TechRadar Smart Home Week
This article is part of TechRadar’s Smart Home Week 2025. From lighting and switches to robot vacuums and smart thermostats, we’re here to help you pick the right devices to make your life easier, and get the most out of them.
Philips Hue lights are great for setting a mood during movie nights, waking you gently with a natural-looking sunrise, welcoming you when you return from home, and making it look like someone is home when you’re on vacation – but even if you’re using them for all that, you’re still only scratching the surface.
One of the joys of smart home tech is the ability to link together products from different brands, and linking your bulbs, lamps, and LED strips to other apps and services can make the best smart lights even better.
Below you’ll find just a few examples of how your Philips Hue lights can make your life more convenient in ways you might not have considered before – plus a brand new feature in the Hue app itself that will let you get more creative with custom scenes.
1. Silent notifications (for anything)
If you’ve just put your baby down for a nap, your partner is trying to sleep after a night shift, or you’ve got a headache, the last thing you want is noisy chimes and alerts. That’s where your Philips Hue lights come in, letting you know about incoming calls, app notifications, and visitors at the door with blinking or color-changing lights rather than anything audible. These automations could also be helpful if you or someone in your family is hearing-impaired.
IFTTT (If This Then That) is a service that makes these automations easy, connecting different apps and smart devices, and letting you use one to control another without any coding. It’s available as an app for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Android, and you can use up to two automations (known as ‘applets’) for free.
Install the IFTTT app, then search for ‘Philips Hue’ to see a huge list of options. There are applets that will make your lights blink when you receive a WhatsApp notification, make them flash when someone presses your Ring doorbell, and make them change color if you get a call.
2. Weather updates
You’re about to leave the house, but should you pack an umbrella, and do you need to take the laundry inside before you go? Your Philips Hue lights can tell you, with a bit of help from IFTTT.
Browse through the many automations available for your smart lighting system, and you’ll find several options that connect to a weather service and use your GPS location to determine whether it’s about to rain near you. If wet weather is on the way, they can turn your Philips Hue lights blue to let you know.
There are also automations for snow, which are a particularly nice option if you have kids who are excited by the prospect of the white stuff (and possibly the chance of a day off school to play in it).
You’ll need to permit IFTTT to access your location through your phone in order to use these particular automations.
3. AI-generated scenes
This is a new feature for Philips Hue lights, and was first teased at CES 2025 back in January. Signify (the company behind Philips Hue) has created a Philips Hue AI assistant that can process commands spoken or written in natural language and then use them to find a suitable scene from the Hue app’s gallery of presets or create something brand new.
For example, you could tell it “I want a sunrise theme”, “Give me a scene for a horror movie”, or “I’m throwing a Halloween party”, and the app will pick out something that fits the bill, or even make something from scratch for you.
It should be a great time-saver, helping avoid the need to scroll through to find the scene you want or spend time adjusting colors manually.
The AI assistant is available now for users in Benelux countries with their app set to English, and it will launch in the UK in July. Signify expects the global roll-out to be complete in August.
