Paired with Lighter

What if you could pair light with a movie or TV show to create the perfect mood? You can pair wine or beer to create the perfect meal experience, so why not light?

There are many opinions on how to do just that. Some choose to create their own static scenes, some choose to use a sync box or a Philips Ambilight TV. I prefer to use the animated scenes from my favorite apps, one if which is Lighter. I thought about getting a sync box in the past, but decided against it for a number of reasons. One was the cost. With all the play bars and the sync box itself, it would have set me back over $600. Another reason is that I'm pretty much out of electrical outlets. I have a tiny apartment, but a pretty robust setup considering the space I have.

The idea for this article came to me the other night when I found a perfect pair. I put on Ghost in the Shell (2017), the live-action adaptation of the popular 90s Anime film. I was looking for a scene to match the mood of the film when I stumbled upon Midnight City from the the Retrowave collection of Lighter. The scene has a dark feel to it, very deep blues and purples with bursts of what I call "nuclear" orange.

Midnight City

Ghost in the Shell is a very dark film. I would classify it as "tech noir" because it portrays a very dark and dismal sci-fi future where the use of technology has all but erased what it means to be human. Pairing the scene to the film really created a pop, it made for a very immersive experience. Midnight City proved to be very good for the "tech noir" genre. I found it also paired well with Ex-Machina and the HBO series Westworld.

If you like fantasy, you should check out the HBO/BBC series His Dark Materials. It's based on a Philip Pullman's young-adult novel trilogy. It's a about a young girl who finds herself the centerpiece of a battle between good and evil in a world of whimsical flying machines and armored bears. The series opens with a scene of Lord Azrael (James McAvoy) at the north pole observing the Northern Lights. Pairs well with any of the Northern Lights themes in the Sky collection. There are three different scenes based on this theme in the collection. I recommend cycling through all of them to find one that suits your particular taste.

Northern Lights

Aurora

Norwegian Aurora

I love movies and I love Hue. I also love creating moods. When you find that perfect pair, it intensifies the experience, makes it more real. I plan to have this article be the first in a series about pairing movies and TV shows with apps. So check back periodically to see what I've paired with Lighter.

Psychedelic Lemonade: The Quintessential Hue

About a year ago, I reviewed a new app called Lighter. It's one of many apps you can find on The App Store that will run dynamic scenes, animations of light on your Philips Hue lighting system. What sets Lighter apart is that it feels more personal, in comparison to others. The layout and design are not overdone. It's clean and concise. Others feel like click-bait to me.

Prior to Lighter, I was an Ambee power user. What I loved, and still love, about Ambee is it's super saturated animations. I'm talking about rich colors so deep you could fall into. What I love about Lighter is that it's the complete opposite, lots of subtle, desaturated colors that meld together. Sort of like watercolor versus oil paints. Don't get me wrong, I love both. It really depends on my mood. The two apps go together like yin and yang, completing a sort of illumination feng shui in my home, and I highly recommend getting both of them if you're into Hue.

Another thing about Lighter that I like is that the scenes are on the cloud. This is how you can have access to hundreds of scenes on demand without overloading your bridge. Bridge capacity is a real sore spot for me. I only have a handful of scenes that I created myself due to the limitations of space on the bridge. But...why would I want to run static scenes when I can run dynamic scenes?

I'm a color geek. When I see good uses of color, I have a response, like the kind you get when you smell a pleasant fragrance, or taste a succulent food. It's pleasing, even uplifting, sometimes almost narcotic. The science behind color fascinates me, which is why I did so well in Color Theory in art school.

Please excuse the quality of the photos. I don't have the technology or the knowledge to really do them right. If you click the photo below, you can see a video of Psychedelic Lemonade in action.

Everyone develops a "go-to" app for Hue. Lighter is currently my "go-to." There's lots of themes, with many wonderful scenes. My favorite is the Night Life theme, in particular, the scene called Psychedelic Lemonade, it's the quintessential Hue animation.

CLICK PIC TO SEE VIDEO

Talented developers don't just throw darts at a color wheel when they're designing their scenes. Careful and meticulous thought goes into picking the color palette for each scene. Otherwise they wouldn't make sense, and you'd get a sort of color soup. Psychedelic Lemonade uses a palette of pink, peach, periwinkle, lavender and lilac. Sounds like a bath bomb doesn't it? A bath bomb for your mind. Every time I turn it on, I want to put on some LoFi beats and pour myself a drink. The colors broaden the sense of space in my home; I usually run my scenes throughout the whole home for fullest effect. The perfect balance of saturation and color prevalence is a constant reminder of the reason I started this Hue obsession in the first place.

Hue Disco Christmas Lights

It’s Christmas Time

In Hollis-Queens

Mom’s cooking chicken

And collard greens

- Run DMC

I’ve always loved cozy spaces and holidays. Fall and Winter are my favorite seasons, plenty of time cuddle up with loved ones and binge-watch Stranger Things. Having a Hue lighting system, you can count on always setting the perfect mood. I love to decorate with lights for the holidays, but I have almost hit my limit with electrical outlets. If I add anymore electrical components, I’m afraid I’ll blow a fuse. So, I’ve been looking for some good Christmas apps.

Ambee, Lighter, OnSwitch and iConnectHue all have Christmas animations (among others). But I was looking for something more specific, something that will snap the lights to various colors, like a string of twinkling Christmas lights. I found exactly what I was looking for in an unlikely app:  Hue Disco. I plan to do a proper evaluation of Hue Disco in a later review. For now, I want to focus on the Christmas light effect.

Hue Disco is designed create a light show by reacting to music; to recreate a disco effect with colors and strobes. But it has other great functions. In particular, I’m talking about Moods, a feature that is essentially a selection of preset animations that are separate from the main disco feature.

There is a Christmas Lights animation that will vary the colors, snapping as it changes, but it has a weird performance, and there is no way to change any part of it. However, I found another animation that seemed to fit perfectly:  The 80s Disco animation. It will cycle through a variety of brilliant colors, and you can control almost every aspect:

• Brightness
• Saturation
• Diversity or Prevalanee of Color
• Cycle Time
• Transition Type

I was trying to find an animation that would snap between colors like a string of Christmas lights. I found it in an unlikely place. I wanted to create the feel of Christmas from my childhood with the strings of twinkling lights. I definitely recommend checking it out. Lighting truly does set the mood.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Ambiance, Atmosphere; Aura

Merriam-Webster defines an aura as a distinctive atmosphere surrounding a given source; a subtle sensory stimulus or a luminous radiation.

Often times when I find something I like, I tend to be very loyal to it. But like everyone, sometimes I get bored with the familiar and look to find something new. With Hue, I have found many great apps, and so I forget that there are so many more to try.

About a year ago, while shopping for apps to try, I came across Aura, from SpaceNation, Inc. CA. At first glance it looked really cool. It functions similarly to my favorite app Ambee in that there are several scenes to choose from in a simple layout.

THE BREAKDOWN

What I like:

The first thing I noticed was the simple layout. The illustrations depicting the scenes are different than what you see in other apps. They look like original artist compositions as opposed to photographs

Most of the scenes are really saturated as opposed to more muted, blended colors, and I like the effects. Every dynamic scene app will have subtle variations on how the animations transitions. Aura has a few scenes with very deliberate transitions for maximum pop. For example, the fire scene starts with a flash which I believe is supposed to simulate the strike of a match.

What I don't like:

The app has 12 dynamic scenes, and costs $5.99. In the time I've had this app, no new scenes have been added.

There is no designation for rooms or zones. This means you have to select all the bulbs you want to use. This also means you cannot run more than one scene at a time. This is a huge drawback for me because I like to run different scenes in different rooms simultaneously. I live in a small apartment, and I find that running different scenes in different areas creates a larger sense of space.

The Lights section duplicates my lights. In the settings there is a function that is supposed to correct this, but it was ineffective. There is also a HomeKit section which does nothing as this app cannot be added to HomeKit, which begs the question of why even put it in there?

Lastly, I noticed that switching from one scene to another takes approximately 15 seconds unless you stop the prior scene first. Smooth transitions are paramount to quality in an app. 

Overall, I like some of the scenes and the effects, but I feel this is more of an example of lazy design, and for six bucks it's pretty basic. It has a four star rating on the App Store, but I would only give it two stars. Sorry SpaceNation, better luck next time.

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On the Lighter Side

Light, my light, the world-filling light, 

the eye-kissing light, 

heart-sweetening light!... 

- Rabindranath Tagore; Sally Crabtree Chooses Light

Just when I start to think I might be getting a little bored with my apps, Lighter comes along.

Wait...let me start at the beginning. In 2004, I had what would have been the perfect bachelor pad, and the perfect canvass for Hue. Some things happened and I fell, so to speak. I had to live with my parents for a while, and had to manage through some major life-threatening illness. In 2013, I was given the chance to start over, in a tiny apartment, which later Hue helped to make a comfortable lair. The apartment was all mine, the white walls were my new canvass. With Hue, and a handful of apps, I was able to create environments at will, to whatever my fancy. 

Enter Ligher:  a new app from A Better Home, Inc., created by software engineer and developer David Pewzner. Although it has only been around for a short time, Lighter offers nearly 150 dynamic scenes. 

There are 10 sections:

• Classics - Classic lighting, fire, flame visuals and sounds.
• Colors - Various animations colors, color theory staples, and static one-color scenes.
• Sunsets - Sunset scenes from around the world.
• Nightlife - Scenes from bars, clubs, etc. with sounds.
• Forests - Forest colored scenes and sounds from all over.
• Oceans - Colorful moods based on the sea.
• Sunrise - Wonderful sunrise scenes from around the world.
• Love - Lots of reds and pinks with cheeky names.
• Halloween - Wonderful colors of Halloween with spooky sounds.

WHAT I LIKE

Right off the bat, there are four really great features that come with Lighter. The user has control of the brightness; the volume of the audio; a built-in UI control that allows you to skip through the scenes of the section like skipping through tracks of music; and a "favorites" feature.

The first two - brightness and audio control - are an absolute must for me. I have no interest in an app unless I can control the brightness. I have a pretty robust system, and I like to use a lot of it at any given time. Admittedly, I don't usually use the sounds, but now I'm definitely going to have to buy a Bluetooth speaker, especially for the fire sounds, more on that later. 

The skip control is something I have not seen in other apps. It allows you to try a few, or all the scenes in a group. It's just as fast and easy as if you were skipping through songs on your favorite music app, with no lag.

The "favorites" feature is, ironically, my favorite feature. There are a lot of good apps for Hue, but I have not seen any that will allow you to create a "favorites" section for the scenes or animations that you like or use the most. For an app that has nearly 150 scenes, this is a very useful feature considering per the law of averages, most people are going to like some more than others.

This would also be a good time to mention that Lighter will use whatever room setup you have established with the native Hue app, in addition to other lighting groups you may have created in other apps. For example, I have my standard room designations, but I also created additional groups  in an app called Ambee that I like to use.

Another great trait Lighter has is its response time. Lighter responds IMMEDIATELY. There's probably some way to measure it in milliseconds, but I run my Hue system in my apartment, not in a laboratory. There's also no interference with other parts of your system. For example, another app I use has a five second lag on the switches when it runs. So smooth running across the whole system is key.

SPECIFICALLY

One thing I love to do (and I think I have a pretty good talent for it) is to renew, renovate or re-purpose things that have little or no value into something useful and beautiful. In 2013 I inherited an electric fireplace, the kind that has a built-in heater and pretty realistic looking flames that are essentially made using light and shadow. It has a beautiful solid oak mantle. The motor began to die in 2014. It began to make a hard grinding noise that disrupted any feeling of relaxation that I used to get out of it. Replacing the hearth was akin to finding a needle in a haystack, and for a while I considered replacing it.

When I got my Hue system I started thinking of ways I might put some lights in it. One night I decided to tear down the entire hearth. I gutted it completely, took out all the wires, fixtures and motor. I got some cords from IKEA and put two 3rd generation hue bulbs in it, one in the front and one in the back. I have been able to create some really cool fireplace scenes. But up until now, I haven't found an app that had a sufficient scene to make it look like real fire. There have been some that I tried, but they were just not bright enough. Using the Lighter Candle scene, I was able to created something beautiful. The fire has a nice flicker, the color is consistent with what you'd expect to see in a fireplace, and the brightness is perfect!

In the process of doing my review, I reached out to David to ask him about more intricate details about Lighter. He's very ambitious and is working hard to create an app that really stands out against the competition. Some of the things he mentioned were a wake-up feature that would allow the user to set a sunrise scene to wake up to. He also talked about a desire to possibly integrate Siri and/or Alexa.

MY FINAL THOUGHTS 

I have downloaded probably about 50 apps for Hue, give or take. Complete honesty here - the majority seem to be garbage - full of features that I'd never use, setup that seems to make no sense, and scenes that I'd never use. However those that are good, are really good. And when an app is really good, it wins my loyalty. I'm excited for Lighter. I can see that I will get a lot of use out of it. And I'm excited to see where it goes. Lighter, with full feature functionality, is available for free until November 30, 2018 on the Apple App Store and Google Play. I recommend Lighter with a five star rating.

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Sync My Lights: A Review - Part 1

You may have read my review of Ambee, a very necessary app for Phillips Hue lighting. You probably noticed I like to write. You probably also noticed I like to do reviews of things that I like...or don’t like for that matter.

Recently, I have declared Sync My Lights to be equally quintessential.

Sync My Lights is an app that allows the user to run a light show called a recipe whilst watching a movie, TV show, or any kind of video (including video that you create on your own). The light show essentially syncs with the video, and adds dramatic effect. And since it runs independently of the video you are showing, there's no concern about lag or issues with timing. It’s a simple app, with a complex function. Playing a recipe is easy to learn.

The light shows are produced by the users and new ones are added everyday. There is a learning curve that a user must overcome in making the various recipes. The more experienced users of course produce the best recipes, but user feedback helps overcome that learning curve. Artistic representation is also prevalent. Hence the need to write a Part I and a Part II to this review. 

So far I’ve mainly used Sync My Lights to watch movies. I’m not much for TV shows, and as of yet there are no full seasons of anything, so to me they are expository and experimental at this stage. The most recent update allows the user to filter their search based on movie, TV, music titles, etc. 

My favorites include:

• Any of the available Marvel movies
• Stardust
• Star Wars:  The Last Jedi
• Rogue One
• Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Part II of this review will discuss my own attempts at creating recipes for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Fifth Element, Hero, and others.

I’ve found that the best recipes are for movies that are visually striking; full of color and action. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Action movies seem to have the greatest impact, are the most popular and provide the most “bang for your buck” as we say in the US.

Speaking of which, the app is free to try a selection of recipes. A membership is $1.99 US per year and you get a free year if one of your own is approved to be added to the library. This low price is overwhelmingly worth it for the value you get.

Initially, I held off on giving a rating for Sync My Lights because I really had only explored the play side and not the create side. I still don't have a lot of experience with the create side and I feel the learning curve is a bit steep, but not impossible. It just takes time and patience. So, I'm going to go ahead and give my recommendation along with a five star rating.

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Ambee: Hue in Living Color

Lighting has always held particular sway over me. Casting a spell, it can make or break a space, or composition, and have profound effects on my mood. Color captivates me. My earliest memories are of Christmas, with all the colored lights everywhere.

I discovered Philips Hue lighting like I imagine many people did, while watching the 2012 Apple WWDC Keynote address. Like with most new tech, I was amazed, but at the time it would not have made sense with my budget and my living arrangement. Fast forward to 2015; a lot can change in three years. New job, new career, new place.

My new place was dead when I moved in, the only sources of light being the windows and some rather clinical looking ceiling globes illuminated by cold compact fluorescent bulbs. I was starting over, and had nothing. Fortunately, there are a lot of windows to let in natural light during the day. At first, I started with a few thrift store lamps, moving them around to get the best coverage, but I really needed living light. I remembered Hue and found some great videos on YouTube that showed an entire apartment, every bulb a Hue and demonstrations several apps. But what I found most captivating were the dynamic animations. The transitions between colors were hypnotic. It was at this time that I realized I had to have this product. 

I bought the 2nd Gen starter kit, three extra bulbs, and combined that with two IKEA lamps. Finally, I had some mood lighting, and the iPhone interface was the piece de resistance. Eventually, it became an obsession, and I assimilated my entire apartment into my scheme upgrading nearly every bulb in the house except the one in the refrigerator.

I embraced this new obsession, or hobby as some may call it. I tried a lot of different apps, then I found Ambee. At the time, it was relatively new, born out of the ashes of another app called Goldee. It didn’t have many animations, but it had potential. Immediately I took to it. Whereas some apps hand you a paintbrush and a palette and let you go at it, Ambee is more like an art gallery. The animations are masterpieces created by the developer, Tomas Baran, a Slovakian man now living in the Canary Islands who makes his living in technology. Imagine a collaboration of Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali and Ludwig van Beethoven; a symphony of color and light. Before I knew it, Ambee had become my go to app for my lights.

WHAT I LIKE

1) Ready To Go Out of the Box

Ambee will automatically incorporate your zones or rooms from the Hue bridge. You can also create your own as well. I find that to be very convenient and handy. The benefit of this is that you can essentially create sub-zones. For example, maybe you have five bulbs for your living room but sometimes only want to use three for a scene. A sub-scene will allow for this.

2) You can vary the brightness of a animation.

Imagine yourself at an art gallery. You find a piece you love. You must have it. But it only comes in one size and it’s either too larger or two small for the intended space. What if you could scale it to fit any space? That’s what the brightness slider is for, and it’s particularly tuned not to affect the overall composition of the scene.

3) Broad Range of Choices Available

Ambee currently has a total of 50 compositions available so there’s something for every mood. It has dynamic animations, and static scenes as well. The static scenes are mostly intended as effective work lighting, but you can get creative with them as well.

4) Distinctiveness of Animations

Each animation is unique in color, functionality and performance. Some of the scenes incorporate a music or audio track. For example, the Bamboo Forest scene plays an audio track that sounds like a tropical rain forest. Connect your headphones or a Bluetooth speaker for a spa feeling. The Rock & Roll Drinks scene incorporates a music track featuring electric guitars.

Some of the animations are really more like light shows. One of my favorites, the Idyllic Sunset, is actually a sunset simulation. It starts out bright with subtle transitions like clouds moving in front of a sunset, then gradually dims over a period of 15 minutes with progressively warmer shades of red and orange.

5) Performance

I’ve seen a lot of jenky apps for Hue, tentative: like the developer didn’t really try very hard, rushed it, or was just not experienced enough to deliver a high quality product. Some of them have really harsh transitions on startup and stop. The lights seem to strobe into action, out of sync. Ambee as silky smooth transitions. Startup, stop, and re-selection have a soft subtle quality, the lights synchronize, and change all together at the same time.

My biggest complaint with dynamic apps is that they time-out. They are unstable. Ambee seems to have that under control. You can set a time-out, or not... And if something happens, for example if a bulb gets turned off during animation, Ambee will automatically re-sync it as soon as it reconnects with the bridge.

6) Rich Saturation

Ambee has some of the richest color saturation I have seen in any app. I don’t know if it’s the compositions that make it look that way, but I’ve had a Hue system for two years and I cannot seem to get blues and purples as deep as with Ambee.

MY FAVORITE THINGS

One trait I have always had is creativity. I like to think outside the box and try new things. I like to run a different animation in every room. I even have a Hue fireplace that I made from an old electric fireplace that I gutted. There are a few animations that I previously didn’t have much use for that work really well in the fireplace. They provide some really interesting fires with their color transitions, enough to rival the fireplaces at Hogwart’s. I like to combine animations in the same room with my sub-zones. Here are a few of my favorites:

ALWAYS LOOKING FORWARD

Tomas would say that Ambee is a work in progress, constantly growing, moving forward. He is truly a gifted developer, and a visionary. In my interactions with him, he always says “there’s more to come.”

The market for smart home products is skyrocketing. New products and new apps are launching every day. Apple is playing nice with everyone, allowing HomeKit to be completely open-source for developers. Products are selling everywhere you go. In my town, BestBuy, Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond all carry Hue products. I think diversity is the key here. So many different products to choose from with even more apps available. I would love to see HomeKit integration with Ambee. I’d also like to see an Ambee widget for the Notification screen and on Apple Watch. AND an Android app as well. 

Ambee is free. It comes with 10 animations. Additional dynamic animations sell for about $2.00 US each, and are comparably priced where available in other markets globally. Static scenes are free. I would recommend Ambee over any other app to anyone interested in bringing life to their Hue system. Ambee is perfect for both novice and experienced users; I highly recommend it with a five star rating.

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Hue vs. WeMo

In our digital age you hear the terms smart home, connected home, home automation and others to describe an ability to control the lights, heating, locks, security systems and a host of other devices through your home WiFi network and over the internet. More specifically, it means that you can use your smart phone, tablet or computer to turn on your lights, set your home security system, or a number of other tasks at home or from anywhere. Want to turn all the lights out before you hit the sack? Boom! "There's an app for that;" forget to turn on your security system en route to your dream destination? Boom! "There's an app for that."

These buzz-phrases, if you will, are becoming ever present. While there are a host of choices for products in this relatively new category, I wanted to do a review on the Phillips Hue lighting system, and Belkin's WeMo home automation suite.

HERE IS THE BASIC BREAKDOWN:

Phillips Hue is marketed as "personal wireless lighting." It is a completely custom lighting system. Phillips manufactures a wide variety of electrical and electronic products including wireless "smart" light bulbs. The Hue system is a line of lighting products which include smart RGBW LED bulbs, RGBW LED light strips, white smart bulbs, and a variety of other unique lighting products and accessories that can be controlled from a smart device via WiFi or over the internet.

WeMo however, is a bit broader and simpler at the same time. Belkin designed the system to interface with a number of devices, of various brands and manufacturers. For example, the WeMo hub and products are designed to integrate with Lightify products, a Sylvania product product line. Similarly, which of course begs the question:  is Phillips planning on eventually interfacing with more?. WeMo also has a broad selection of switches and outlets that can be integrated into their ecosystem as well.

The tagline for the Hue system is "paint with light." And that's exactly what you can do. I'm not sure of the gamut specifications and all the particulars that are generally irrelevant except to the occasional eccentric techie nerd or art school graduate, but the interface looks just like the color palette on Adobe Photoshop. To get into the system, you must first purchase a starter kit that includes a wired bridge you connect to your router which now comes with four RGBW LED light bulbs. (Similar starter kits are sold separately for white bulbs, light strips and other products. RGBW LED bubls are bulbs that allow for the full gamut of visible light, 16 million beautiful colors, as well as the subtle color temperatures of white light:  warm or cool (Red+Green+Blue & White). As with any piece of electronics these days, there is of course, no instructions except to plug in the bulbs and the bridge, and download the app. I will say that if you are not a technical person, and don't fancy watching YouTube videos and a lot of trial and error , the Hue system may not be for you. The Hue website doesn't really offer much except basic teaser info, and most of the stuff I found on YouTube is mainly demos and basic unboxing and initial set up; I didn't really find much in the realm of troubleshooting or guidance. However, Philips has a support phone with a dedicated line for Hue products. In the US the number is 800-555-0500.

It is most certainly worth the trouble of figuring it out. The range of color is amazing, but coming into it with a knowledge of additive color systems helps to reduce the frustration. It takes a little time to learn these things and some of the colors seem to run together, or seem to be missing (1st and 2nd generation color bulbs). For example, blues and greens initially were a bit limited to more of a lime and cyan, but that has since been corrected with the 3rd generation bulbs. The apps available are outstanding. There are a few (free ones) that create a light show with your set up. It's completely mesmerizing. [Ambee; Lighter]

The WeMo system is similar in that you have to run a wireless hub that connects to your router to allow the interface. The WeMo hub is wireless. The WeMo system also offers a starter kit that includes the hub and only two bulbs, albeit for a lesser price. Belkin originally started the line by marketing it's own smart bulbs, but then shifted gears and began using the Osram Lightify bulbs made by Sylvania. They are "tunable" white light only. That is, the color temperature can be varied to suit your setting or mood, but it will never be anything but white. However, I should mention, that that does not detract from the value.  The range is good from warm to cool (yellow to blue), and suitable to set a number of moods. The WeMo system also allows you to add light switches and a device called an "Insight Switch" to control other devices like heaters/air conditioners and pretty much anything you can can plug in or control with a switch. It's essentially a WiFi electrical outlet, similar to the WeMo Switch which is a multi-function light switch. Put them all together and you could literally control everything in your house (for the most part) from anywhere. 

VERSUS

Both systems can be controlled remotely and/or onsite with your smart device. The Phillips system however seems to be much more robust as far as connectivity, that is, the incidence of connection issues and errors is much less than on the Hue system. This I suspect is a result of two factors :  1) the Hue bridge is wired directly to your router so it NEVER loses connectivity. 2) Any time a manufacturer makes both the product (hardware) and the software that runs said product, you generally get a better overall experience, i.e. Apple productsn -- because Apple makes both their devices and the software that runs them, vs. Google which makes software to run any number of devices manufactured by any number of manufacturers. This of course is only a theory of mine.

Like the WeMo app, the Hue app has to connect to the bridge over cellular or WiFi away from home. Because the app is designed not to hog all your bandwidth and battery life, this takes a few seconds and most of the time entails hitting "retry" a few times. Then it connects and you're good to go to turn your lights on or off using the scenes. WeMo does the same thing, however, connectivity is rather unpredictable, although WeMo allows you to do pretty much everything away from your network that you could do at home:  adjusting brightness, color temperature and varying which lights to turn on or off.. The downside with WeMo is that you can be at home standing five feet away from your hub and it still says it can't find your lights. Then, to make matters worse, the whole system will crash from time to time requiring you unplug the hub, reset it using the button on the bottom, or simply restart the app. What happens if ALL the lights in your home are WeMo or Hue lights and you lose your internet connection? There is a saving grace. In either system, (and I'm guessing all systems) the bulbs still work as regular lights, and I've seen online that the WeMo switches still function as switches. I'm assuming the Insight Switches will allow for you to still control other devices until normal function is restored.

{ additive color refers to colored light; whereas subtractive color refers to pigments and paints. (Basic Color Theory - my expensive art school education finally put to good use) Colors of light are additive in that when you add them together you get white light. Pigments and paints are subtractive because essentially the more you add together the further away from white (or actually reflected white light) you get. So when you're playing with colored lights yellow and blue don't necessarily make green, etc. Colored light is more complicated. The light primaries are red, green, and blue (RGB), as opposed to red, blue and yellow as we are taught in second grade. Sometimes what you see on the palette doesn't always shine through the bulb. Which is why you have to have patience and be willing to try a few things. Also, if you are an Adobe user, one thing to think about is that fact that although the color palettes look similar, the color palette in Photoshop is designed to imitate subtractive color. The software adjusts for hue and saturation, as well as brightness and other aspects, whereas with light, there's not really a lot of control over these things until you start introducing shadow. It seems the brighter the bulb burns, the more de-saturated the colors become; the closer they start to look like white light. } 

I HAVE A CONFESSION:

I did my research. I was sold on Hue. As a person with bipolar disorder, I have noticed over the years that my moods can be significantly improved with the right lighting and with color. I first heard of Hue some years ago during an Apple Keynote. Originally the Hue system was sold exclusively through The Apple Store. At the time, I could see myself owning one "someday" but I was going through a rough time and really couldn't justify forking over the cash for some "fun" lights. Fast forward to 2015, I bought one. Took it home, and threw up my hands in frustration. The mistake I made was in  buying it after a long day at work, when I had a headache. I hooked it all up and missed a few things; totally overlooked things I should have thought about. Plus, I didn't really have a plan yet on how I wanted to set it up, so when I turned them on, the set up made no sense...if that makes sense. I replaced it with a WeMo system which was very easy to learn. Both systems allow you to control multiple bulbs by grouping them together in the app. However, the Hue system allows you to create "scenes," and use "light recipes:" pre-formatted scenes that are meant for things like relaxation and concentration. The Hue system allows you to create your own personal settings, save, and recall them later. Scenes are basically your own custom mix of which bulbs are illuminated, what color, and brightness.

The Hue system and the WeMo system both have their benefits. Ultimately I went back to the Hue system, not just because I wasn't 100% satisfied with the WeMo's performance because Hue was really what I wanted in the first place, and I have always felt that you shouldn't settle for second best, get what you want and you'll be happier. It was well worth it. I would recommend both, however, I'd lean toward the Hue system in my recommendation, that is unless, you're looking to integrate your whole house into one ecosystem.  The reliability of the Hue system is unsurpassed in my experience, and it's extremely fun and easy to use once you take the time to learn a few basics; and it's absolutely worth the investment!

Here are a couple really cool videos that I watched at least a few times.

"And one more thing..." Hue is now compatible with Apple HomeKit, which means that you can control your lights with Siri which is TOTALLY awesome! More to come...

Keep watching Titanium Toast for reviews and insight on Hue apps, links and demos.

NOTE:  T/his article was originally written in November of 2015. 

A lot has changed since then within both ecosystems.

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