Turn Philips HUE Lights on When the Ambient Light is Below X

Question

I have Philips HUE Lights throughout my office and I've been trying to find a way to get them to turn on when it gets below a set lux / ambient light luminous so we don't have to wait till some realises its way too dark and turn them all on. It would be far better if they supplemented the lighting provided to the sun as is set so the office is always the same brightness.

I have looked at ifttt.com and I have looked at integration with a hub like SmartThings but I am struggling to find any working examples or a sensor that will definitively work with my Philips HUE bulbs.

Any suggests would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

The recently released Hue Motion sensor (http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/productdetail/philips-hue-motion-sensor) also includes a lightsensor so the lights only turn on when there is motion and it is dark.

If motion detection is also usefull for you, then you could just use the Hue app to set the trigger lightlevel and it works out of the box.

If you don't want to use the motion detection part then you can setup your own rules for triggering in the bridge on lightlevel changes, but this requires usage of the Hue API (see http://developers.meethue.com - free registration required)

There are also 3rd party apps (iConnectHue for iOS, all-4-hue for Android, possibly others) that support the motion sensor and are more flexible than the official Hue app. However I have no experience with these apps.