Hue Essentials contains an Effect Creator that you can use to create your own effects. This is a walk-through guide for you to create your first effects.
Where can I find the Effect Creator?
In Hue Essentials, first open a room/group/zone, and then go to the third tab (lightning icon) at the top. There you will see a list of your current effects and the effect packages. The Effect Creator is included in the Premium upgrade. The already provided effects are separate packages. To create a new effect, tap the + button.
Storage location
Select the place where you want to store your effect. Effects on your bridge can be shared between users and can be stored on smart controls and schedules. Effects saved on your device can only be controlled from that device.
Note that effects can only be stored on a Philips Hue bridge and diyHue emulator. You should store your effect on your device when using other types of bridges. Effects cannot be stored on a deCONZ gateway at the moment, see the following: Effects cannot be saved on the deCONZ bridge
Frames
An effect exists out of multiple frames which are played frame by frame. A frame could be just a simple colour, or multiple colours from a palette, or a scene. To add a frame, tap the + button and select the type of frame you want to add.
You need to add at least two frames in an effect in order to save it.
Delay
Between each frame you can set a delay. The effect will play a frame, wait for the set time, and then play the next frame. This wait time needs to be at least one second. You can configure this by tapping the ↓ arrow icon.
Fade time
You can configure the fade time for each frame. This is the time that it takes for a frame to fade in from the previous frame. You can configure this by tapping on a frame, and then selecting Fade time.
Note that the effect does not wait for the fading to complete. So if you have a fade time of 5 seconds, and a delay of 1 second between this and the next frame, the next frame will cancel the fading of this frame.
Repeat
When this option is enabled, the effect will always keep repeating. So when all the frames are played, it will restart at the top again. If this option is disabled, the effect will stop after all the frames are played.
Advanced settings
There are some advanced settings that you can set for your effect. Below you can find an explanation for each option:
Switch on lights when started
This will switch on your lights when the effect is started.
Set initial brightness
Here you can set the initial brightness that is set when the effect is started. If this option is disabled, it will use the light brightness before the effect was started.
Restore light state when finished
If this option is enabled and the effect completes, your lights will be set to the state as they were (the state before the effect). If this option is disabled and the effect completes, your lights will stay the same as they were in the last effect frame.
Switch off lights when finished
When enabled, this option will switch off the lights when the effect is finished. Note that this option cannot be used in combination with the above option.
I want to set brightness per frame. This prevents brightness adjustments while effect is running
When this option is disabled and an effect is running, you can change the brightness of every light and it will not be overridden by the effect. This means that when an effect is playing, you can dim or brighten some lights and they will stay at that brightness. However, that means the effect itself cannot change the brightness. When this option is enabled, you can no longer change the brightness manually when the effect is running. Instead, the effect itself can change the brightness on each frame. So, first you enable this option, and then, when adding frames to the effect, you can configure the brightness for each light. For example, the included Fireplace effect uses this to constantly change the light brightness.
Note that if you want this option to be enabled, you need to first enable it, and after that add the frames. Otherwise the brightness slider will not be visible.
Toggle light states in frames
When this option is enabled the frames you add to the effect will send on/off commands. That means when enabled you could create an effect that switches on lights one by one. If this option is disabled, on/off commands will not be sent in the frames causing the light to use the previous on/off state.
Add new lights automatically
When this option is enabled and you add new lights to the group, those lights will be automatically added to this effect. The new light states will be based on the current light states. So for example, if you have an effect with red and green states, the newly added light will automatically be set to red or green. If this option is disabled, the light state will not be set, and the light state will not be changed when the effect is started.
Saving your effect
You can still change the name of your new effect in the Name field. When you are satisfied you can save the effect at the top of your screen.