The Philips Hue app on Android and iOS has just been updated to support widgets, making it a lot easier to control the best smart lights available.
Now, rather than needing to open the Hue app you can instead much more quickly and easily access your favorite light controls from your phone’s home screen.
Once you’ve installed the latest update via the Google Play Store or Apple App Store you can add the widgets just like you would any other. On Android you press and hold on the app icon until the menu appears and then tap ‘Widgets’. On iOS you instead tap and hold in an empty space until the apps wiggle then tap the 'Add' button in the top left-hand corner.
You’ll see there are three widget sizes – 'Small' for two controls, 'Medium' for four, and 'Large' for eight – and they can all be customized with options to turn on or off specific lights, whole rooms, or scenes.
More than widgets
The update brings more than just new widgets to the table. You’ll also find a couple extra upgrades too.
Friends of Hue switches have got better as they can now support settings such as Natural light scene and Time-based light. This means your third-party smart switches can now be customized to control your lights the way you want.
Also, it’s now a little easier to make scene changes. Instead of tapping the pencil icon you can just adjust any individual light in a room or zone, and then save the setup as part of an existing scene or an all-new scene.
These upgrades don’t provide massive changes, but all of them should make using your Hue light setup a little more seamless.
