Philips Hue gen 1 for Android
Have been holding on to this for a while as a "good enough" app, even after buying several third party ones. Nougat broke it...onward to "progress" and the low rated "2nd gen" app. R.I.P.
I've loved my Hue setup and this app for years. I upgraded my Nexus 9 to Android Nougat. Now the Hue app crashes on start and is unusable. Luckily I have other Android devices like my Nexus 6 and a Samsung Galaxy Pro 12.2 to add and control my Hue lights. The OnSwitch app works fine. PLEASE FIX!
Had the new version and now switched back to this because it is less buggy. What a shame Philips products were once masterpieces but now you can't tell them from no name brands apart. I won't replace my lamps once they fail. It's not worth it.
5 hrs working on getting basic on/off to work with Alexa. Numerous pitfalls. Does work on my upgraded netgear AC router. A hard reset to factory default helped also. Bottom of the Hue bridge small pin hole & a paperclip. If more than 1 person setting up Alexa, will create downstream confusion. Best to have one name only for set up. Better entering serial numbers for light bulbs. Keep bridge physically close to bulbs. Ether net cable bridge to extender. Good luck.Jeff Applebaum
Worked well at start , but constant problems, £1,800 on bulbs, useless without a decent quality reliable app, THANK GOD FOR "HUE PRO" &"ONSWITCH" ,quality apps regularly updated.
Friends, Androidians, fellow app users, lend me your attention I come to mourn Philips Hue, not to praise him. With great sorrow must I tell you that, Philips Hue, first of his name, has left this digital plane and entered the digital hereafter. He was a kindly app and usable by all. There are more flamboyant, user friendly apps, but none were Hue 1. His brother, Hue II, who this author dares call Poo, who now sits on the yet un-cold throne of Philips, did watch our beloved Hue 1 e'ne to the very threshold of death. When, Hue 1, no longer able to even get up and show his familiar self to our eyes, he dids't cry out for help, but none was't proff'd. Thus, slain by those whom do shortly dids't swear their n'er ending devotion and aid, Hue 1 was't slain. Then dids't Poo ascend to the place that, by all rights shoulds't been his brother's, namely the throne of the house Philips. And so we must now bid to our former friend adieu and goodbye. Goodnight sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. May Poo e're improve or find the same fate as was't giv'n his brother.
I see a lot of bad reviews, especially on the Version 2 app. V2 would not install on any of my 5 Android devices which was odd but Version 1 installed just fine and has all the features I want. I find it easy to use and full featured including Themes, Timers, etc. Setup was easy...I have an Amazon Echo Dot which works great with the Hue system and requires TWO steps to get full functionality: Step 1- Installing the Phillips Hue app first (Version 1 for me) was easy and straightforward is necessary if you want to change the names of the lights, create ON/OFF timers and setup Theme for individual bulb brightness for different uses. Step 2 - Ask the Echo Dot to "Discover Devices" initiates the remaining step, once found, you can proceed to use your Echo to control the custom lighting configurations you created in the Hue app. As I mentioned, V1 is the only version that works on my phone, an Huawei Ascend Mate 2. That was initially a bit maddening. The path I took to successfully install the "Working" app was to use the link from the Instructions in the Phillips Hue box, that guided me to Version 1 and the rest is history. I took one star due to limited compatibility.
Someone's grand vision got in the way of good, simple user interface. And now the program fails on startup every time.
Flaky. Nice concept, but dreadful software. New version seems to have been designed by a complete idiot.
The Home and Away features have never worked since I installed the app on its release. I can go on and on but it's obvious the people who wrote this app don't use Hue...
I can actually rename my lights in this one lol but seriously Hue has some of the worst software engineers around good God.
This app is the one to use. It's simple, has an intuitive interface and really promotes scene creativity. Hue version 2 sadly, does not.
It was working then just stopped can't get the 3rd light to stop blinkung.
Warning DO NOT update the app the new update removes scene sharing. I managed to get a previous version of the app off my old phone and can still get my scenes back. Philips say this is for security. I think just another attempt to force onto gen 2 app. Why make a new app that removes functionality? Gen 1 allows scenes to be set across rooms and with only some bulbs
What the hell?!!!! You jerks promised you wouldn't update the app, but you did and TOOK OUT FUNCTIONALITY! For God's sake. What is wrong with you people?! I paid well over $1500 for my system and all my lights and this is what I get?!
Come ON Philips! Don't lock editability of Alarms when you THINK(misguidedly) another device or app created them. I've sent multiple emails to support about every bug I've come across, this being one of them, and not one of these bugs has been acknowledged or addressed. Im using 3rd party apps due to better app design, which have no problem editing these "locked" alarms. Dev team, don't drop support for this app. The product is expensive, and I'm NOT using your gen 2 app. If its "time to move on" as you say, I'll stick with All4Hue. EDIT: UPDATE AFTER SAYING THERE WON'T BE ONE, AND ALARMS ARE STILL "DEVICE" LOCKED!! %$$%#@!!! Give us an app that DOESN'T treat us like idiots.
What did you people do to my EXPENSIVE light system????? These freaking apps don't support my gen 1 bridge anymore??? And this is a gen one app??!??!!! Time to move on. Up yours!
DO NOT UPDATE!!!! Removes scene sharing and thereby removes functionality
This is much more better than the second generation app. It's a shame that the developers stop working on this.
I've tried the "new" app twice, months apart, have deleted it twice in favor of this one. I use my Hue as an alarm clock his one gives me far more control over what color(s) I wake up to, and whether or not I want a fade-in
This is the good one, the new one SUCKS. Useless. Nearly useless, glad I found the old one.
Faster since update. Now when press back to exit app it doesn't ask you to exit. Sometimes it's slow to respond to light change but stuff works, need option for strobe light & hockey game connect so it flashes red when your team scores, I have 15 bulbs & 3 light stripes 1 of which is the plus and they all work great ●update app force closes! will not open anymore ●
Still never than the new version. It's simpler than the new version and the sleep timer is real useful.
I was surprised to see how user friendly the app is. The color schemes are pretty cool also.
I want this app back! Much better then the replacement.
This app is so much better than the one that replaced it. I use this app, not the second generation one.
This works alot better than the new app
Awesomr
This was the best application. The presets are super customizable and very user friendly. Operating the lights away from home is nearly impossible with the other iterations. It was an nice all inclusive app. Geofencing works well. Scheduling is smooth and consistent. So much is left out with the second gen. The scenes are my favorite.
With each new revision or leap in versions alarms and timers become uneditable. They state, This alarm was created with a different app. Frankly I dont give a damn. The app, no matter the version should and MUST be able to edit or delete any and all alarms and timers created be any and all apps. Now on to the next thing, I am running Android 5.x, the Gen 2 app states it runs on 4+. 5 is still greater than 4, right?
Geofencing stopped working, app says not connected to the cloud account, which it is because I can't log in again after logging in the first time, unless I sign out again. New version of the app is terrible. How is this still the best smart bulb system out there ?
I don't know what everyone else is talking about but I had a nice experience with this version so far. I can control the lights on my 4g from anywhere with just a 2-3 sec delay, doesn't forget my bridge. The only thing I wish it had was a automation mode to smoothly trasition to differents colors or specifically shades of the same color, Or even a slow pulse effect. That would be awesome. I would pay 5 bucks for a professional automation version of this app
The first thing this app should do is enable turning lights on and off. But it consonantly forgets about the bridge. So when you want to turn lights on our off it doesn't work. I wrote a simple script that hasn't forgotten these settings but software developed by Phillips does. This is lack of attention to detail. Obviously Phillips does not have it together
I don't know what ppl are complaining about. Not enough functionality? They made the api open for a reason: so indi devs could jump in and drive each other to compete. This drives innovation. For a basic app to control a few lights and schedules, this is nice and simple. Don't bother upgrading to their latest Hue app though. They dropped almost all functionality for some reason. It's literally half the app that this old one is.
If you have downloaded the latest app and hate it, get this. It is (slightly) less frustrating.
Once again, Alarms should NOT be device locked! I've updated my phone software, NOT using a different device. Allow optional locking of Alarms, if anything. My guess is the dev team won't actually look into this, all the bugs I've found since day 1 of using this app have remained and been promptly ignored. Despite my emails. I assume the widgets get their info from the app, my bridg has a static IP set up. Why then do they declare "not connected to bridge" until i launch the ap?Well done dev team. You fail.
Looks better than original app. Even less functional than previous app. Hope they improve this app. It's the only thing that lets the product down IMO.
It doesn't work real well unless you are connected to the same Wi-Fi as the hub. Can you make it possible to have a device connect to the hub thru the internet so I don't have to be connected to my Wi-Fi with my phone to use it?
This version is significantly better than the new version. Please please please continue to maintain and improve this version. If not please open source it and hopefully someone picks it up and maintains it. Phillips - Hues are great, but the new app is broken. Keep this version please.
by F####:
Now it just crashes immediately. Still I'm giving it two stars instead of a one-star I gave for the new app because I actually use this app and it sort of worked... Sort of. The people responsible for this deplorable piece of garbage should be shamed in a public forum on live streaming media.