FabianIf you want to control your Hue lamps via your Mac, there is now another alternative in the Mac App Store: HueMenu (App Store link). As the name of the €3.99 app suggests, the application is located in the Mac’s menu bar and can be called up there with a simple mouse click.
Setting it up is very simple: after installation, HueMenu first opens in a simple window that you can use to connect to your Hue Bridge. You will then find the app in the menu bar and can access lamps, rooms and scenes from there.
This way, you can simply use the mouse to switch lamps and rooms on and off or set a specific color. It is also possible to access the scenes previously created in the Hue app – but this is where the problems with HueMenu begin.
HueMenu does not sort scenes properly
The app lists all your scenes in a seemingly random order. It is not clear which rooms the individual scenes come from. And since it is highly likely that there are scenes such as Concentrate, Read or Northern Lights in several rooms, controlling them via HueMenu is almost a game of chance.
Another thing that bothers me is that lights that cannot be reached are listed in HueMenu and cannot be hidden. Sure, if one or two lights are unavailable for whatever reason, you might be alerted to this. In my case, however, there are a number of lamps that are not currently connected or connected. They don’t need to be placed so prominently.
HueMenu certainly has good approaches, but in my opinion there are some points that definitely need to be improved – especially the display of scenes, which is currently completely unusable.
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