control your lights through an optional notification in the notification panel.
Control your lights from your smartwatch. Switch on your lights right from your watch face. Create complications & shortcuts for quick access.
Smart lights & controls
The unique ‘Touchlink’ search allows you to find new (3rd party, Zigbee) lights. Use included wizards for easy setup of your devices.
You can set scenes, actions, or even multiple scenes on a button to make your switch a real investment. Experience the right ambiance during different times of your day with your motion sensor. All of your creations are stored on the bridge. Easy for you and your family.
Advanced
Automation allows you to have greater control of your smart home. Turn on your lights when the door opens. Adjust your ventilation when the humidity gets too high. Open or close blinds and curtains based on temperature or sunshine. Configure endless automation possibilities through the Tasker plugin.
Make it look like you are at home using 'Away from Home' (out of home control).
Communicate directly with your Hue bridge using the API debugger. View technical details of your Hue bridge and update its resources like lights and sensors.
You want it all?
Fast performance with ad-free experience. Purchase the premium version to unlock full content.
Share your experience
Community: https://community.hueessentials.com
Latest Version
2.4.4
August 19, 2024
SmartFusionLabs
Travel & Local
Android
1,228,278
Free
com.superthomaslab.hueessentials
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User Reviews
Trevor Jenrich
3 years ago
Wish I could rate 10 stars. If you really want to customize your device settings in your Hue ecosystem, this is the app you need to get. I've tried other 3rd party Hue apps and this one gives you the most flexibility IMO. Especially helpful to tweak my switches and motion sensors to program the exact way I want them to operate. I started with the free version, and paid for most of the extras even though the free version did everything i needed it to. Was happy to support a well built app!
A Google user
6 years ago
Excellent customer service, great interface. Clean look and feel and it works! It's become my goto app for easier control, ESPECIALLY if you use multiple bridges. You can't group lights from different bridges, but unlike the Philips Hue app, you can see all groups without having to go to settings and swap bridges. Everything show on one page at the same time (so long as you purchase the add on). It's well worth the price in my opinion.
A Google user
6 years ago
One of the best so far. I have the premium version. Just few comments if you can consider them: 1. When change the name of the quick setting tiles, it does not change up. 2. It would be really good to add option for the remotes similar to "prepare me for sleep. Update#2 Thanks a lot for responding. However, i could not assign the go to sleep to a button or action of the remote. Good that you added the sliders, although the circle to me better, but it would be beneficial to add marks to the sliders.
Jeff G
4 years ago
Paid for premium to use the hue sync functionality. It works, but it's not as good as the actual Hue Sync app on PC. I have six lights synced with it (two behind the TV and four spaced behind my seating), and honestly... well, I sort of like it, but it's got some major frustrations. First, there's no option like in the official app to have lights fully turn off when the screen is dark/black. Instead, when the screen is black the lights turn dim white, and for some reason if there's something bright in the center of an otherwise dark screen, all six lights go full brightness white. It's really jarring. Second issue is the intensity options are a bit weird. Low is barely functional and transitions too slowly, but anything medium and above has a lot of flickering, like the zones are too small based on the screen portions in the entertainment zone. All told, I'd probably recommend this, as there's no other alternative on Android now since Hue Stream is the only other option and it tends to crash and hasn't been updated in over a year. But I hope the developer continues improving the hue sync options.
A Google user
6 years ago
This is a fantastic app and the developer is extremely helpful and responsive. I had trouble with my purchase of the premium features and kept getting an error code. The problem was a Google Play issue and NOT a problem with the app. Yet, the developer helped me work through the problem anyway and now, after a phone reset and reinstall, I am able to enjoy this app! Great work, great support, great customer service! Buy and you won't be disappointed!
A Google user
6 years ago
It would be the most comprehensive & best Hue app on the market but its best features lack depth. The "Dance sensation" mode—which I use the most by FAR—has a confusing layout, making it feel impossible to get it *just right*. Furthermore, it doesn't have different presets or support multiple custom setups. That is unacceptable. If you don't care about the Danse Sensation feature that much, it's the best overall app. But I'm tempted to buy a different app.
A Google user
6 years ago
I've bought the app with the one purpose of using it together with Tasker for automation, and for that I would give zero stars. I made a simple profile to turn on living room lights when my phone connects to home WiFi, and the results are really poor. Initially it seems to work when testing, if the app is opened. But on a real life situation, when I'm coming from outside the house, I often get "unable to connect to the bridge". I've done some testing and can elaborate but space here is limited.
Mark Davis
4 years ago
Sleek, streamlined interface, simple-to-use event scheduling controls, and fun effects. Totally worth it over the default app. One note for devs - although I like the hex grid color picker, I would prefer a more detailed hue/sat wheel color picker, or at least the option to switch to it. Because of the hex grid color picker, I still switch to the default hue app to set colors, and then go back to Essentials to record scenes and control playback and effects. Thanks!
A Google user
6 years ago
Great app! Only thing missing is Alexa! If you have your lights set up with Alexa, this app overrides that function in my experience. You can't turn the lights off by voice if this app is running. I'm sure that feature is coming and then this app will be perfect. The disco is cool. I really love the color changing/ fading and hope more color schemes are added.
David Besen
3 years ago
Used to be able to fade lights out over a period of minutes on a wall switch button press. It worked successfully for over a year. Then today it suddenly stopped working and I can't get it to work again. Edit: Bought the premium version and effects do what I want. Still 4/5 stars because there's a second or two of lag in invoking the effect that wasn't there before.
Richard Davis
3 years ago
One of my all-time favorite apps just took a major turn for the worst. This has been, literally for years, the ONLY app I use for Hue. Intuitive and powerful, Hue Essentials has been a brilliant app. Now it dove into the worst category by 'updating' alarms to 'Automations'. Now I have to scroll through hundreds of alarm settings for ALL my lights to find the one I'm looking to change or turn on or off. This is truly awful. Whomever thought of this is clueless and cruel. Please put things back.
Carissa Amici
1 year ago
This app used to allow me to make routines to turn my lights on and off at specific times. Within the last year, you can't do much on this app without paying a monthly subscription except manually turn your lights on and off. I can't even connect to Philips Hue site to turn my lights on and off via Wifi when I'm away from my home. If the Phillips Hue app wasn't incompatible with my phone, I would not even have this app. This app is completely useless now since I have Google Assistant.
A Google user
6 years ago
Its ok. Purchased the premium as I was looking for an auto off after the the light has been on, maybe an option within the schedules, nope. (e.g. you walk into your home and hallway lights turn on, after 5 min they time out) I also purchased the premium for the "Automation" features. The automation features within the app are non-existent, its basically a link to purchase another app. There isnt a refund option in the google play store.
A Google user
6 years ago
Bought to use with my Hue system. Phillips Hue app is pretty darn good, but i needed a more exciting / intense show. This app was immediately purchased!!! The dance portion in this amazing (i am running 3 bulbs, soon to be 8). You can set the lights to either use your phones microphone or the phones audio. And its spectacular! Phillips hue app does not have this ability. I hope the developers continue to add additional lighting sequences in the future.
Ben Ur
2 years ago
If you don't have a Pixel 6/6 Pro - then this app is phenomenal. I've loved everything about it. I stopped using the proper Hue app and stuck to this for years. However, ever since I switched phones to a Pixel 6 Pro, I can't use the feature that made me the happiest - Dance Sensation. Never had issues using the internal phone mic to sync the lights before. But now, when active, the lights are dead as if it's not picking up any sound. Looking on Reddit, seems to be Pixel 6/pro specific. 😞
S
2 years ago
Issues with the Tap Dial Switch. 1: After adjusting the settings for the Dial of the Tap Dial Switch, app crashed and can no longer edit that switch's settings at all. Had to reconnect it. 2: On a separate Tap Dial, the battery became "unknown". 3: Using Dial to decrease brightness does now allow it to "Decrease to Off". // Will uninstall for now, but will keep an eye on updates.
Matt Parent
5 years ago
Great app overall, but not perfect. Biggest issue is that while the widget features are great, it also has to be refreshed. Meaning I have to reopen the app to refresh the widget, which seems to have something to do with being connected to 2 bridges. This is defeating the purpose of having the widget, at times. Once refreshed, the widget becomes responsive again and is fine. Hoping this gets tweaked in the future to alleviate this issue and make the widget more seemless to use. Still recommend.
A Google user
6 years ago
Fantastic App! I no longer use the regular Phillips app. The only reason I removed a star is I found that when you add scenes to your effects, the effects don't take into account light on/off state in the scenes. For example, if I want to create a sunrise effect that starts out with just a light strip but then transitions to another scene that has a light strip + some bulbs on, it doesn't do this and you either start out with everything on, or the bulbs never turn on. On the flip side, if you have a going to sleep effect and want certain bulbs to turn off, even if they are off in the scene that is part of the effect, if they were once on, they stay on. Other than that, great app and thanks for making a more capable Hue solution available to us!
Derek Wong
1 year ago
Paid for Automation to schedule a simple event such as turning on/off at a certain time, tried it multiple times following online instructions and examples but they DO NOT work. Tried all time zones in my area and tried other time zones adjusting the time, it simply does not automate and does not turn on/off at the time set.
charles stanton
1 year ago
It's all great with the Philips hue app and hue bulbs until it comes a time when you can't continue to keep paying for Internet service (Like in my case for example) or when wifi isn't always reliable then that's when things take a turn. Nowadays, everything takes wifi in order for things to work. And everything requires apps. You can't remotely change the color of the bulbs or switch them on/off remotely if wifi isn't working. You're probably able to just turn them on/off at the wall switch.
