Transform your smart lighting experience with Hue Log, the ultimate macOS companion for Philips Hue enthusiasts. Hue Log is an efficient, native macOS application to get real-time events from your Philips Hue system, and insights into your setup.
It started out with a lightbulb lighting up in the middle of the night - literally! What is really happening in my Philips Hue smart lightning system...? Given that it was in the middle of the night I didn't dig that deep into the problem. But the day after I discovered there is no log of events. And it is really hard to get an overview of rules, groups of lights, scenes, senors, and so on.
There must be a way... but I couldn't find it. So scratching my own itch I tried to dig up data using the Philips Hue bridge API. And what started as a hack turned out into a much bigger side-project while I was discovering more and more pain points I could solve using that dat.
Hue Log is a native macOS application, giving your real-time logs of everything that happens in your Philips Hue system. Additionally, it visualize temperature over time in different rooms, gives you instant overview of all devices battery status, all different rules and automations configured and their dependencies, how much of the internal resources you are using and how close to reach the limit you are, a way to discover if and of your devices have ZigBee range problems, and much more. Support multiple bridges for the true hardcore Philips Hue enthusiast.
I've got some really great ideas about features, but I had to draw the line somewhere and get a first version out there. I decided for an up-front price, rather than a subscription (I think I have a bit of subscription fatigue in general...). It does also mean I sell more of what you get now, rather than a future promise that someone may expect if they commit to an annual payment.
From a maker perspective - my thought is that the target audience are hardcore home automation enthusiasts. If it gets traction, I can broaden the perspective with a slightly more mainstream consumer product built on a lot of what I've already developed. So in a way the idea is to use a niche product for validation, and then do cross-selling and widen then audience.
It is also my first commercial indie-product in over 10 years after doing the startup-race for a long time. It is great to be back!
@stpe Hey Stefan. This sounds like a great tool. How long did it take you to put this together? Good luck with your launch.
We just launched Swappit too. Please do check it out. We would love to hear your feedback.
@silisolutionist good luck with your launch - will check it out!
I’ve worked about 2 months part-time with this app. I was familiar with the Hue API but never used Swift and SwiftUI, so initially development was a bitter slower while getting up to speed with a new language and framework.
@stpe Amazing! 2 months is a great turnaround time. I've had non-Phillips lightbulbs lighting up at random times at home but I think that might be because of aliens! Lol.
All the best Stefan. I hope it goes well for you.
@silisolutionist Thanks Pam.
Yes. Quite happy with 2 months. But most importantly I’m now up to speed and can hit the ground running doing another project while gathering the feedback of this.
@stpe Launching Hue Log sounds like an intriguing journey! I have to admit, I knew nothing about the depths of smart lighting systems and your tool provides a fascinating insight! So, what was the most unexpected thing you learned while developing Hue Log?
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Congrats on the launch @stpe - Your journey from "lightbulb moment" to creating Hue Log is really neat.
Clearly the app addresses a gap in managing the Philips Hue system, particularly for those invested in home automation. An upfront price, given subscription fatigue is a cool approach (and something that I am going to look into haha)
Q: Given Hue Log's ranging functionalities, how do you plan to ensure new users (Specifically the ones not into home automation) find the app user-friendly?
@layourandom It is not quite the use-case of this app, but technically it would be possible!
My plan is to branch out and do other apps building on the technology of Hue Log, for other (perhaps more mainstream) use-cases. It is a great idea!
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