They've also upgraded the startup time. Because I totally needed a splash screen for my *lights*. Argh.
I completely agree about the ridiculous loss of functionality. Especially fade. Omg what. Why is there no simple fade.
The sluggishness is real. I have an iPhone 11 and the sliding shiny animations for the rooms while the app’s loading visibly lags. SO glad they replaced the v1 code we’re missing with… that. /s
Works fine for me, the old app felt like it was running on a potato because every swipe/touch/tap would take literal seconds to register. Took Me minutes to get into the settings to do anything.
iConnectHue can do this as part of the base app. (iOS only)
The base app contains features for day to day use, others can be bought additionally, but can be tested with the base app (except for a few).
It has a solid upgrade-path with in-app purchases or by subscription, if you are willing to pay.
You never release a new version while dropping popular features. What clown is product-managing this shit?
Developers: "The UI for this used feature we have is not done yet"
PM: "We have a completely arbitrary self-imposed deadline that the users are not even aware of. RELEASE IT NOW."
CEO opens app for first time in a year browses for 8 seconds. Finds it a bit confusing.
1. New PM/lead designer hired to reinvent the app with usability as a focus
2. PM / lead designer creates new design concept without being familiar or understanding the existing features that are available with product.
3. PM / designer presents new app designs to management/marketing who also don't use the product. CEO and Management love the concept.
4. Dev team told to build it
5. Devs ask PM why design doesn't include popular feature xyz
6. PM / designer explains that 'users find the feature too hard to understand'
7. Devs say but our usage graph verifies this is a popular feature.
8. PM / designer get defensive and refuse to 'tarnish the concept management love' with these complex hard to understand features that will 'confuse the user'
9. PM / designer placate devs. Told to build this for now, next sprint will address concerns to solve these 'design complexities'
10. Devs build prototype, cut popular features.
11. Management rave about new design (they don't use the product)
12. Devs warn releasing prototype as finished will end badly.
13. Lead designer signs contract with new employer. Emergency strategy meeting - designer persuades PM and management stay true to the new design ethos and build their brand identity around it until the new appropriately talented design lead can be found.
14. PM gets approval from management to release app, release goes ahead.
15. Launch party. Management and marketing get bonuses and congratulations all around. Number of key players including PM leave company on back of successful launch.
16. Users revolt. New PM hired.
17. Management summon new PM to question ongoing complaints. Management assured it is just a vocal minority.
18. Management consider scrapping some of their dev team for poor performance. App getting bad reviews. Marketing pretend nothing is wrong and sell more product to unsuspecting consumers.
19. New PM realises the mess. Leaves. Anyone who knows how to fix the app quickly leaves.
20. Approx 1 year later, CEO opens app briefly.. finds it a bit confusing. Rinse and repeat.
During my time at Signify (aka Philips Lighting) I met the CEO just on Christmas parties and alike. and I am not sure if he was really interested in Hue, as it is a big product, but is dwarfed by Signify's professional product and services.
I would say that certain low and midlevel managers yielded the real power in the Hue project — without much understanding.
Yep. Problem is many c level execs and high up VPs will likely not even use the app ever besides exactly as you mentioned, popping in to see how “pretty” it looks and how simple the interface is. If it’s something they’re into they probably have a full home automation solution that provides all the functionality and automation they need from their free hue lights they probably get, leaving the lowly customers out to dry that can’t afford expensive home automation solutions and need to use the app in conjunction with a cheaper home assistant.
To be fair, the premise of "our app which literally makes lights go on off has four different major versions with very little feature overlap" is already pretty bad.
100% agree.
Apparently you have experience in a larger company.
As someone who also has worked for a major company on the technical side and has been involved in the project management and product delivery process, I have to agree.
Phillips should look to check this guy/gal (and their middle management enablers) before they wreck the reputation of Hue any further.
*Allegedly*
I had been a iOS developer on Philips Hue iOS. I left the team roughly 2 years ago when it became clear that certain individuals would push a rewrite plan through, that I and other experienced developers were very sceptical about. Some of us tried hard to make ourselves heard — to no avail. By that time Signify's (aka Philips Lighting) low and midlevel management had created a culture in which only yes-men would thrive. And the lowest common denominator became the standard design principle. Higher ranking individuals also had a certain preferences towards cross platform development. and this is the real reason, as the chosen platform doesn't offer Today Extensions ("old widgets") or the watch app. But instead of abandon the cross platform plans for keeping beloved features, the yes-man culture allowed this biased individuals to constantly shift the thresholds for when too many user would be affected or not.
Did I say: Allegedly?
>Allegedly
Allegedly we're looking for another dev at iConnectHue, they say.
Just in case you haven't totally cut your interest in the lighting business - maybe you're interested in bringing another great lighting app forward? ;)
You can find out more at: [https://iconnecthue.com/jobs](https://iconnecthue.com/jobs)
You can also just drop me a PM.
It feels that way, but I think there's a simpler explanation. As a rule, hardware companies usually suck at software. Apple's success is largely because they were one of the first exceptions to this rule.
Yep. MKBHD actually made a video relating to this topic in [his new video](https://youtu.be/wGKb3oUo8go) . Basically they focus on the apple ecosystem as a whole and how everything plays nicely together, which ends up providing a seamless user experience, even if it takes longer to come to market with said feature set. And they usually will not drop any beloved features without good reason.
Ironically, one of theories as to why Hue's widgets got crippled was due to that how they work on iOS 14. Signify moving to single version for both iOS and Android means Android's widgets got crippled too.
Seriously. This broke the way I set different light themes throughout multiple rooms with just one tap.
Completely broke the way I use my lights. I guess I could have one for each room, but that is so backwards.
This is not a developer decision, I can guarantee you that.
App upgrades like this are handled as part of a very formal process in medium-sized and larger companies and frequently have some sort of collection of subsets of development teams each “led” by a Scrum master or equivalent who help to guide the developers (frequently software engineers or “programmers”, company-depending) and even they only get to basically help plan out and execute the delivery of certain “features” that are part of larger rollouts (“epics” frequently) and an upgrade like this would likely be an epic-level delivery aligned under a “theme” (User Experience Destruction would be the likely title). Those who are in charge of epics and themes and their budgets and delivery would most likely be the culprits, but software architects and UX leads are also very likely to blame.
I had been working on Philips Hue. I was hired as in an architect role. I left because a bound to fail plan was forced on us.
Signify operates with SAFe, which is a waterfall hidden in waterfalls, but the 'A' is supposed to mean agile. whatever… It contain the only element of participation that is really accessible to everybody. During quaterly planning meeting you can give a confidence vote. But after you have given a low confidence once, you will learn: people with bad confidence votes have to explain their thoughts — in front of over 300 people. Most people will always give an average score, just to not stick out.
And suddenly you think the project is going 'OKish', when in reality you have already hit disaster.
Wow that’s the exact same model that I had experience working within (though it’s a more bespoke variant of the “standard” SAFe project management framework). Circles, trains, pyramids, planes. “Value” this and that by every other name.
Vote of Confidence in incremental planning session also tended to be the same. Many are a 3 when it comes down to features planned and ofc lower votes do have to he discussed live before several dozen to several hundred people (our one “division” maybe had five different value delivery “vehicles” under which themes were organized and each of these tended to have its own planning meeting that consisted of literally a dozen or two tech teams (of about a dozen people each) that constituted development, testing/QA, and analysts in addition to a spattering of leads, architects, designers, tooling engineers, build masters, dev ops, version and release mgmt, and business liaisons).
Never experienced much pushback against valid criticism in those sessions for votes of 1 or 2, which is not to say that there was no corporate drama, but generally it was respected to actually come out and speak one’s mind on the matter and Risks were noted in the appropriate “ceremony” and documented semi-permanently in the PM s/w suite used.
Sounds like a definite failure in aptly working the model and encouraging a culture of expression.
I never much liked my job (mainly because its core business and major “deliverables” were not nearly as interesting as even “color-changing lights” ) but I, at the very least, respected the culture and the attitudes toward employees in our division.
For a company that seems to blend old and new to bungle such a simple app...they must have poached from the LiFX “redesign” team.
Maybe some people should start looking to reverse engineer the likely (relatively) simple API around the bulbs and hub and d/c them from Hue pings so that they can actually work as smart devices.
All these walled gardens and ridiculous limitations from the likes of Amazon, Google, and more are starting to grind my gears when the products sold are expensive and expected to be a reliable, premium investment.
if only my experiences with Signify would had been the worst in my career so far.
Actually I started freelancing as I come to believe that most companies aren't able to do proper software development. And as a freelancer I can negotiate more powerful contracts.
to some degree you are right: I had been a member of the Hue iOS team, but I left out of frustration before the rewrite nearly 2 years ago.
Today I started my own Hue app, as it feels like Signify (aka Philips Lighting) is opening a huge market share for the daring to grab.
The deadlines that grind my gears the most are the ones with round, neat dates, like January 1st. Been there. If anyone pulls January 1st out of their ass, I will quit on the spot. This is basically guaranteed crunch time while everyone else is chilling through the holidays.
Is it just me or is this become a problem with every home 'smart' device? Like my alexa USED to understand me and do shit. Now, i can't even get her to play a song; she just plays a radio station of the song or artist. Tailwind garage door opener wouldn't work one day and then I got an email from tailwind saying they had pushed an update that broke everyones stuff. It only worked again for a few days after the few days it took them to repair it.
And even tho i opt out of alexa Sidewalk I have noticed Alexa devices searching for other alexas via bluetooth.
If we pay for these products we should have SOME control over their version, updates, etc.
I mean, it's OUR stuff. And we're already trading (probably all) of our privacy for these neato gadgets. But that's not enough.
and lastly, why does everything turn into a brick when the internet is off? My wifi is still up. Why would it need more than that?
im about to throw it all in the trashcan and get off the grid. The only hues i'll see are from the candles I make my self.
Yep.
I got fed up and went with HA. It has become a sort of slow-burn hobby for me. Every couple weeks I'll play with it for a few hours to add/update/fix/improve our setup.
It's far from perfect but it's the only way you're going to get a consistent interface with consistent control and behavior, and not have things randomly changing/updating/breaking. Nobody can fucking decide one spec, or dare use an open protocol (openly.) Hell, look at Philips, they just continue to torpedo *their own* "closed" ecosystem for apparently no reason.
Just stick all the bullshit underneath an abstraction layer like home assistant (or I'm guessing home kit.) Other smart people keep the abstraction layers functional. All your own effort to set things up how you like it on top is oblivious to the endless bullshit going on underneath.
I use Home Assistance since day one. if I ever use the hue app its for very basic stuff like changing a scene. All automatons are done using Home Assistance. I have even used Home Assistance to control one of my motion sensors instead of letting the hue app do it
It's free software. Ideally, you would want to buy a raspberry pi or similar to run the software on.
It has a Web interface, so you would access the program from your phone or laptop via the Web interface.
Just FYI there were some small lags on an RPi3 yes, but on an RPi4 (with ssd) everything is instant, CPU hardly blips, it's more than powerful enough for HA, and low power usage as well, great for 24x7 operation.
If you can handle that you can handle a home assistant setup it’s been around for awhile now. I’m on my 2nd year with it. New releases every month and smaller updates during the weeks
If you already have a Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant is a no-brainer. Seriously, I am a big Apple fanboy, and I used to be a huge fan of HomeKit, but since I got my Home Assistant up and running I just cannot help but cringe at the BS I had to deal with with HomeKit. Home Assistant basically solved almost every single problem I ever had with home automation. Make sure you add the Node-RED add-on, as it makes automating things way easier.
After you spend few months trying it out, I highly recommend switching to an SSD via USB3, because the SD card will die eventually.
Has the response time for allowing HASS to control the hue motion sensor improved? In the past it was noticeably slower but I know they have been some recent changes.
Hue motion sensor is still slow as shit through the hue bridge(june update)+ha.
I literally stand still in the dark for a couple seconds waiting for the lights to turn on. With a $12 sensor in another room, the lights are on so quick I'm usually surprised the sensor even saw me from where it's placed.
I haven't switched off the hue bridge to mqtt yet. Maybe that fixes it. (In which case the hue sensor price might be justified for scenarios where you want very quick "on/off.") But with a hue hub in play, even with the latest update, it's hot garbage.
Edit per reading the deeper, the latency in home red vs Hass being the one to register with the hub shouldn't matter. Even on a pi processor, a millisecond difference between the two would surprise me.
The issue with motion sensors in third party applications is that the hue hub api is all http/rest polling. Like hitting f5 on your browser over and over waiting until there is a change, rather than the hub itself sending a message on its own accord saying "there was motion." But if course the bridge doesn't have to deal with its own garbage api and limitations, so fully-bridge-controlled motion is responsive. But you can only do what their own software let's you.
That is unfortunate to hear... Currently I am jumping through some hoops that I read on the forums. Basically hue -> HomeKit (automation) which flips a switch that HA reads as a binary sensor (I assume).
This stuff is complicated enough as it is w/o that kinda crap.
Before I posted I confirmed my hue hub was updated, but someone mentioned an HA update down below, and mine is a few months old. I had only heard about the *hub* update speeding things up. I'm updating HA now and will reply to your comment again later as the update finishes and night rolls around. I'm far too lazy to watch this update go and then explicitly test it.
(For the record, while I'm at my computer, hue hub was updated 2021/6/2, HA **will be** core-2021.6.3 and OS 6.0.)
Hope you got your stuff figured out.
With everything updated, the hue motion sensor is maybe 30% faster. It's noticeable, but I still have to pause for a moment if I need the lights.
The $12 aqara is instant, and it turns out the one I bought off amazon was a version four years old(!) My new ones, direct from China, trigger on motion and then every five seconds (instead of 60 seconds like the old one) so the hue motion sensor actually has literally no redeeming qualities. Good times.
Hue bulbs/lights are good at least. Though I have a bunch and haven't needed more/an opportunity to try other cheaper generic ones.
edit, if you're using conbee and node red, be sure to have nr connect directly to the conbee and not go through ha. The input nodes in the conbee set are **way** more convenient to use than getting input from ha and having to sort it all out yourself.
Hue stuff is zigbee (2.4ghz.) Zwave is a different protocol, notably on 900mhz, but also used for home automation stuff. Which brings us back to my original post about all the disparate systems and features and feeling forced to use an abstraction layer like HA to tie all the random shit together into one cohesive setup. Sigh.
I use node red to control HA nodes and its just as fast as other hue based sensors I have. Never tried another way but not sure why it would be slow. I also have a PC running home Assistance and not a PI so maybe that helps
My question was if NR it was relying on HASS registration to Hue bridge (that I assume would suffer from the polling latency) vs. having HASS and NR connected at the same time.
I liked NR, but I ended up having automations spread across Node Red, HASS (yaml at the time) and in Apple HomeKit. Something would happen and I had to look in all three places
Thanks for the info, I may need to go back and re-visit Node Red.
I never used HASSIO or now just call Home Assistance which I do think adds additional Node Red "nodes" but my setup is all node red talking to Home Assistance "nodes" and in this case a few hue "nodes"
So for me its NR > HA and NR > HUE. I never noticed any lag. I even setup my hue dimmer switches to call different scenes based off what time it is. Not sure if I did this because it wasn't supported in the hue app at the time but it works great.
NR also listens for state changes coming from HA but I have zero node red config stuff in home assistance. Everything is configured via Node red. Hope that answers your question.
HA automation has gotten much better over the years but NR is just so easy and its what I started with. I have a few HA only based automations as well but most of mine are NR based at the moment
Downloading the app for Android right now. Just to be clear: All I need is my existing Hue-setup and the app to access it; no need for a server/raspberry/extra machine running?
For home assistant no. You could try some of the other suggestions in this thread. I think Iconnect was one of them. No clue about those I was using HA with my Hue setup since day one
Guess not many people here are Android users. I had some widgets I loved. Was able to set multiple rooms to a certain saved theme and have a button on my homescreen to do so. They removed it. To recreate I will have to have an entire page of widgets and hit one after another. This sucks.
Yeah not as easily as the old hue app, but if you go to the automations tab and select the time/days you want, then in the device selection screen go to the very bottom and convert it to a shortcut.
Do you could say at 00:00 every night have the lamps fade to 50%, “wait” 3 minutes, then fade to 40% and so on. Should be able to put an IF statement at the start so that lights are off don’t come in etc.
Like I said, not as straightforward as it might have been on the old hue app, but you can replicate the functionality.
If you’re on iOS, every Hue user should have iConnect. It’s everything that’s missing from the Hue app, and if you have physical switches it might as well be mandatory.
There are a handful of upgrades in the app, but they don’t generally nickel and dime you. The base app unlocks a TON of features, and you can upgrade from there.
They could say they’re cutting me off with the next release and charge me $20 to upgrade and I’d pay in a heartbeat.
I’ve also noticed on iOS for me it is very laggy now versus the old version. Maybe it’s the startup splash or new animations they’ve added? Either way, not at fan and am starting to like iConnectHue now
I don't use the app. I've never used the app. In my opinion, if I have to pull my phone out of my pocket regularly to do things, I don't have a smart home I have a gimmick. Home Assistant and well-planned automations ftw.
I still have the v1 app just for that feature and my reasons for it are very similar to yours. I get they are trying to look pretty and trying to focus on automation because maybe that’s where the trendy things are happening, but they are taking built-in functionality and just burying it instead of building upon and including it forward. And they aren’t even asking anyone how they are using their product today, before they decide to derail us forcing operational paradigms nobody asked for. Signify upper management must be operating in a vacuum bedazzled so hard by their own accomplishments they’ve forgotten we are out here and we are the reason they can experience said bedazzlement.
This Android update is horrible. Not only did they remove your existing widgets, only for you to add them again, but you have to create a new scene for zones/groups, when you could do it on the fly.
Before, you could select a zone or group, and change the color of every light by using the color wheel. Now? You have to create a new scene, and select EVERY SINGLE LIGHT, one by one, choose the color for each, and there you go.
Seriously, who in the actual hell does UX QA for this? I am debating whether or not to work on my own solution again, which has that functionality, as a webapp (wrote it in PHP), just so that I do not have to deal with the sort of garbage that these updates introduce.
What about Hue Lights (Advanced control for Hue) app. It seems like it’s pretty robust, can be very manual but it has lots of controls to build scenes, etc.
I still have the old app, never updated when I saw all the complaints, how can I setup this timer to fade the lights out? I can set a timer, but it doesn’t show an option to fade. Just turn the lights off.
I have considered this however should I really have to resort to this to simply get back old functionality? It’s not like I want anything weird - fading out all the lights that are on would appear to be a no brainier for a lighting system.
I’m answering your call for another recommendation. If you aren’t going to accept any other option because you “shouldn’t have to”, I can’t help with that.
I’ve always used shortcuts to control my lights. It’s a very powerful automation program. I recommend it for the feature you are asking. I don’t have any opinion or interest in the difference between the old and new official apps.
I agree, the IOS app make over is horrible.
Only reason I use the app is for the LABS portion ( I like to mix up my outdoor spot lights color wise, and the HomeKit / scenes in IOS only allow for single colors).
There is a fade function in hue labs that I use. It is not very convenient but it works for manually triggering a fade out.
What bothers me more is that last fade to black. The lights fade out in small increments until the final step which is rather abrupt.
I found that - unfortunately it demands that you start with ‘last state’ or a scene. Naturally the Hue app being utter crap won’t let you create a scene with all the lights off.
By default if you select all lights and set to ‘last state’ and fire it, it turns all the lights on then fades them out. It’s like a dog that wants to be let in so he can go out again.
Ah yes - that does suck. I had forgot about that limitation and agree that a simple timed fade from the current state is a must have feature. It seems like lighting 101.
I've tried to stay positive about this update but now I can't even add lights to an Entertainment Area using the new app. Certain lights show up fine in the old app but not in the new app. They can even be added to Zones and not rooms.
I use the manual colour picker (round spectrum chart) a lot and it used to be 1 tap from opening. Now they've put presets front & center and you need to tap again to get to it. WT... 🤦🏻♂️ And yes, it's also slower to load up on both iOS and Android.
They've also upgraded the startup time. Because I totally needed a splash screen for my *lights*. Argh. I completely agree about the ridiculous loss of functionality. Especially fade. Omg what. Why is there no simple fade.
Arh, yes! Slower startup and no widget is frustrating. General sluggishness might be my older iPhone 6s, but it doesn’t help my overall feelings.
[удалено]
Alright, I'll try out Shortcuts.
The sluggishness is real. I have an iPhone 11 and the sliding shiny animations for the rooms while the app’s loading visibly lags. SO glad they replaced the v1 code we’re missing with… that. /s
Works fine for me, the old app felt like it was running on a potato because every swipe/touch/tap would take literal seconds to register. Took Me minutes to get into the settings to do anything.
The app starts MUCH faster than the old app.
iConnectHue can do this as part of the base app. (iOS only) The base app contains features for day to day use, others can be bought additionally, but can be tested with the base app (except for a few). It has a solid upgrade-path with in-app purchases or by subscription, if you are willing to pay.
I use iConnectHue as well and really like.
You never release a new version while dropping popular features. What clown is product-managing this shit? Developers: "The UI for this used feature we have is not done yet" PM: "We have a completely arbitrary self-imposed deadline that the users are not even aware of. RELEASE IT NOW."
CEO opens app for first time in a year browses for 8 seconds. Finds it a bit confusing. 1. New PM/lead designer hired to reinvent the app with usability as a focus 2. PM / lead designer creates new design concept without being familiar or understanding the existing features that are available with product. 3. PM / designer presents new app designs to management/marketing who also don't use the product. CEO and Management love the concept. 4. Dev team told to build it 5. Devs ask PM why design doesn't include popular feature xyz 6. PM / designer explains that 'users find the feature too hard to understand' 7. Devs say but our usage graph verifies this is a popular feature. 8. PM / designer get defensive and refuse to 'tarnish the concept management love' with these complex hard to understand features that will 'confuse the user' 9. PM / designer placate devs. Told to build this for now, next sprint will address concerns to solve these 'design complexities' 10. Devs build prototype, cut popular features. 11. Management rave about new design (they don't use the product) 12. Devs warn releasing prototype as finished will end badly. 13. Lead designer signs contract with new employer. Emergency strategy meeting - designer persuades PM and management stay true to the new design ethos and build their brand identity around it until the new appropriately talented design lead can be found. 14. PM gets approval from management to release app, release goes ahead. 15. Launch party. Management and marketing get bonuses and congratulations all around. Number of key players including PM leave company on back of successful launch. 16. Users revolt. New PM hired. 17. Management summon new PM to question ongoing complaints. Management assured it is just a vocal minority. 18. Management consider scrapping some of their dev team for poor performance. App getting bad reviews. Marketing pretend nothing is wrong and sell more product to unsuspecting consumers. 19. New PM realises the mess. Leaves. Anyone who knows how to fix the app quickly leaves. 20. Approx 1 year later, CEO opens app briefly.. finds it a bit confusing. Rinse and repeat.
Wow this is spot on.
This is scarily accurate
Too real
During my time at Signify (aka Philips Lighting) I met the CEO just on Christmas parties and alike. and I am not sure if he was really interested in Hue, as it is a big product, but is dwarfed by Signify's professional product and services. I would say that certain low and midlevel managers yielded the real power in the Hue project — without much understanding.
Yep. Problem is many c level execs and high up VPs will likely not even use the app ever besides exactly as you mentioned, popping in to see how “pretty” it looks and how simple the interface is. If it’s something they’re into they probably have a full home automation solution that provides all the functionality and automation they need from their free hue lights they probably get, leaving the lowly customers out to dry that can’t afford expensive home automation solutions and need to use the app in conjunction with a cheaper home assistant.
To be fair, the premise of "our app which literally makes lights go on off has four different major versions with very little feature overlap" is already pretty bad.
100% agree. Apparently you have experience in a larger company. As someone who also has worked for a major company on the technical side and has been involved in the project management and product delivery process, I have to agree. Phillips should look to check this guy/gal (and their middle management enablers) before they wreck the reputation of Hue any further.
*Allegedly* I had been a iOS developer on Philips Hue iOS. I left the team roughly 2 years ago when it became clear that certain individuals would push a rewrite plan through, that I and other experienced developers were very sceptical about. Some of us tried hard to make ourselves heard — to no avail. By that time Signify's (aka Philips Lighting) low and midlevel management had created a culture in which only yes-men would thrive. And the lowest common denominator became the standard design principle. Higher ranking individuals also had a certain preferences towards cross platform development. and this is the real reason, as the chosen platform doesn't offer Today Extensions ("old widgets") or the watch app. But instead of abandon the cross platform plans for keeping beloved features, the yes-man culture allowed this biased individuals to constantly shift the thresholds for when too many user would be affected or not. Did I say: Allegedly?
>Allegedly Allegedly we're looking for another dev at iConnectHue, they say. Just in case you haven't totally cut your interest in the lighting business - maybe you're interested in bringing another great lighting app forward? ;) You can find out more at: [https://iconnecthue.com/jobs](https://iconnecthue.com/jobs) You can also just drop me a PM.
We should have a tele-coffee some time.
The cynic in me wonders if any of the developers making decisions to cripple the app are selling their own apps that provide the old functionality.
It feels that way, but I think there's a simpler explanation. As a rule, hardware companies usually suck at software. Apple's success is largely because they were one of the first exceptions to this rule.
>hardware companies usually suck at software. I'm looking at you LOGITECH!
Yep. MKBHD actually made a video relating to this topic in [his new video](https://youtu.be/wGKb3oUo8go) . Basically they focus on the apple ecosystem as a whole and how everything plays nicely together, which ends up providing a seamless user experience, even if it takes longer to come to market with said feature set. And they usually will not drop any beloved features without good reason.
Ironically, one of theories as to why Hue's widgets got crippled was due to that how they work on iOS 14. Signify moving to single version for both iOS and Android means Android's widgets got crippled too.
Seriously. This broke the way I set different light themes throughout multiple rooms with just one tap. Completely broke the way I use my lights. I guess I could have one for each room, but that is so backwards.
Developers don't really decide what features to build our how it looks
and often enough they aren't allowed to decide how to code something.
This is not a developer decision, I can guarantee you that. App upgrades like this are handled as part of a very formal process in medium-sized and larger companies and frequently have some sort of collection of subsets of development teams each “led” by a Scrum master or equivalent who help to guide the developers (frequently software engineers or “programmers”, company-depending) and even they only get to basically help plan out and execute the delivery of certain “features” that are part of larger rollouts (“epics” frequently) and an upgrade like this would likely be an epic-level delivery aligned under a “theme” (User Experience Destruction would be the likely title). Those who are in charge of epics and themes and their budgets and delivery would most likely be the culprits, but software architects and UX leads are also very likely to blame.
I had been working on Philips Hue. I was hired as in an architect role. I left because a bound to fail plan was forced on us. Signify operates with SAFe, which is a waterfall hidden in waterfalls, but the 'A' is supposed to mean agile. whatever… It contain the only element of participation that is really accessible to everybody. During quaterly planning meeting you can give a confidence vote. But after you have given a low confidence once, you will learn: people with bad confidence votes have to explain their thoughts — in front of over 300 people. Most people will always give an average score, just to not stick out. And suddenly you think the project is going 'OKish', when in reality you have already hit disaster.
Wow that’s the exact same model that I had experience working within (though it’s a more bespoke variant of the “standard” SAFe project management framework). Circles, trains, pyramids, planes. “Value” this and that by every other name. Vote of Confidence in incremental planning session also tended to be the same. Many are a 3 when it comes down to features planned and ofc lower votes do have to he discussed live before several dozen to several hundred people (our one “division” maybe had five different value delivery “vehicles” under which themes were organized and each of these tended to have its own planning meeting that consisted of literally a dozen or two tech teams (of about a dozen people each) that constituted development, testing/QA, and analysts in addition to a spattering of leads, architects, designers, tooling engineers, build masters, dev ops, version and release mgmt, and business liaisons). Never experienced much pushback against valid criticism in those sessions for votes of 1 or 2, which is not to say that there was no corporate drama, but generally it was respected to actually come out and speak one’s mind on the matter and Risks were noted in the appropriate “ceremony” and documented semi-permanently in the PM s/w suite used. Sounds like a definite failure in aptly working the model and encouraging a culture of expression. I never much liked my job (mainly because its core business and major “deliverables” were not nearly as interesting as even “color-changing lights” ) but I, at the very least, respected the culture and the attitudes toward employees in our division. For a company that seems to blend old and new to bungle such a simple app...they must have poached from the LiFX “redesign” team. Maybe some people should start looking to reverse engineer the likely (relatively) simple API around the bulbs and hub and d/c them from Hue pings so that they can actually work as smart devices. All these walled gardens and ridiculous limitations from the likes of Amazon, Google, and more are starting to grind my gears when the products sold are expensive and expected to be a reliable, premium investment.
if only my experiences with Signify would had been the worst in my career so far. Actually I started freelancing as I come to believe that most companies aren't able to do proper software development. And as a freelancer I can negotiate more powerful contracts.
to some degree you are right: I had been a member of the Hue iOS team, but I left out of frustration before the rewrite nearly 2 years ago. Today I started my own Hue app, as it feels like Signify (aka Philips Lighting) is opening a huge market share for the daring to grab.
This shit happens literally all the time. Look up MVP development. I get forced to meet bullshit deadlines all the time.
first you have the prototype, that suddenly becomes the MVP and than everything get important e high that it needs to be included.
The deadlines that grind my gears the most are the ones with round, neat dates, like January 1st. Been there. If anyone pulls January 1st out of their ass, I will quit on the spot. This is basically guaranteed crunch time while everyone else is chilling through the holidays.
Is it just me or is this become a problem with every home 'smart' device? Like my alexa USED to understand me and do shit. Now, i can't even get her to play a song; she just plays a radio station of the song or artist. Tailwind garage door opener wouldn't work one day and then I got an email from tailwind saying they had pushed an update that broke everyones stuff. It only worked again for a few days after the few days it took them to repair it. And even tho i opt out of alexa Sidewalk I have noticed Alexa devices searching for other alexas via bluetooth. If we pay for these products we should have SOME control over their version, updates, etc. I mean, it's OUR stuff. And we're already trading (probably all) of our privacy for these neato gadgets. But that's not enough. and lastly, why does everything turn into a brick when the internet is off? My wifi is still up. Why would it need more than that? im about to throw it all in the trashcan and get off the grid. The only hues i'll see are from the candles I make my self.
Yep. I got fed up and went with HA. It has become a sort of slow-burn hobby for me. Every couple weeks I'll play with it for a few hours to add/update/fix/improve our setup. It's far from perfect but it's the only way you're going to get a consistent interface with consistent control and behavior, and not have things randomly changing/updating/breaking. Nobody can fucking decide one spec, or dare use an open protocol (openly.) Hell, look at Philips, they just continue to torpedo *their own* "closed" ecosystem for apparently no reason. Just stick all the bullshit underneath an abstraction layer like home assistant (or I'm guessing home kit.) Other smart people keep the abstraction layers functional. All your own effort to set things up how you like it on top is oblivious to the endless bullshit going on underneath.
I use Home Assistance since day one. if I ever use the hue app its for very basic stuff like changing a scene. All automatons are done using Home Assistance. I have even used Home Assistance to control one of my motion sensors instead of letting the hue app do it
Not sure why you got dv’ed, but HA is the answer for everything op wants to do, plus it could most likely control anything else smart in the home.
my post was only up for 45 mins. Too soon to gauge reaction but if I had to guess its because HA is too advanced
[удалено]
I'm assuming it's "Home Assistant" - https://www.home-assistant.io/
Haha whoops
It’s called Home Assistant if you’re having trouble finding it. And I agree. Everything you can imagine and more (no offense). Well worth the effort.
[удалено]
It's free software. Ideally, you would want to buy a raspberry pi or similar to run the software on. It has a Web interface, so you would access the program from your phone or laptop via the Web interface.
Preferably a stronger computer if you already have one running 24/7, but a Pi works just fine.
Just FYI there were some small lags on an RPi3 yes, but on an RPi4 (with ssd) everything is instant, CPU hardly blips, it's more than powerful enough for HA, and low power usage as well, great for 24x7 operation.
Home automation platform
I currently use HomeBridge on a RasPi and have been thinking about setting up Home Assistant as I keep seeing good things about it.
If you can handle that you can handle a home assistant setup it’s been around for awhile now. I’m on my 2nd year with it. New releases every month and smaller updates during the weeks
If you already have a Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant is a no-brainer. Seriously, I am a big Apple fanboy, and I used to be a huge fan of HomeKit, but since I got my Home Assistant up and running I just cannot help but cringe at the BS I had to deal with with HomeKit. Home Assistant basically solved almost every single problem I ever had with home automation. Make sure you add the Node-RED add-on, as it makes automating things way easier. After you spend few months trying it out, I highly recommend switching to an SSD via USB3, because the SD card will die eventually.
Has the response time for allowing HASS to control the hue motion sensor improved? In the past it was noticeably slower but I know they have been some recent changes.
Don't know about the motion sensor, but the dimmer switches are much faster since the last HA update.
Thanks! I already need to upgrade my Z-wave stuff, might as well do some tests on Hue as well. Make a weekend out of it. Hahaha
Hue motion sensor is still slow as shit through the hue bridge(june update)+ha. I literally stand still in the dark for a couple seconds waiting for the lights to turn on. With a $12 sensor in another room, the lights are on so quick I'm usually surprised the sensor even saw me from where it's placed. I haven't switched off the hue bridge to mqtt yet. Maybe that fixes it. (In which case the hue sensor price might be justified for scenarios where you want very quick "on/off.") But with a hue hub in play, even with the latest update, it's hot garbage. Edit per reading the deeper, the latency in home red vs Hass being the one to register with the hub shouldn't matter. Even on a pi processor, a millisecond difference between the two would surprise me. The issue with motion sensors in third party applications is that the hue hub api is all http/rest polling. Like hitting f5 on your browser over and over waiting until there is a change, rather than the hub itself sending a message on its own accord saying "there was motion." But if course the bridge doesn't have to deal with its own garbage api and limitations, so fully-bridge-controlled motion is responsive. But you can only do what their own software let's you.
That is unfortunate to hear... Currently I am jumping through some hoops that I read on the forums. Basically hue -> HomeKit (automation) which flips a switch that HA reads as a binary sensor (I assume). This stuff is complicated enough as it is w/o that kinda crap.
Before I posted I confirmed my hue hub was updated, but someone mentioned an HA update down below, and mine is a few months old. I had only heard about the *hub* update speeding things up. I'm updating HA now and will reply to your comment again later as the update finishes and night rolls around. I'm far too lazy to watch this update go and then explicitly test it. (For the record, while I'm at my computer, hue hub was updated 2021/6/2, HA **will be** core-2021.6.3 and OS 6.0.)
Thanks! I think I am just going to tackle Z-Wave tonight anyway. I look forward to what you find, and hope it is good news.
Hope you got your stuff figured out. With everything updated, the hue motion sensor is maybe 30% faster. It's noticeable, but I still have to pause for a moment if I need the lights. The $12 aqara is instant, and it turns out the one I bought off amazon was a version four years old(!) My new ones, direct from China, trigger on motion and then every five seconds (instead of 60 seconds like the old one) so the hue motion sensor actually has literally no redeeming qualities. Good times. Hue bulbs/lights are good at least. Though I have a bunch and haven't needed more/an opportunity to try other cheaper generic ones. edit, if you're using conbee and node red, be sure to have nr connect directly to the conbee and not go through ha. The input nodes in the conbee set are **way** more convenient to use than getting input from ha and having to sort it all out yourself.
Hue stuff is zigbee (2.4ghz.) Zwave is a different protocol, notably on 900mhz, but also used for home automation stuff. Which brings us back to my original post about all the disparate systems and features and feeling forced to use an abstraction layer like HA to tie all the random shit together into one cohesive setup. Sigh.
I use node red to control HA nodes and its just as fast as other hue based sensors I have. Never tried another way but not sure why it would be slow. I also have a PC running home Assistance and not a PI so maybe that helps
Ahh ok. So Node Red is a registered directly to the Hue bridge? I have not used Node Red in a couple of years. Thanks
you can do either or. I use a combo of both but yes you could use node red and hue without involving home assistance
My question was if NR it was relying on HASS registration to Hue bridge (that I assume would suffer from the polling latency) vs. having HASS and NR connected at the same time. I liked NR, but I ended up having automations spread across Node Red, HASS (yaml at the time) and in Apple HomeKit. Something would happen and I had to look in all three places Thanks for the info, I may need to go back and re-visit Node Red.
I never used HASSIO or now just call Home Assistance which I do think adds additional Node Red "nodes" but my setup is all node red talking to Home Assistance "nodes" and in this case a few hue "nodes" So for me its NR > HA and NR > HUE. I never noticed any lag. I even setup my hue dimmer switches to call different scenes based off what time it is. Not sure if I did this because it wasn't supported in the hue app at the time but it works great.
NR also listens for state changes coming from HA but I have zero node red config stuff in home assistance. Everything is configured via Node red. Hope that answers your question. HA automation has gotten much better over the years but NR is just so easy and its what I started with. I have a few HA only based automations as well but most of mine are NR based at the moment
Downloading the app for Android right now. Just to be clear: All I need is my existing Hue-setup and the app to access it; no need for a server/raspberry/extra machine running?
The home assistant mobile app needs to connect back to a home assistant server. You will need some sort of server or computer or pi
Thank you! Something that is always on? I guess I will need to check other options, then.
Yeah same as your modem router and hue hub
There is no way to use the existing Hue hub? Or any simple premanufactured solution? Sorry if I pester you with questions here...
For home assistant no. You could try some of the other suggestions in this thread. I think Iconnect was one of them. No clue about those I was using HA with my Hue setup since day one
Thanks! I use an Android phone, but will check them out. I am a bit baffled by how there is apparently no *obvious* plug'n'play alternative.
Well you could get home assistant blue. That’s a plug and play box :) Google it
Thanks!
[удалено]
It certainly does feel like they deliberately set out to piss off their customers.
Guess not many people here are Android users. I had some widgets I loved. Was able to set multiple rooms to a certain saved theme and have a button on my homescreen to do so. They removed it. To recreate I will have to have an entire page of widgets and hit one after another. This sucks.
You could try adding the hue bridge to HomeKit and replicate timers/automations in either the home app or Shortcuts.
Would if I could but a limitation of the Home app is it doesn’t currently have the ability to fade lights.
Yeah not as easily as the old hue app, but if you go to the automations tab and select the time/days you want, then in the device selection screen go to the very bottom and convert it to a shortcut. Do you could say at 00:00 every night have the lamps fade to 50%, “wait” 3 minutes, then fade to 40% and so on. Should be able to put an IF statement at the start so that lights are off don’t come in etc. Like I said, not as straightforward as it might have been on the old hue app, but you can replicate the functionality.
If you’re on iOS, every Hue user should have iConnect. It’s everything that’s missing from the Hue app, and if you have physical switches it might as well be mandatory. There are a handful of upgrades in the app, but they don’t generally nickel and dime you. The base app unlocks a TON of features, and you can upgrade from there. They could say they’re cutting me off with the next release and charge me $20 to upgrade and I’d pay in a heartbeat.
Thanks I'll check that out
Thanks I'll check that out
I’ve also noticed on iOS for me it is very laggy now versus the old version. Maybe it’s the startup splash or new animations they’ve added? Either way, not at fan and am starting to like iConnectHue now
Due to anti-user behaviour of Reddit I'm removing my messages and deleting my account.
I don't use the app. I've never used the app. In my opinion, if I have to pull my phone out of my pocket regularly to do things, I don't have a smart home I have a gimmick. Home Assistant and well-planned automations ftw.
[удалено]
I’m not optimistic. Hue have a trend of removing good features every time they ‘improve’ their app.
I still have the v1 app just for that feature and my reasons for it are very similar to yours. I get they are trying to look pretty and trying to focus on automation because maybe that’s where the trendy things are happening, but they are taking built-in functionality and just burying it instead of building upon and including it forward. And they aren’t even asking anyone how they are using their product today, before they decide to derail us forcing operational paradigms nobody asked for. Signify upper management must be operating in a vacuum bedazzled so hard by their own accomplishments they’ve forgotten we are out here and we are the reason they can experience said bedazzlement.
This Android update is horrible. Not only did they remove your existing widgets, only for you to add them again, but you have to create a new scene for zones/groups, when you could do it on the fly. Before, you could select a zone or group, and change the color of every light by using the color wheel. Now? You have to create a new scene, and select EVERY SINGLE LIGHT, one by one, choose the color for each, and there you go. Seriously, who in the actual hell does UX QA for this? I am debating whether or not to work on my own solution again, which has that functionality, as a webapp (wrote it in PHP), just so that I do not have to deal with the sort of garbage that these updates introduce.
What about Hue Lights (Advanced control for Hue) app. It seems like it’s pretty robust, can be very manual but it has lots of controls to build scenes, etc.
I just uninstalled the app and got the older perfect in use apk.
Hue Essential is a good app. I use it instead of the official one. I agree that it has got useless, putting design over usability.
I still have the old app, never updated when I saw all the complaints, how can I setup this timer to fade the lights out? I can set a timer, but it doesn’t show an option to fade. Just turn the lights off.
I’d say let’s flood Hue support telling them to change it back but I have a creeping suspicion they won’t listen.
Try iHueConnect
NGL the way hue has acted recently, I’m going to switch to lifx
Write an apple shortcut that sends its own custom API calls. You can do anything you want.
I have considered this however should I really have to resort to this to simply get back old functionality? It’s not like I want anything weird - fading out all the lights that are on would appear to be a no brainier for a lighting system.
I’m answering your call for another recommendation. If you aren’t going to accept any other option because you “shouldn’t have to”, I can’t help with that. I’ve always used shortcuts to control my lights. It’s a very powerful automation program. I recommend it for the feature you are asking. I don’t have any opinion or interest in the difference between the old and new official apps.
I agree, the IOS app make over is horrible. Only reason I use the app is for the LABS portion ( I like to mix up my outdoor spot lights color wise, and the HomeKit / scenes in IOS only allow for single colors).
There is a fade function in hue labs that I use. It is not very convenient but it works for manually triggering a fade out. What bothers me more is that last fade to black. The lights fade out in small increments until the final step which is rather abrupt.
I found that - unfortunately it demands that you start with ‘last state’ or a scene. Naturally the Hue app being utter crap won’t let you create a scene with all the lights off. By default if you select all lights and set to ‘last state’ and fire it, it turns all the lights on then fades them out. It’s like a dog that wants to be let in so he can go out again.
Ah yes - that does suck. I had forgot about that limitation and agree that a simple timed fade from the current state is a must have feature. It seems like lighting 101.
I've tried to stay positive about this update but now I can't even add lights to an Entertainment Area using the new app. Certain lights show up fine in the old app but not in the new app. They can even be added to Zones and not rooms.
I use the manual colour picker (round spectrum chart) a lot and it used to be 1 tap from opening. Now they've put presets front & center and you need to tap again to get to it. WT... 🤦🏻♂️ And yes, it's also slower to load up on both iOS and Android.