all 4 hue for Philips Hue

Rene Wahl

In-app purchases

About this app

"all 4 hue" is the most comprehensive and best-rated app for Philips Hue. In addition to direct control of lights and rooms, this app is ideally suited for comprehensive automation of up to five Hue Bridges via timers, alarms and rules in combination with all available Philips Hue devices such as switches and sensors. In addition, this app is also available for Wear OS smartwatches for convenient control of lights, rooms and scenes. The "all 4 hue" tile provides direct access to your Hue Bridges under Wear OS. By the way, "all 4 hue" does also run on Android TVs.

Key functions:
- Control of lights and light groups/zones/rooms including effects that can be activated such as campfire, candlelight and light prism.
- Use of scenes to be able to recall saved light settings both statically and dynamically (freely definable color loops).
- Use alarms and timers to activate freely definable actions at specific times.
- Full configuration of the entire Philips accessories product range with unique functions, for example a single Hue dimmer can be used for up to 5 rooms (by using multiple switching levels).
- Reaction to device events such as incoming SMS or app notifications, e.g. with the lights flashing.
- Support for Wear OS smartwatches and Android TV.
- Support up to 5 Hue Bridges.
- Many other unique functions such as backing up and restoring Hue Bridge content or the automatic cleanup function or several widgets for the home screen.

Requirements/supports:
- Philips Hue Bridge V1 (round) or V2 (square)
- Philips Hue Tap, Dimmer, Smart Button, Tap Dial, motion, temperature and brightness sensors
- Official Friends of Hue switches

Limitations:
- This app can only be used within the local network, as Philips does not allow third-party apps to access the Hue Bridge from outside the local network without contractual regulations. The development team of this app is currently in contact with Philips to clarify contract details so that remote access may be made available in the future.
- Bluetooth control not supported.

This app does not contain advertising, nor is user data sold to other companies. The development work is financed through one-time in-app purchases or a low-cost subscription. Thank you for your understanding.

Ratings and reviews

This app revolutionized my experience of hue by enabling me to customize hue dimmer switches nearly to my heart's content. Between the free Hue app and this app, my 4 button remote can launch 16 different scenes. I only wish, when editing remotes, it had the ability to evaluate whether a specific scene is running as a starting condition to determine the functionality of pushing a button. (this is a note for the developer, for users considering this app: buy it. ypu can already do so much.)

I wanted to be able to toggle lights in adjacent rooms using the second and third buttons on my dimmer switch. I tried in vain using the basic hue app. After finding this app I was more than willing to pay the small fee to get the level of control it offered. Not being tech savvy I was unable to figure out the sequence of steps to set up the toggle. I saw in other reviews where the developer encouraged users to email him if they had problems. So I did. After a couple of emails back and forth I was able to complete the set up successfully using the accessory set up wizard. I am very impressed with the efforts of the developer to create such a wonderful app and to make himself available to support users who need additional help.

The app has a powerful rule wizard, but the interface feels frustratingly clunky. There are forms where you have to hit an on screen back button to get a prompt allowing you to save your entries rather than having an obvious submit button presented to you. The OS back button is poorly handled and takes you completely out of sections of the app rather than going back a step (or completely exits the app entirely until you find the option in settings to only exit on two successive back button presses).

What's new

Settings regarding automatic Hue Bridge firmware updates can be made in the "Hue Bridges" section. - Introduction of quick access to display user-selected resources (lights, groups, scenes, alarms, timers, rules, accessories) on one page.