Philips Hue App Expands to iPad, Gains New 3D Touch Features

I just use the Home app now, only need the hue app when adding new devices.

How long has Hue been out and it's just now getting a proper iPad app? That's really sad. Better late than never, I guess.

It's had an iPad app ('https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/philips-hue-gen-1/id557206189?mt=8') for quite a long time, but this is the "Gen 2" app that has now gained iPad support.

I just use the Home app now, only need the hue app when adding new devices.

I hate the home app. Reminds me of the early windows phone days.

Although the control center toggles are nice.

The 3D Touch shortcuts are much welcome. This will eliminate a lot of steps when you want a quick scene

I fail to see the excitement in controlling a light bulb with a phone. Surely a switch is more convenient?

It's not necessarily exciting per se, not that physically turning off a switch is more demanding, but to be able to control your lights throughout your house is fairly convenient. I potentially could be upstairs in my house and forget to turn off the lights downstairs, hence having the ability to use my mobile device to control this. Technology allows us to have convenience where we may not necessarily need it, but it's exactly that, a short cut or convenient factor.

Also, perhaps this would suit someone who has a physical disability in their household, where they could control the lights without having to maneuver up and down the stairs.

How long has Hue been out and it's just now getting a proper iPad app? That's really sad. Better late than never, I guess.

I fail to see the excitement in controlling a light bulb with a phone. Surely a switch is more convenient?

Not when you're controlling a dozen lights to set the mood for a particular activity with one tap or one Siri voice request. That is something far less convenient and limited with traditional lights and switches.

"Hey Siri, get ready for dinner"... The living and dining room lights dim to blues and reds, spotlights over the dining table turn on with a well lit and satisfying colour temperature, and lights in the kids rooms flash on/off to let them know that it's time to come down to eat. How many switches and nobs would you have to play with to achieve that — if at all even possible?

With smart lights, you stop thinking about controlling individual lights and begin thinking about controlling activity scenes involving many lights and other smart home devices. "Good night Siri!"... All the lights turn off, motion sensors activitated to turn on floor lighting strips when someone gets up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, thermostat cools the home, tv's turn off, smart locks ensure the house is locked down, the garage door is closed, and security cameras inside your home turn on and get ready to trigger motion notifications.

I hate the home app. Reminds me of the early windows phone days.

Although the control center toggles are nice.

The 3D Touch shortcuts are much welcome. This will eliminate a lot of steps when you want a quick scene

Agreed, Home app is really odd to use. Doesn't feel right. Feels sloppy.

As you might have guessed, I don't use the Hue app for my lights. The Home app is so much more intuitively organized and simple and of course it works with all of my devices, not just the lights.

Please can I have your house when you've finished with it? ;)

Can you use the Home app to set up fade in times? I can set that in the Hue app but can't see it in the Home app.

Do NOT download this app onto your iPad if you already have it running on your iPhone.

I installed it and happily saw all my scenes had copied over from the Bridge. I started to create a new widget on the iPad and after setting up the 2nd item suddenly the same scene had been duplicated several times. Then a different scene appeared to be duplicated.

The screwed up settings propagated back to my iPhone and probably they are totally wrecked on the Bridge as well. UPDATE: after mucking about it seems at least 4 scenes were corrupted and all assigned one name and a different image/color scheme. Deleting one crashed the app but seems to have cleared them from Bridge.

Also the dashboard widget used to show two lines of items (8), now it only shows 4 with the next row revealing only the tops of the icons. Clicking Show More on the widget does nothing. This was working fine in the last version.

This app update is a DISASTER. Everything I do in it screws up more of my scenes. Seriously how did this get released?

Up until now I was generally liking how Philips was trying to improve the color handling in the app, and finally restoring the ability to edit colors in scenes in the last version was long overdue. But this update seems like it wasn't even tested.

Appreciate the iPad support but given Hue's premium price the app should offer a lot more customization than it does -- far less than the 3rd party apps. But I just paid $200+ for a set of fricken light bulbs. Why do I need to pay another $5 to be able to use them to there full capabilities, many which are noted on the package box?

Love Hue but wish it came with an app worth of the system.