MacOS Catalina - Note that Cherry Live Light is currently only compatible with macOS. One of the supported digital audio workstations (DAWs): Logic Pro X (Cherry 1.0 and up) REAPER (Cherry 1.1 and up) Pro Tools (Cherry 1.1 and up) Studio One (Cherry 1.2 and up) Cubase (Cherry 1.2 and up) Philips Hue Bridge with at least one Hue bulb connected. Supports multiple Philips Hue bridges (v1 and v2) - Single purchase to unlock both on iOS and macOS via iCloud - HomeKit support (with multiple homes.) DESIGN: - Intuitive and clean design - Responsive layout for iPhone and iPad - Easy to use menus and controls IMPORTANT: - This app requires a Philips Hue bridge or HomeKit lights. Download Hue Party for Philips Hue for macOS 10.11 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. Dynamic scenes and audio/video features for your Philips Hue lights: - Sync ambient music with lighting - Create customizable presets and control individual lights - Adjust brightness, saturation, transition and color - Free to try with two active lights.
Circadian lighting with f.lux
You already know that the light from screens can affect your sleep. Don’t overlook the rest of the lights in your house.
By dimming and shutting off lights in your home, you can create an environment that’s more friendly to sleep. You don’t need to buy any special gear just to flip a switch at night, but if you are looking for a gradual, automatic change, here’s how f.lux can run your lights.
This tutorial will cover using f.lux to run the Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance system on a Windows computer. Support for other lighting systems and macOS will be released in the future.
If you have a Hue setup at home, and own a Mac, then we definitely recommend giving Hue Menu a shot. It costs just $2.99, so it won’t cause a big strain on your wallet. (Download: Hue Menu for OS X on the Mac App Store) Be sure to check out our Mac OS X Apps Gallery to explore more apps for OS X powered computer. Hue’s Entertainment feature only works with Philips Hue White and color ambiance lights and bulbs, as well as Friends of Hue color-capable lights. Lights which do not meet the Entertainment feature’s requirements will not show up in the Entertainment area setup menu.
What you need
Right now, you’ll need two things:
- A Windows computer connected to the Internet
- A Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance starter kit
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How to link f.lux with Hue
- Use your mobile device to set up Hue according to the Hue instructions
- Install f.lux for Windows
- Open f.lux from the system tray by right clicking the f.lux icon
- Click the menu called “Options and Smart Lighting…”
- Make sure the “Control Philips Hue lights” box is checked.
- Click “Done”. Now it is time to pair with Hue.
- Press the button on your Hue Bridge.
Your lights should change to match your current f.lux settings.
If there are some lights you don’t want f.lux to run, look back in the f.lux menu for “Hue lights to use” and uncheck the ones you don’t want to be controlled by f.lux.
For information about DIY home control and other discussions about smart lighting, please visit our forum.
One of the fantastic perks of Philips Hue lights is how many devices and apps can work with or enhance the functionality of them. The developer community is gigantic. One platform that’s a bit more sparse on Hue support is the Mac. Wouldn’t it be great if while already using your Mac, you didn’t need to reach over to your iPhone and launch an app to control the lights?
A few apps, most of which cost money, do exist for the Mac that can help out with this. But we’re going to focus on just one. It’s free and it has more features than even the official Philips Hue app for iOS supports.
Philips Hue Mac App
The best Mac app for Philips Hue is the Colors for Hue. Why? It’s free and it does nearly everything you could ask a Hue controller to do.
First, you have to pair the app as always with your Hue bridge. Launch Colors for Hue, then head over to wherever you put your bridge and press the center button to confirm the link.
Colors for Hue sits in your menu bar. If you click it, you’ll see a list of every light bulb connected to that bridge along with an indication of their current brightness level.
If you have Hue bulbs that support color, hovering over the name of your bulb will reveal an entire color palette to choose from. As for Hue bulbs that don’t support color, but just various color temperatures for white, you can adjust that here too using the slider. Since my bulbs are just pure white, I can only adjust the brightness from the main menu.
Grouping Lights
One the largest downsides to the official Philips Hue app is that it doesn’t support the grouping of several light bulbs into one control. Yes, you can set scenes that have brightness and color presets for all the light bulbs, but sometimes you just need a few grouped together.
For instance, my ceiling light is powered by three different lightbulbs. In the Philips Hue app, I’d have to control them either by turning on or off all the lights in the room (four for me total) or each lightbulb one by one.
Thankfully, in Colors for Hue, I’ve been able to group the three ceiling bulbs into a single Ceiling light. To do this, click Preferences in the menu then click Groups. Highlight the bulbs you want to group together by pressing either Command or Shift.
Tip: It helps if you give your lights specific names that can aid you in remembering which ones they are within the room, rather than just keeping them in default numerical order.Click Group and you’re done. Now, the brightness slider in Colors for Hue controls all three bulbs on the ceiling at once.
Delayed Off
Colors for Hue also supports Delayed Off, which is basically a sleep timer for your lights. Hover over the light or group of lights you want to set a delay for, then in the secondary menu hover over Delayed Off. Choose which amount of time you want to keep the lights on for before they automatically shut off.
Tip: Preferences has an optional setting for slow dimming. This will dim the lights slowly before they go off instead of abruptly going dark. Select Slow Dimming for Delayed Off to enable this.Colors for Hue is available from the Mac App Store.
ALSO READ:How to Hide Running Applications on Your Mac
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#mac apps #philips hue
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