oh hello there i'm just uh relaxing by the fire after setting up this phillips hue lighting system
in this video we're going to show you some of the great features of the hue lighting system the app
and if you stick around i'll show you exactly how we created this virtual fire for me the measure of
a well-designed smart system is that you can get it working out of the box without the need really
to go into instructions everything is intuitive in the app and that's all you need with this
a smartphone and some ideas of what you'd like from your lighting system actually scratch that
you don't even need to have ideas because you can use the ones that are pre-programmed into
the app itself and they're always changing and we love at the moment this one tokyo
for anyone who can remember life before the smartphone lighting control systems were
incredibly frustrating designed by engineers for engineers full of tick boxes jargon hidden
controls that nobody really knew how to access and that's before you even got the lights to talk to
the control system of course it's easy to set up because all of the components in the system form
an ecosystem where they know their parameters and what's built in so what colors you can get out of
the fixtures and exactly how they're controlled and even the smart little icons so you can tell
what they are which brings me to the first thing i really like about this system that is
what you see is what you get the output from the fixtures matches exactly what you see in the app
and even the icons for the scenes give you a hint as to what kind of colours you can expect
the hue app is incredibly intuitive everything's laid out in a sensible order you can give fixtures
sensible names so you know where they are in a room and obviously you said you get a hint of
the parameters in there so i can click on there i can change intensity or i can change color
i can do that individually so if i move this fixture around on its own
i can change it or i can drag and drop to create a group and change lots of fixtures in unison
of course if all that is just too much trouble or you're lacking a source of inspiration you
can head over to the designer scene gallery and select one of the pre-selected scenes that are
available and that's where we found tokyo but perhaps one day we might get to tokyo and take
a photograph and bring it back for ourselves until then we can also use this ipad box here
to get some color inspiration by just taking a photograph and then using that to create our scene
the latest generation of hue lamps and fixtures includes bluetooth alongside the original zigbee
control protocol bluetooth great for smaller installations or possibly temporary installs
like a student's accommodation where you can control up to 10 fixtures using the smartphone app
remembering fixtures like this one are actually four fixtures in one so it soon eats into that
10 unit capacity at that time it's time to step up to the bridge which plugs into your network
infrastructure using an ethernet cable and can control up to 50 fixtures but opens up a whole new
world of control possibilities everyone likes the convenience of a light switch placed by the door
or perhaps with you since the wireless you can add control to new places perhaps by the
bedside so you can easily switch lights on and off but once you step into this world of
control the light switch becomes more than a light switch it can be used to select scenes
dim lights up and down and within the app you can configure exactly the order of those scenes but
perhaps the best way to start harnessing the power of a smart lighting system is to use automation
now automation comes in lots of different forms from fully automatic routines that follow the way
you live your life and how you run your day to little sensors like this battery-powered
occupancy sensor that can trigger scenes or simply switch lights on and off and let's not forget
those ever popular voice assistants that are built into everything including the tv these days
turn off all the lights
you could extend that control beyond the home and control the lights completely remotely or
allow other things to control it we've hooked up twitter via ifttt or if
this then that to change our lights when we send a tweet so let's have a look
hugh has a few different ways to interact with tv screens the first being the sync box which plugs
into the hdmi output of the tv and then the lights will interact with what's happening on screen
so that's great for gamers it's great for movies we've used the mac app pc version also available
which simply installs onto the mac and then you go through a setup process between the the bridge and
the phone itself to establish your entertainment area within the hue system and then you can
then we screen casted from the uh from the mac onto the screen there with a great youtube video
we found that 10 hours of fire footage uh no logs required you can also sync with spotify
accounts if you just want obviously music and there's loads of other third-party apps as well
you can download as well to interact with and we particularly like the the disco one
of course apps and controls are just part of the story
great control is nothing without great lighting to control if you want to check
out the fixtures we used and get some great hints and tips on lighting check out this video