FabianJust before Christmas, Philips Hue introduced a new scene: Natural Light. It automatically switches between individual scenes over a 24-hour period to give you the most appropriate light for the time of day. Philips Hue writes: “Start with bright, cool tones to energise you in the morning, and end the day with a warmer, golden hue to help you relax in the evening.”
With the update of the Philips Hue app to version 4.36, there are now innovations for the function for the first time. From now on, you can activate the scene via automation. For example, at a fixed time or when you come home. Natural Light is also compatible with the timer function in the automation area.
What Natural Light can't do yet
Unfortunately, there are still some details that urgently need to be improved. Here are some points that unfortunately still do not work:
- Activate natural light with a switch (currently only with Hue Tap Dial).
- Natural light for individual lamps in a room
- Dependence on the position of the sun
But as we all know: The year is still long. For sure, Philips Hue will delight us with one or the other update this year…
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Activate natural light with a switch (currently only with Hue Tap Dial).
Natural light for individual lamps in a room
Dependence on the position of the sun
—-> I sincerely hope that Hue Dev teams is reading hueblog.com 😛
The bulbs are pretty good, but the software is far away from being any good.
I can’t see that option and I have the latest update 4.36. Anyone knows why or how to do it? I can’t see it in the coming home automation or anywhere
Also, I can’t see this with latest Philips Hue app 4.36 on latest iOS device.
I can’t see it either.
I hope they will add it to the motion sensor automations soon.
Most users need support for Dimmer Switch and Motion Sensor but they just support the (expensive and outdated) Tap Dial and time based.
At least 1 year delay for this feature and really poor features.
My 50 cents on this is that the functionality isnt well enough thought out yet. There are the obvious lacks, listed by Fabian, like not having the ability to use my dimmer switch (yet) to activate the scene, which doesnt make sense to me. Finish it before relasing it, please, BigCorp!
Then there is this strange behaviour of installing every stage of the natural light cycle as an individual scene for the rooms i want to use the natural light scene in. I can understand it programming wise, but to the average user, it doesnt look very sofisticated. So all in all, I find it a little disappointing.
Also, as this is my first post in this blog, I wanted to give a shoutout to you, Fabian, for running this blog/website. Every time I check in I learn or discover something new, and even if not every subject is perfectly suited for my situation, I love that you write about so many things and give me the choice to choose what I am interested in or not. I love my hues, they are an essential part of my apartment, and your devotion to this blog give them more value. <3 Thank you!
Found this post when finally sitting down to research this after months of being annoyed. The inability to have a bulb’s “Default On Behavior” be Natural Light, and inability to have my light switches activate Natural Light, make it entirely unusable. Why would I need a dynamic setting if I can only activate it through the App, where I can set whatever I want anyway?? When I open the app and want Bright, I tap Bright. When I want Relax, I tap Relax. I don’t need to gamble-tap the Natural Light.
Make it work with switches and default on behavior, or seriously, what is the point? What is the logic? They hacked it into the software as a non-scene, non-default-able, hybrid color just so they could make it exclusively tied to the Tap Dial. Obviously. Nothing else makes sense. Customers first.