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How to Use Philips Hue as a Night Light

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Smart lighting allows you to do smart things, and using Hue bulbs to work as night light is a great way to take advantage of the possibilities with Hue.

The Hue app already allows you to set and create sunrise and sunset effects with Hue, however what about a night light ideal for kids and children.

Philips Hue as a Night Light or Nursery light

Getting up in the night to get a glass of water or to go to the toilet doesn’t have to also mean turning the lights on so you can see. A great way too create a clever and smart night light is to use Hue bulbs with the Hue motion sensor.

The design would be to set up your motion sensor in a location that will be triggered at night, so on the landing or hall way, where if anyone came from a bedroom it would be triggered. Once you have this tigger set up, and it is in the best location then it is just down to adjusting the settings.

Motion-activated Night light

For the motion sensor to act as a night light trigger you would only want it to be active at night, so you could set it to only function and trigger between the hours of 12pm and 7am. Therefore in the day, nothing will happen, no need for lights to come on then.

If the motion sensor is triggered between this time then you want it to turn on your night lights, Hue bulbs that would light up, these could be on the landing, hallway, kitchen or bathroom, or maybe all, setting them to come on a very dim light.

A very dim red is good making it bright enough so you can see. Finally you can set the the motion sensor to deactivate and the lights to turn off after a certain time, so perhaps 3 minutes, so once back in bed your lights all turn off automatically and will only trigger and turn on again if you or someone else gets up before 7am.

Setting Night Mode

  • Postion Motion Sensor on landing or hallway
  • Setting Motion Sensor to be active at night, maybe between 12pm and 7am.
  • Set to turn on select bulbs to a very dim state.
  • Set to turn off after a few minutes.

Setting this up as a night mode helps you see in the night be it yourself or children who may get up, removing the need to reach for a switch, or phone or having to tell Alexa to turn the lights on. By having a night light mode set up you also preventing the lights coming on full brightness which may wake you or other family members up.

As well as a night light, Hue bulbs can be used in other ways, such as a Sunrise and Sunset alarm, SAD light and mood lighting.

All Hue lights can be dimmed and make them ideal to use as a night light, light strips, Hue bulbs or lamps such as the Hue Go or Bloom. 

Using the Hue dimmer you can easily adjust the brightness in the evening using this physical switch or via the Hue app on your phone. 


Founder & Editor

Mike is the founder of Hue Home Lighting, a huge Hue fan with far too many lights, covering home and garden. A smart home gadget addict and also enjoys the odd bit of DIY

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3 Comments

  1. Chris

    Nice, I need to get myself a motion sensor, never thought I needed one or sure what to use it for, but this is a good idea.

    Reply
  2. Jeffrey C

    My apartment bathroom does not have a window, so a motion detector that would work during day/awake hours and night time as a night light would be great. What would be the workaround for this? Would I have to use IFTTT?

    Reply

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