How to Use Hue Lights for a Disco in Party Mode
Bring your smart lights to life with the beat of the music and create a party and disco light affect with pulsing lights, flashing strobes and vibrant colors.
With Hue sync you can easily sync your lights with Spotify, however you are very limited with the settings you can adjust, fortunately there are plenty of other apps that are designed for Hue that can create an epic party and club vibe using your Hue lights.
Party Mode for your Hue Lights
Hue smart lights allow you to sync your lights with your music, but with third party app such as Hue Disco you can take this to the next level and create a club and disco light affect at home.
Before looking at how to make your lights flash, it is good to look at the Hue bulbs to use and which are are best, however whatever bulbs you have, you want to have color ambiance bulbs so you can really bring the party mode to life. Bulbs to use:
- Color Ambiance
- Hue Gradient Lightstrips
- Hue Go
- Hue Bloom
Full color bulbs are great, the Hue Go and bloom allow you to direct and point the light against walls, and the new Hue gradient light strip gives you plenty of colors along a 2-5m length.
Hue Disco
It will cost you around $3.99 and is available for both IOS and Android.This third party app gives you features and settings to control your lights specially to create a party and disco scene. Priced at $3.99 this is a popular and recommended app for doing it what is say, creating a Hue disco! It is a powerful app that is a must for creating disco affects and pulsing your lights.
There are lots of options and settings which can make the app a little overwhelming, however once you have played around it is quite easy to see what you can do and what the setting allow you to create.
When using Hue Disco you must have a Hue Bridge, when it comes to the music and audio source the app will use your microphone to listen to the music and sync the lights accordingly, it is also possible to use this app using:
- Bluetooth
- Airplay
- The internal speaker
- A connected dock with audio features
- A device connected through the headphone jack
The wide range of ways that the app can ‘listen’ and sync with the music means that you are not restricted with how the music is played, from your phone or a DJ set, or perhaps an old Vinyl, this works with all those different ways.
Setting up
There are lots of options, first you must select and toggle on the bulbs you have set up that you wish to use with the app and for your disco.
Under the disco tab you can select and choose your own settings, the microphone sensitivity can be adjusted, you can pick the color scheme that you wish your lights will cycle through, brightness, colors, and how much they change.
While disco mode is more vibrant and energetic, moods gives you settings and themes that are more relaxing, slower and also can be more peaceful with slower transitions.
Having a party hit disco mood, relaxing in the evening check out the moods tab. under each tab there are different settings, moods has some default themes already set, from sunrise to jungle and desert door schemes. You can adjust the color palate, how quickly it transitions and how this is done via the options here.
When using Hue Disco on your phone or tablet, it must be near the speaker if using the microphone, it can also drain your battery so it is a good idea to keep it plugged in charging while in use.
How to Make your Hue Lights Strobe
Using the Hue Disco app, hitting the lighting icon under the disco tab at the bottom in the middle takes you to the strobe settings view. Here you can select the speed of the strobe effect, and also the color, from white, rainbow or electing your own.
You can read our guide on how to make your hue strobe light here.
How to make your lights pulse and flash
Using the strobe settings in Hue Disco you can make your lights pulse and flash, reducing the speed and BPM to the lowest setting can slow it down so it is less like a strobe light.
Other apps such as iConnectHue have ways and setting to allow you to make your lights flash, or cycle through different colors using animations.
FAQ
Can you use hue disco without a bridge?
No, a bridge is required to use Hue Disco.
Does Philips Hue have party mode?
You can use Hue sync to create a party effect, however apps such as Hue Disco have a party mode and work a lot better with more options and settings. When you have your bulbs selected you can then bring them to life by going to the mood or disco tab to start the party.
Can I make hue lights strobe?
Yes, using third parry apps such as Hue Disco you there is a strobe effect feature and setting built in, here you can select the speed of the strobe light and colors.
Recommended Party apps for Philips Hue Lights?
There are a number of third party philips hue apps that are designed specifically for syncing Hue smart bulbs to music:
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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