OnSwitch for Philips Hue

UPDATE: I love this app so much I’ve tried rating it 5 stars 3 times now. I used to love ability to buy extra light options, but now they want you to subscribe instead of just paying for the one individual one you want. I used to recommend this app to anyone who has the hue because I loved the alternating color scenes. But now it’s really reaching for more money from users on a subscription model and I’m not such a fan anymore. Sure I could buy 9 of them for 4.99 but I just want one of those 9. I also received a response from the developer, and the target of their response was focused on the price of the album. However I have used OnSwitch for a number of years now and I have previously purchased sets of one album, and now find that new items are added to the album but the app wants me to purchase the entire album all over again for the additional colors. My complaint is now three parts, when you purchase an album but then new colors are added and you are asked to purchase it all over again, and the fact that you have purchased items but now the developer asks you to subscribe, but there’s no discount for previously purchasing albums (I existed as a customer years before subscriptions existed) and there’s no way to get the integration of Siri or the favorites without subscribing. So I’m dropping an additional star.

My personal experience with this app has been wonderful, and I recommend it to anyone who owns hue lights. It really utilizes the full potential of the hue lights, and the different scenes are creative and very unique, unlike ones I’ve seen in the past. But there are two complaints I have. One, there is no mute button. Some times I just want to change the lighting of the different rooms in my house but also have a little peace and quiet. For example, I the kindle app, if I’m reading, the noise would continue to play as I’m reading. I know a simple solution would be to turn off the volume but that feels unnecessary to me when the only scene that I want sound for is the Fourth of July one. My second complaint is that you have to pay for many of the different scenes. I would be fine with paying a one time “premium” fee to get all of the scenes, to support the developers, but as a person on a low budget, having to pay for each scene individually is kind of annoying. I would understand having exclusive scenes for holidays and special events that you would pay for separately, but if I have to pay 40 dollars to get all of the scenes, you can see how I may be slightly irritated. (You should also be able to preview the scenes before you buy them) Overall, this is a great app and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who owns hue lights. Thanks- Jean-Cordell

Updated review. I love this app. But I one-stared this app in an earlier review after almost a year, when the developer rolled out version 2 that crashed instantly on startup, with no clear solution, instantly transforming the app from great to utterly useless. Developer fixed the problem and the app is back to its old greatness. I will be more reluctant to upgrade though; having been a software developer for a decade in a previous life, rolling out defective software like that was inexcusable; in my day someone would have been fired over a wide release so poorly executed. I hope these guys aren’t writing self-driving car software! Going forward, I’ll wait until a few days go by before upgrading this app; I won’t just auto upgrade it as I did in the past. It gets five stars because it’s a great app. Just make sure any upgrade is stable before downloading; in my case OnSwitch had become my sole way to control nearly two dozen Hue and LIFX bulbs in my home, it’s that good. But when the app crashed, I lost the ability to control them (some don’t even have mechanical switches anymore) and was at the mercy of the developer to fix it. Not fun.