FabianI'm currently in a bit of a spring slump when it comes to exciting Hue topics. May and June should definitely be more interesting again. So today I'm taking a look at a question from the community. ManniHue would like to know:
Is it possible to use the Hue app to realise that pressing a button on the dimmer switch switches a lamp on and then switches it off again after a set timer time?
This is currently not possible with simple means in the Hue app, but this is likely to change in the coming weeks or months. With the announcement of the end of Hue Labs in June 2024, the company has also promised to integrate one of the “beta” functions into the Hue app.
Specifically, it's about the Hue Labs formula “Personal go to sleep”, which you can currently still set up via labs.meethue.com. With this formula, you can switch on a light with a specific scene and then let it slowly get darker and darker. At the end of the set time, the light is switched off or, if desired, a night light scene is activated.
Configuration also possible with Hue Labs
If Hue Labs is too complicated for you and you don't want to wait until Philips Hue has permanently integrated the function into the app, you can also configure your accessories with iConnectHue.
There you can simply set an instant timer on a button of one of your switches in addition to the switch-on action. In addition to the desired duration of the sleep timer, you can also set the period of time over which the light should be dimmed slowly.
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This is promising as I submitted a (somewhat) related feature request to Philips Hue late last year.
We have a 2.5 year-old who doesn’t wake up at dedicated or consistent times, not does he need to. When we see (via the Nest cam in his room) that he is starting to stir, or we need to wake him ahead of his natural wake time, we use the “Wake the light’s in Finn’s room” Google Assistant room – we can even say ” wake the floor lights” rather than having all of the lights come on. However, there was a hiccup a while back where that voice command would wake all 48 lights in our house haha (a whole blog post of its own), so what I really want is an action in my Hue app where I could kickoff a waking of lights.
Right now, I do have a custom automation set up (which is usually disabled) for his lights to come on at 8:00 AM and if we need to wake him the following morning at a specific time, e.g., 7:30 AM, then I adjust the customer automatulion for the desired time and enable it. However, if, for example we wake up at 7 AM and see that he is stirring and want to start waking his lights right away, and the Google Assistant was not working, I need to calculate around 22 minutes in the future for the automation, configure & save it, and enable it (20 minutes fade in, plus a two minute buffer for the lights to know about the upcoming wake-up routine.
Anyway… I’m completely overthinking all of this haha. Just let me start the waking of lights from the Hue app at anytime haha. And by Scene.