Philips Hue lights Play Nicely With Spotify

Make your smart lighting dance to the beat of your favourite songs

Transform your home into a club environment by synching any Philips Hue smart lights that you own with Spotify so that these automatically flash or change colour in time with whatever tune is playing.

A new hook-up between Signify, which makes the Philips Hue range, and Spotify now means that this is easy to get up and running in minutes. 

You don’t need microphones or any extra kit. The Hue app monitors the metadata in each track to determine its mood or tempo and then adjusts the lights to match.

Put simply, it knows the difference between an Arlo Parks ballad and a thumping funk jam, but you can tweak the ambience to suit the occasion. In particular, if you have houseguests who are susceptible to seizures. 

There are various ways to achieve similar effects already with Hue lights but these all rely on apps that must track everything you play, which isn’t exactly ideal for privacy.

This new arrangement creates a direct integration between the Philips Hue Bridge hardware and your Spotify account – even a free one – which should make the system more robust too. 

To make the idea fly, you need to own the Philips Hue Bridge, rather than the firm’s newer bulbs that can be controlled directly from a phone via Bluetooth.

It also requires coloured Hue bulbs or strips. To be honest, white lighting is tantamount to a strobe effect. Not pretty.

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How to set this up on a phone: 

– Download the latest version of the Philips Hue app

– Ensure you have the latest Spotify app updates on your phone

– Connect and then authorise the Hue app to use Spotify

– Once connected, you can then play music from Spotify

– In the Hue app, press ‘sync’ to hook up your Philips lights to the music

– Adjust the lighting effects or entertainment area from the Hue app

It’s ready to play with now, so if you have Hue lights, why not give it a whirl? 

Available HERE.

Words: Alex Pell

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