Huetro - a beautiful WP experience for Philips Hue is now out of BETA!

[Niels9001]

I'd like to point out Huetro: a new, full-featured, awesome and free Hue client for Windows Phone.

The official Philips Hue app is not available on the Windows Phone platform, and although there were some (horrible UX, limited in functionality) third party apps out there I decided to create Huetro.
So, over the last couple of months I spend some time during the weekends to develop this app. The BETA program has been running for over +/- 2 months now with over 40 participants across the world. Lots of useful feedback was collected in terms of e.g. UI improvements, bugs, crashes and anticipated features.

Huetro covers all the functionalities of the official iOS/Android app, but it also has some unique features tailored to the Windows Phone platform:
- Voice Commands. Just tell Hue to wake up, set a specific scene or turn/off a group.
- NFC support & start screen pinning. You can write and pin commands, groups and even scenes to NFC tags or your Start Screen.
- Disco. One of the most anticipated features. Get that party started!

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See the attached image to get a basic understanding of what Huetro is all about .
You can download Huetro for free at: Huetro for Hue | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)

 

[Gorki247]

This looks really great. Will be downloading it and giving it a try straight away. Been using Oni: Light Control up to now, but I will check this out to see how it compares.

One problem I had with Oni was that the NFC tags I created for my phone were not recognised by my wife's phone as it used unique ID's for your rooms and moods and there was no way to ensure these were the same on both phones. Be interesting to see if this is something you managed to address with your app.

Downloading it now.

 

[dergutehirte]

Really nice app! I'll give it a try! I really like that you are using the wp8 features, like the option to pin anything to the startscreen. Really great!

 

[Niels9001]

This looks really great. Will be downloading it and giving it a try straight away. Been using Oni: Light Control up to now, but I will check this out to see how it compares.

One problem I had with Oni was that the NFC tags I created for my phone were not recognised by my wife's phone as it used unique ID's for your rooms and moods and there was no way to ensure these were the same on both phones. Be interesting to see if this is something you managed to address with your app.

Downloading it now.

Nice ! Let me know what you think! (And a review is of course appreciated )

Only the scenes will not work with multiple phones as they are stored on the device itself. But writing a single bulb, group, standard mood and all on/off will work on both phones!

 

[Gorki247]

I've now used the app for a few days and I must say that I really like the design of this app; a very nice but clean design. NFC and voice are also working very nicely (although I do struggle a bit with the pronunciation of Hue sometimes, but that is not the apps fault, of course)

I did experience some problems at the start with lights not turning on as expected, but this seems to have settled now. The only issue left is that sometimes the lamp icons in the lights menu don't update correctly; i.e. showing the wrong colour or no colour at all, but a quick press on refresh in the menu fixes this. Btw, these icons are a nice touch and really handy as well; a quick way to see what lights are on or off.

I don't think I've got my head around the standard scenes yet. Is there a way to apply one of these scenes to a single light without changing the rest? Or would I need to create a to a custom scene for this? Can you maybe clarify how to best use these standard scenes?

Also, what does the circle icon on the left below the colour wheel do?

And a special thank you from my son for the disco mode; he loves it when I turn this on (his mom not so much though ;-) ).

 

[Niels9001]

I've now used the app for a few days and I must say that I really like the design of this app; a very nice but clean design. NFC and voice are also working very nicely (although I do struggle a bit with the pronunciation of Hue sometimes, but that is not the apps fault, of course)

I did experience some problems at the start with lights not turning on as expected, but this seems to have settled now. The only issue left is that sometimes the lamp icons in the lights menu don't update correctly; i.e. showing the wrong colour or no colour at all, but a quick press on refresh in the menu fixes this. Btw, these icons are a nice touch and really handy as well; a quick way to see what lights are on or off.

I don't think I've got my head around the standard scenes yet. Is there a way to apply one of these scenes to a single light without changing the rest? Or would I need to create a to a custom scene for this? Can you maybe clarify how to best use these standard scenes?

Also, what does the circle icon on the left below the colour wheel do?

And a special thank you from my son for the disco mode; he loves it when I turn this on (his mom not so much though ;-) ).

Cool. glad you like it..

To get back on your questions: the light icons do more than just show you the status. These are quick toggles to turn on/off a specific light (check the 'How to..?' for more info on this). So if you tap the icon the light will go on/off, if you tap the title you will go the the colorwheel page. You can use this system to quickly turn on the light you want, and then tap the standaard mood you'd like. The standard mood gets applied on the lights that are already turned on.

The circle icon below the colorwheel will let a single light (or group) loop through it's colors. Just try it out and watch it for a minute, you will see it change .

Good to hear that you son likes the disco app.. Don't we all ?

 

[mf0514]

Very nice app; I picked it up yesterday and so far I like the UI a bit better than oni.

Is there a way to "copy/paste" the settings from one light to another? Use case: three lights in this room; I get a color/brightness combo I like on one light, and want to apply it to the others.

Thanks!

 

[mf0514]

And another feature request, while I'm at it! I'd like to be able to create a scene from the current state of the lights. I started with one of the standard scenes (which I would like to keep as-is) and got them into a state I'd like to save under the "lights" section, but if I create a new scene it resets the lights.

 

[srslykev]

I'm thinking about getting smart lights and hue seems to be the way to go. (Even though they don't bother making a WP app).
Anyway, Huetro seems like a great inofficial alternative and I wonder whether or not I can use it to have some kind of "Philips WakeUp Light"-Effect. Meaning, can I set the time span in which the light slowly goes on? I've read that the official app has a preset 9 minutes time-frame for the alarm in which they slowly get brighter. Does huetro offer the same - or even more - functionality, or does scheduling mean that it just switches on at once?

//Edit: So I just got my Hue Starter set and I've just realized, that this is not possible. Oni does something like this (3 Minutes), but I'm not sure whether they are still developing that app and it is very buggy right now, so I won't buy it until I see further development.
So I keep my fingers crossed fur Huetro to implement that functionality. (I'd gladly pay for it as well: e.g. in-app purchases)

 

[MRE Inc]

And another feature request, while I'm at it! I'd like to be able to create a scene from the current state of the lights. I started with one of the standard scenes (which I would like to keep as-is) and got them into a state I'd like to save under the "lights" section, but if I create a new scene it resets the lights.

That's already implemented in the next version which is still beta:

 

[Bobvfr]

Got my starter set of Hue lights Friday night, I had already downloaded Huetro for all my devices but I ran into a problem, I couldn't get the app loaded because it needed a firmware update, and I couldn't do a firmware update because I couldn't get the app loaded.

After an email conversation with Neils I dug out my works android phone and set up on it, enough to get the firmware sorted and then Huetro took over on all my Windows stuff.

So I now have control of my Hue lights on my 1520, my Stream, Surface Pro, laptop and desktop, also loaded on my wife's devices.

Still finding my way around but massively impressed by both Hue and Huetro.

Going to get a couple of Hue lux lights for my table lamps and then two more proper Hue bulbs for the bedroom.

Not sure if I want any Iris, Bloom or light strips but will see how I get on.

Many thanks for Huetro Neil, and cheers for your time this morning.

And if my boy wants Hue lights in his bedroom he can buy his own :wink: