Hueblog: Philips Hue 4.2: Timers are finally back

Philips Hue 4.2: Timers are finally back

Also the color picker works again as usual

Philips Hue has released app version 4.2 for iOS and Android. And as of now, the timers are back. They are well hidden: You can find them in the “Automations” section and have to scroll down quite a bit – the timers have made it into the app as the penultimate function.

When you create a new timer, you can select the rooms or zones in which you want it to be active, and even the entire home if you wish. You can also specify the duration and, of course, the action that should be performed when the timer expires. You can either activate a scene or turn off the lights.


Timers can then be easily activated and stopped in the automation. The remaining time is also displayed.

What’s also new

  • Fixed 10+ bugs
  • Upgraded the underlying UI technology, which should have a significant effect on performance, stability, and other UI-related issues across all devices
  • Made it easier to enable Out of home control from the top of the settings menu
  • Fixed some issues related to using Siri Shortcuts with multiple Bridges
  • Fixed an unexpected behavior when grouping certain lights in the color picker
‎Philips Hue
‎Philips Hue
Price: Free+
Philips Hue
Philips Hue
Price: Free

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Check your local Philips Hue Online Store for availability of Hue products in your country. There you will also find all the technical information and prices.



Smart Lighting is great. I love the possibilities and also like Hue very much. We want to share our informations und insides with all of you. I am from Germany and not a native speaker - don't be so hard with us ;)

Comments 4 replies

  1. “Upgraded the underlying UI technology, which should have a significant effect on performance”

    There is none. It’s still laggy as if it was a webapp. Still a hideous app.

    I wake up every morning slapping myself for having upgraded the app.

    1. I was just about to say the exact same thing! I don’t know what they did to make it so laggy as the previous version was just okay. I also had to laugh with the previous release note: “performance improvements for lower end devices”. Okay, but on my latest iPhone it is still sluggish?

  2. I’m surprised that users are still upgrading / choosing to use the newer versions.
    When I upgraded, it broke everything as I heavily rely on timers to control soo many things – it was and remains the sole purpose for my buying into Hue; everything else is just a nice add-on.

    So for me, using Huerto on Windows really helped me clean-up the mess – broken timers that had been created by the incoming Hue app, but were no longer visible or controllable, before completely removing the app from every device, removing all 50+ hue controlled lights, sockets and accessories, before factory resetting the hub THREE times to finally clear the rubbish – using Huerto ahead of each reset, then finally downloading an older version – pre April 2021 from an app repo, setting everything up on each device before blocking the app from ever being able to auto update

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