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10 best Philips Hue apps for Android
Philips Hue was one of the first truly mainstream smart lights. You can find them in a variety of styles, including bulbs and light strips. There are competitors in the space that may or may not do a better job. That’s usually up to personal interpretation. As it turns out, there are plenty of options when it comes to Philips Hue apps. Philips has left their stuff open for third-party developers to play with. Here are the best Philips Hue apps for Android! Note, some of these also come with support for LIFX lights as well, one of Philips Hue’s larger competitors.
We’d also like to give an honorable mention to Android 11. Google revamped the power menu for that version of Android and it includes native controls for smart home tech like Philips Hue. You can read more about it here.
The best Philips Hue apps for Android
AutoHue
Price: $1.39
Tasker can do basically everything. It can also control your Philips Hue lights with this plug-in. Tasker has a bit of a learning curve. That means this isn’t the best option for those who need something simple and easy. However, the customization is top-notch. You can control brightness, color, blinks of various lengths, color loops, and custom JSON scripts. You’ll have to learn how to use Tasker. However, it otherwise works very well. It’s definitely one of the better Philips Hue apps.
Google Assistant
Price: Free
Smart home tech is one of the best ways to leverage your smart lights. Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and others let you control your lights with the sound of your voice rather than a touch of the button. This makes it very convenient to turn everything off and on, especially right after you go to bed. There are other commands you can do. For instance, you can change your light colors, turn them all on or off at once, and even ask what lights are currently on. It’s an excellent tool for Hue owners and highly recommended. You don’t need the
HueDynamic
Price: Free / $5.49
HueDynamic is one of the more powerful Philips Hue apps on Android. This one has a lot of neat tricks, including the ability to set the lights after a power cut and a metric ton of various scenes and customizations. Some of the features include multi-bridge support, an improved routines from the official Philips Hue app, and even some camera functionality. You can point your camera at a screen and the lights will adjust based on what your camera sees. It works with still images as well. The app is quite buggy, partially because of Philips Hue and partially because of the heavy features. Still, it’s easily one of the best.
Hue Pro
Price: $1.99
Hue Pro is one of the better Philips Hue apps. It comes with a lot of the same features as the stock app and kind of looks like it too. That includes lighting presets, dimming and brightness toggles, a widget, music integration, and more. There are a few decent unique options as well that we really enjoyed. You can even control your lights away from home once you set it up right. Unlike most, the developers have a list of devices that they used to test this app. It should still work on devices that aren’t on the list. However, it’ll almost certainly work better on the apps that do. There’s no free version of this one. You’ll have to buy it and test it inside of the refund time to make sure you like it.
IFTTT
Price: Free / $3.99 per month
IFTTT is one of the best automation solutions on mobile. It also works very well with Philips Hue lights. The app lets you automate a bunch of things. For instance, you can use an IFTTT recipe to make your lights fade in on sunset and fade out on sunrise. Some other neat recipes we found was the ability to blink your lights when the doorbell rings, blink when you receive a notification from a specific app, and more. There are even joke ones where the lights will respond if you say something funny into your smart home speaker. In any case, anyone with Philips Hue should check out IFTTT.
Lumio
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Lumio is one of the newer Philips Hue apps for Android. It is also one of the simpler options. You can do the basic stuff. That includes turning the lights on and off, changing the color, and changing the brightness. It also boasts the ability to change the color with fewer taps than the stock app. It doesn’t compete with the other Philips Hue apps in terms of features. At least, it doesn’t yet. However, the interface is simple and it does the basics pretty well. It may be a bit buggy, though.
MediaVibe
Price: $1.99-$3.99 each
MediaVibe is a developer on Google Play. They have released several decent Philips Hue apps. Their apps include Philips Hue profiles for a variety of events. They have one for Halloween, one for fireworks, and even Christmas. They also have unique ones like an app with profiles for the World Cup or Twister (the game). Each app is a little bit different. However, they all perform more or less the same function. They load in color profiles that match the event in their name. The prices vary, but none of them are more expensive than $2.99.
OnSwitch
Price: Free / Up to $9.99
OnSwitch is one of the more interesting Philips Hue apps. That’s because it also comes with direct support for LIFX lights as well. Most of the features work for both sets of smart lights. That includes 30 light scenes, the ability to manage groups of bulbs, and the ability to control independent bulbs. It doesn’t really have any more features than the stock app for those lights. However, this is still a great option for people who happened to have both types of bulbs and want one app to at least mostly control all of them. You can download it for free to see if it works. The pro version will cost money.
Philips Hue official app
Price: Free
The official Philips Hue app saw some dramatic changes in 2018. The app was entirely re-designed with some new features and UI elements. It also got a little more stable in the process, at least during our testing. Some of the features include scenes, syncing with entertainment like music or movies, integration with other devices like Razer, and routines that turn your lights on and off (and change colors) based on things like the time of day. There really is a lot more to this app than most of the others on this list. The revamp did leave some holes in the functionality. However, they should get fixed eventually.
Scott Dobson Philips Hue apps
Price: Up to $2.99
Scott Dodson is a developer on Google Play. His works are similar to MediaVibe. He has released several Philips Hue apps that have specific themes. Some of the themes include Firestorm, Thunderstorm, and Soundstorm. They work in a fun manner. For the Thunderstorm version, it’ll emulate a thunderstorm by having bright flashes of light to simulate lightning. These apps also come with various customizations, settings, and even sound options. They’re fun for what they are. The apps are around $2.99. There are also LIFX versions of these apps if you have those.
If we missed any great Philips Hue apps, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest app and game lists!
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