Philips Hue turned my lights into motion sensors. It’s magical, but imperfect

Aside from its numerous processor, reminiscence, and machine capability enhancements, the brand new Philips Hue Bridge Pro comes with a killer function: the power to show your current Hue lights into movement sensors. I’ve been testing this performance for the previous few weeks, and sure, it really works. Getting it to work the way in which I need it to, nonetheless, has been a problem. 

First, a little bit background. Unveiled in September and on sale now, the Philips Hue Bridge Pro packs a sooner, quad-core 1.7 GHz Cortex A-35 CPU and a gigabyte of DDR4 SDRAM, which permit the hub to deal with greater than 150 Hue units, or roughly thrice as many as the usual Hue Bridge. 

The new Hue Bridge Pro may connect with your private home community by way of Wi-Fi, which means it doesn’t have to be tethered to your router by an ethernet cable. (I’ve been testing the Bridge Pro on Wi-Fi mode and haven’t had any connectivity points).

Those processing and networking enhancements make for a formidable improve on their very own, however the Hue Bridge Pro ($98.99) additionally boasts one other cool function: MotionAware, which screens motion-induced disruptions to the Zigbee alerts Hue lights use for communication, successfully turning your sensible lights into movement sensors. Given that an indoor Hue motion sensor costs $50, the Hue Bridge Pro’s capacity to make your Hue lights motion-aware virtually pays for itself.

MotionAware does have limitations. For starters, there have to be a minimum of three MotionAware-capable Hue lights in a given movement zone for the function to work (you too can add a fourth mild in case you like). Also, not all Hue lights assist MotionAware performance; Hue says 95 % of its lights will do the MotionAware trick, however my moveable Hue Go desk lamps didn’t make the minimize, nor did my third-party Zigbee bulbs. 

Aside from the technical limitations, there are some MotionAware options that aren’t free. Namely, if you would like your MotionAware movement zones to set off safety alerts, you’ll want to enroll in a Secure MotionAware plan for $1 a month, or $10 a 12 months. (A 30-day free trial is obtainable.) If you merely need MotionAware to show your lights on and off, that performance is free, and that’s what I’ve been testing.

Setting up a MotionAware movement zone is an easy course of. Starting from the Hue app’s Settings menu, you faucet on Motion areas, then faucet the “+” button; you’ll then see which of your rooms and zones within the Hue app have sufficient Motion Aware-ready lights for a movement zone.  

In my case, I may add movement zones in my kitchen, predominant bed room, and workplace; the eating room wouldn’t work due to the 4 Hue lights in there, two of them are the non-MotionAware appropriate Hue Go moveable desk lamps, whereas different areas didn’t have sufficient Hue lights to create a zone. I elected to create a single movement zone within the kitchen, essentially the most extremely trafficked space in our condominium. 

Next, you select which lights so as to add to the zone; Hue recommends selecting lights which are between three and 23 toes aside, and at various heights. You’ll additionally need to select lights that border the final space the place you need movement to be detected. Once you decide the Hue lights to incorporate within the movement zone, the Hue app will ask you to go away the world so it may well calibrate the lights within the zone; the method takes roughly 20 seconds. 

Finally, you decide which lights your MotionAware-enabled movement zone will management (you possibly can decide lights in the identical room because the movement zone, or in a unique room), and then you definitely determine what occurs when your new movement zone detects movement—or, on the flip aspect, when it doesn’t detect movement. (Again, I solely examined MotionAware’s capacity to regulate lights, not its safety features.) 

The Hue app provides you numerous time slots that let you customise the habits of a movement zone. You begin with three time slots, set roughly to morning, night, and nighttime; you possibly can add extra slots as wanted, in addition to alter when the slots start and finish, however you possibly can’t designate a unique set of time slots for particular person days of the week or for the weekend. 

For every time slot, you then select what occurs when movement is detected, and what occurs after a set interval (anyplace between a minute to 60 minutes) of no movement being detected.  

Picking what occurs when movement is detected is pretty easy; you possibly can select any mild scene (both a preset Hue scene or one you’ve personalized), or select “Last on state” or “Do nothing.” For what occurs after no movement is detected, the alternatives are way more restricted: simply “Off,” “Do nothing,” or “Return to previous state.” 

Aside from these settings, every time slot gives a “Do not disturb” choice that may stop your movement zone from altering the habits of lights which are already on. There’s additionally an general “Daylight settings” choice that may hold your movement zones from triggering your lights throughout daytime. 

As for the precise efficiency of Hue’s MotionAware know-how, I discovered it to work kind of as marketed. My kitchen lights reliably detected movement at any time when I or my relations walked into the world, and sensed that exercise had ceased as soon as we left the room. 

There had been a number of events when the lights would flip off after we’d been sitting on the kitchen desk for too lengthy (a typical foible for movement sensors normally), however upping the MotionAware sensitivity setting minimize down on these cases. Boosting the sensitivity up too excessive will put your movement zone on a hair set off, in fact. 

Ben Patterson/Foundry

But whereas I used to be glad with the essential MotionAware efficiency, I used to be much less proud of the design of Hue’s movement zone settings, which I discovered needlessly difficult and nitpicky.  

My predominant criticism is the shortcoming to have a movement zone set off a lightweight scene when your MotionAware lights cease detecting movement—specifically, I like my under-cabinet Hue mild strip to remain on through the day even when my overhead Hue lights are off.  

Theoretically, this could possibly be achieved with the “Return to previous state” choice, however selecting that setting led to unpredictable outcomes, relying on what the “previous state” truly was. Maybe it was simply my failure to understand the “previous state” idea, however I ultimately gave up and settled for the “Off” choice. 

Then there’s the matter of disabling movement detection for sure time slots—for instance, I don’t need my kitchen lights routinely turning off whereas we’re consuming breakfast within the morning.

Again, choosing the “Do nothing” for each the “When motion is detected” and “After” settings ought to successfully movement management of your lights for a given time slot, however I nonetheless bumped into cases the place the lights would unexpectedly dim or flip off through the breakfast time slot.  

I don’t assume there’s something damaged on the Hue app or with my MotionAware-enabled movement zone zone; as an alternative, it’s most likely a case of person error (mine). But the truth that I’m having bother getting my motion-controlled Hue lights to do what I need them to do—and I think about myself to be a fairly savvy Hue person—signifies that Hue’s movement settings interface wants a rethink. 

I’ve two predominant options: first, enable customers to choose lighting scenes to be triggered when movement is not detected, and second, allow us to deactivate a movement zone time slot with a easy faucet, somewhat than having to dip right into a time slot and alter a number of settings. I’d additionally like separate time slots for the weekend, however let’s begin with the primary two adjustments. 

To be clear, I believe MotionAware is a terrific new function for the Hue Bridge Pro, and as I’ve stated, it could possibly be an enormous cash saver for individuals who need a number of Hue movement zones of their properties. And sure, the movement sensing does work. But in case you ask me, how it really works may use some tweaking.

This story is a part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lights.