Philips Hue: Automated Home Lighting Gets Colorful
by Ashu Joshi on March 1, 2013 12:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Gadgets
- Home Automation
- Philips
- Hue
- Lighting
Hue as a Home Automation Controller
Given the fact that Hue uses a ZigBee controller, one of the questions some will have is whether the Hue can be extended to support other devices. While it’s possible for Philips to create other devices that could work with Hue, I have serious doubts that the Bridge can act as a sophisticated home automation device given the choice of the microcontroller and the amount of memory on the Bridge controller. If Philips changes the firmware on the ZigBee controller in the Bridge, it could be extended to control other ZigBee devices in the home, but right now it appears that the CC2530 is being used in the Light Link profile of ZigBee.
Despite my doubts, the hacker community amazes me. A simple Google search brought me to this site, run by Ross McKillop. Ross has reverse engineered the HTTP protocol between the App and the Hue Bridge, and it appears that communication is done in the open, not with SSL. (Potentially the CPU on the Bridge just isn’t fast enough to make SSL encryption viable.) He has additional details, but then goes on to link to EveryHue as a source of further unofficial help/discussion.
Philips has stated their intention to open up the APIs and the app SDKs for developers. Once they do this I have no doubt that there is an immense potential to use the Hue in interesting ways that perhaps weren’t part of Philips’ initial plan. I can imagine Universal Remote controllers that are app-based tying into the Hue or high end systems such as those from Control4, or perhaps a GoogleTV app that controls the bulbs in your living room while watching a movie. Only time will tell what the hacking community will do with Hue as they gain more experience.
Closing Thoughts
The Philips Hue is at present a unique and interesting lighting system with elements of home automation that can be attractive to a diverse set of users. I found it was easy to set it up and I’ve really enjoyed the experience of having the lighting scenes and controls if affords. However, like any other consumer electronics device, the Hue has its pros and cons.
The good aspects include the aforementioned ease of setup; many home automation devices can get pretty complex, especially for the less technically inclined. Hue is relatively simple in terms of what it allows, and that helps to keep the learning curve pretty shallow. Once it’s up and running, it can provide some really cool functions, and it’s sure to be a great conversation topic at your next party. Finally, while we couldn’t fully test this, the Hue Bridge appears to have very good range so communicating with lights within any reasonably sized house shouldn’t be a problem—if your WiFi can cover the area, Hue should be able to do that and more (via its mesh network).
Not all is perfect, however. At present, there’s very limited extensibility or integration today. Hue does one thing and does it reasonably well, but if you want to use it as part of an existing platform you’ll have to do quite a bit more work. This is yet another app/system for home automation, and if you’re already invested into one of the other solutions you might want to wait for the APIs to open up and let someone else get Hue working with whatever platform you’re running. The other major hurdle to overcome is the price, which is often the case with home automation. At $200 for the Starter Pack with just three Connected Bulbs and the Hue Bridge, you basically only get enough lights to handle a single moderately sized room, or perhaps three smaller rooms. Additional Connected Bulbs will run $60 each (plus shipping and tax), and while the colored lighting offered by Hue is unusual, that’s still three to ten times as much as you’ll pay for other LED bulbs.
For those with the money and interest in colored lights, though, I think the Hue lighting system can be a great way to go. It provides a good base set of features and functionality right now, and over time I expect things will continue to improve as others get creative with the hardware and software. I would personally highly recommend the Philips Hue, but it’s definitely not the type of product that will appeal to everyone.
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degobah77 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
I think I understand your concern. Yes, to have full remote control at all times, the switch for the lamp needs to be in the ON state. But if you just need a quick light but don't want to bother with using the app, you can just use them like a regular bulb, instant on, instant off.I do this quite a bit in the morning. But, I could just as easily schedule some on and off times that coincide with my routine.
darkcrayon - Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - link
Right, if you just want the light on NOW, you could just flick the switch off and back on again and it would turn on in regular "incandescent emulation" mode. It's only the other scenario that would be annoying, if you wanted a light off NOW, so you flick the switch, but later on you'd have to go back and turn it on. Luckily though i can think of far fewer reasons i'd want to turn a light off urgently. (and i have other much quicker ways of remotely turning off the lights than the philips app - through a computer web interface or in some cases i have them set to turn off when my phone (and hence me) move out of my home out of bluetooth range).georgewedding - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
1. What color temperature settings (degrees Kelvin) are supported? Can users set the bulbs for 6,500K, 5,000K or 3,2000K color temperature?2. Do the bulbs maintain these color temperatures when dimmed? What about as the bulbs age? And what is the projected lifespan of the bulbs?
3. What is the lumens output?
4. What is the resulting illumination level falling on a surface (lux) if the bulb is installed in standard( 8-foot) ceiling fixture?
5. What is the base style? A19? Are the bulbs spots or floods? (They appear to be flood lights). What is the beam spread at an industry standard installation height?
degobah77 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Personal accent lighting. Read the other comments. This isn't a commercial product.aguilpa1 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
2 hune dolla!..., fo three bulb...no.I am as mad as hell - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
When is this current thingy going to be replaced by Disqus or something similar?This Guy - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
Are you sure this guy is a network expert Anand? I'm just a lowly pass average elec eng undergrad and even I know that zigbee supports multiple mesh networks in the same area on the same frequency. When you configure a zigbee mesh deivce you give it a network number. The radio then ignores or relays messages for other networks (depending on the radio's configuration).Zigbee is a low bandwidth, 2.4 GHz protocol. It is designed to ensure data is received. Xbee Pro modules (one implimentation of Zigbee) can send coherent line of sight signals over more than a mile.
Quote:
What isn't clear is whether or not you can increase the total number of devices by adding additional Bridges to the location. Given the use of the ZigBee controller along with the fact that there is no configuration on a per device level to connect it to the network (e.g. you just buy additional bulbs and they apparently broadcast and communicate with any and all Hue devices), we would assume that 50 lights and a single Bridge is about as far as you'll be able to go within a single area. Conceivably, there could also be problems if your immediate neighbor also picked up a Hue—how would the lights know to talk to your Hue network and not his? This is both the blessing and curse of going with an easy to configure technology.
Stuffster - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
After reading about these bulbs (closer to 50W each according to the math), my first thought was: what, if anything, can Philips/Google/Apple/whoever glean from my use of the app ?Are any/al of the changes I make in the app visible to these companies (or anyone listening in, such as the NSA :-))? Up till now it's only my electric company that has been remotely in the loop on such things.
I'd be particularly concerned about this when in wifi mode, where I'd expect that no data would need to exit my home. What's the scoop?
chstamos - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
There is a kickstarter project called "LIFX" that is based on the same basic principles (although their bulbs are supposed to utilize wifi, not zigbee). Unfortunately, judging from the "pledges" they don't seem to be much cheaper. Though, on the bright side (gettit? gettit? ;-) ) they seem to offer notifications via blinking home lights, and that's pretty nifty.....darkcrayon - Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - link
You should be able to get your hue lamps responding to whatever as well, there may already be implementations of that using the hacked protocol they use - at least anything a computer can script can control the lights. But yeah you're right, i looked at LiFX but they aren't any less expensive than Hue, and Hue is actually available...