Hue Secure: What about the location-based control?

Philips Hue has been offering its Hue Secure products for more than a year and a half now, including several cameras and contact sensors for windows and doors. However, one particularly important function is still missing: location-based control of the system. Until now, you have always had to manually select in the Hue app whether you are currently at home or whether the system should be armed when you are away.

With the vast majority of other smart home devices, the respective manufacturer has always offered such a geofencing function. It is implemented quite simply via the smartphone – after all, we usually always carry it with us. It can also be used to recognize different people and their presence or absence.

Funnily enough, the Philips Hue app has always offered a geofencing function in the automations: with “Leaving home” and “Coming home”, you can switch off lights when you leave the house or switch on selected lamps when you come home. However, my recent experience has shown that this feature does not work very reliably and also lacks some important options. After all, it is more than impractical to leave the house alone and switch on the lights when there are still people in the living room.

In any case, these automations have not yet worked with Hue Secure. I assume that Philips Hue is not simply expanding this function, but developing it from scratch. According to my information, they are already working on when exactly the new function will be ready, but I don’t know. At least when it comes to lighting, I recommend geofencing automation via Apple Home for Philips Hue.

My smart home favorite when it comes to geofencing

I haven’t wanted to do without geofencing for some smart home applications for a long time. My Eufy cameras in the office not only switch off, but also automatically turn towards the wall when I come into work. And my Tado heating system automatically turns itself down when no one is at home.

My favorite for many years has been the Nuki Smart Lock, now in its fifth generation with a completely new design. As soon as I enter the geofence at home, my iPhone searches for the smart door lock via Bluetooth. As soon as a connection is established, usually a few meters from the house, the Smart Lock automatically opens the door.