How can I control my lights while away from home?

By default Hue Essentials will only work on the same WiFi network as your bridge. To be able to control your lights remotely, you need to set up Away from Home. Away from Home is supported on a Philips Hue bridge (2nd gen) and a diyHue emulator. Other bridges do not support Away from Home at this time. Some features are limited while away from home.

To set up Away from Home follow these steps:

Philips Hue bridge

  1. In Hue Essentials go to the devices tab at the bottom
  2. Select your Philips Hue bridge
  3. Tap Away from Home
  4. Tap the button Sign in and sign in with your Philips Hue account.
  5. After signing in, Hue Essentials will open again. The sign in button should change to Sign out, which means Away from Home is set up correctly.

If you would like to control multiple Hue bridges while away from home, you will need separate Philips Hue accounts for every bridge.

diyHue emulator

See: diyHue/README.md at master · diyhue/diyHue · GitHub

  1. In Hue Essentials go to the devices tab at the bottom
  2. Select your diyHue emulator
  3. Tap Away from Home (if not visible, update diyHue and try again)
  4. Make sure that Away from Home is switched on

LIFX

LIFX lights can be controlled while away from home. Sign in to your LIFX account that your lights are connected to:

  1. In Hue Essentials go to the devices tab at the bottom
  2. Tap the + button
  3. Tap Light
  4. Tap LIFX
  5. Tap Sign in
  6. Sign in to your LIFX account and authorize Hue Essentials.

After following the steps above you can control your lights while away from home.

how do i do it on deCONZ???

deCONZ does not have support for Away from home. What you could do instead is set up a VPN to your home network and use that on your phone. You can do that on a Raspberry Pi as well.

1 Like

Hi,
Can someone advise?
I try and set up - away from home.
I follow the instructions taking me to the Philips site.
I log on, link my bridge, and grant access.
But, following this takes me back to the sign-on page every time - not altering to sign out.
I’m not doing something right or setting something up incorrectly.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks