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PCUtilitiesiOSOpen SourceOSXTabletsSoftwareAppsmacOSMacMacBookSleepTechnologyMobile AppsLightingSmart HomeHome Automation

What are the best apps for controlling and automating Philips Hue lights on Macs?

8

Options
Considered

53

User
Recs.

Apr 30, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

7 Options Considered

Best apps for controlling and automating Philips Hue lights on Macs	Price	Last Updated
-- Meet Hue	Free	Apr 30, 2021
-- Colors for Hue	-	Jan 18, 2021
-- Hue-topia	$15.00	Jan 26, 2021
-- Circadian Hue for Philips Hue	Free	Dec 16, 2019
-- Magewell USB 3.0 HDMI Video Capture Dongle	$299.00	Dec 10, 2020

Meet Hue

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Top Pro

The scene is fully customizable

The app allows you to set the color and light intensity to attain your desired mood. See More

Top Con

Requires a working internet connection.

This approach would not work if your internet service provider had an outage. Apps that communicate directly with the bridge would be fine so long as the local network is up, even if the broader internet was down temporarily. See More

Top Pro

Bridge is capable of controlling 50 light bulbs

A bridge can support up to 50 light bulbs, so you are pretty much able to control every light in the house unless your house is as big as the White House. See More

Top Con

"Functionality is only supported with the first generation Hue mobile app"

Some users may get this warning. Not quite sure exactly what it means. See More

Top Pro

17 beautiful preloaded scenes to choose from

Not only can you choose from 17 preloaded scenes, these scenes accurately and beautifully displays the intended mood as well. See More

Top Con

Overly basic Dawn/Dusk simulators

Meet Hue app provides one simple preset for dawn and dusk, both just ramp up the brightness to one color with no intermediary colors/brightness like a real dawn or dusk would. See More

Top Pro

No need to host own server

If the Meet Hue cloud service presets and scheduling capabilities meet your needs, you can avoid the need to have your own server. See More

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Colors for Hue

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Top Pro

You can group several lightbulbs together

A handy feature that is missing from the official Philips app is the ability to group several lightbulbs together. This way you can adjust the color and brightness of several lights at once. See More

Top Con

No keyboard shortcuts

The application has no keyboard shortcuts making it difficult to script or schedule lights using the Mac as a server. This app is best used with a mouse. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set up

Launching the app and pressing the button on your Hue is all it takes to connect them. See More

Top Con

Toggle all lights on or off gets stuck or reversed sometimes

The first option in the menu is a toggle between Turn all lights on/off. Sometimes Colors for Hue doesn't detect that the lights are off, so you see the option to turn them off, but not to turn them on. Refreshing doesn't resolve the problem. It a simple matter to use the brightness slider to turn on the lights. This is a small bit of a quirk in usability. See More

Top Pro

Free - nag free donations possible

Using this app is completely free. Donation/tips are in the preferences if you'd like to support the developers. There are no nag screens or anything. See More

Top Con

No dawn or dusk simulation options

Top Pro

Lights are very responsive to this app

Changing colors or brightness is nearly lag free. See More

Top Pro

More uniform colors

If you want uniform colors among several bulbs of different generations, Colors for Hue does a great job of making them look similar. For some reason other apps don't do this as well as Color for Hue. See More

Top Pro

Schedule to turn off

You can set a timer that will turn lights off automatically. See More

Hue-topia

Top Con

Expensive for what you get

This app should be more polished at $15 See More

Top Pro

Security feature - can trigger a preset if a sound occurs that is louder than a user defined threshold

With listening mode enabled, this app can trigger a preset, then revert to the prior mode after a specified amount of time has elapsed. This was intended to be a security feature. The idea is if someone broke into your house or something and they approached your computer or wherever your microphone is, Hue-topia would register the sound and trigger hue lights of your choosing, and this might be enough to scare them away. This feature could be used in unintended (hacky) ways as well such as with a virtual audio device such as Loopback. It's a simple feature, it's only good for triggering one preset temporarily and then reverting to the current settings. It can't do Home Kit/Siri kind of stuff. See More

Top Con

Dawn/Dusk simulation is just white light brightening/darkening.

Other dawn/dusk simulators change color in addition to brightness which more accurately simulates dawn/dusk. There are no options to pick color sequences for dawn or dusk. The options available is the duration of the dawn/dusk routine, what time the routine should start, and there is a toggle to set the time automatically based on your geographic location and local dawn/dusk times. See More

Top Pro

Dawn and Dusk simulation features

It can be set to a user chosen time or use your geological location. See More

Top Con

Standard application - menu bar does not persist

This means the application must be open (in the dock) for the menubar to exist. If you close the application from the dock or Quit by shortcut Command + Q etc, the menubar and FN key shortcuts disappear AFAIK. Scheduled items should theoretically still work. Will contact devs and do some more testing before purchasing. See More

Top Pro

A free trial is available

The trial is 30 days, the software is not limited in any way AFAIK. A nag screen pops up whenever launching the app. See More

Top Con

Color picking not as responsive or friendly to use

Color picking in Hue-topia is not as user-friendly as other offerings. You can't click and drag your eyedropper. Wherever you click, that is the spot sample of color that is sampled. The same applies for using the MacOS built-in color pickers. Sliders don't slide smoothly, they can only jump so much at a time. See More

Top Pro

Has some keyboard shortcuts / hot keys

You can assign function keys 1-8 to trigger presets. You can also turn all lights off (but not on, however you can get around that with the presets + fn keys) and a few other misc keyboard shortcuts. See More

Top Pro

Can re-order lights groups etc.

More features include hiding individual lights (see only groups). See More

Top Pro

Can create and alter schedules

Basic handling of repeating events daily, weekly, etc. See More

Magewell USB 3.0 HDMI Video Capture Dongle

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Official Phillips Hue Developer API

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Colors for Hue

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