I noticed that on a recent update, setting an Automation with a time-based trigger now requires to know my location.
If I want a sunrise/set trigger, I totally understand why it needs my location.
However, there is no reason why a time-based automation should need my location. Regardless of where i am, the bridge has the current time and only needs to trigger based on the bridge’s on board time.
This has always worked perfectly fine before. And in fact, the existing time-based automations that already exist still continue to work fine now. It’s just that i cant edit or make new ones now.
So I’m wondering is this a change made on Philips’ end or a requirement that Hue Essentials added?
If it’s Hue Essentials only then the change should be reverted so that time-based automation should not ask for my location.
Reproduce:
go to Automation tab
create a new one or edit existing one
“When this happens” > “+ Add event”
set it to “Time” and pick a time
go back to the last page to give your automation a name and set some arbitrary action
press “Save” on the top right
Expected behaviour:
should just work
Actual behaviour:
popup that says “this feature requires the location of the bridge”
Thanks for letting me know. Hue Essentials asks for location because it is needed for sunrise/sunset automations, but this is not the case here. This is a bug, it should only ask when needed. Apologies for the inconvenience. Will fix in the next update which I expect to be available somewhere next week.
Workaround for now is to just set a location, then it will no longer ask for it. You do not have to select your exact home location if you prefer, somewhere in the neighbourhood is fine for sunrise automations.
Hue Essentials reads the location of your phone and then you can use it for your bridge. It is saved on the hue bridge only. Other apps cannot read the location of the bridge.
This is still happening (4.2.7, 202501050). Is there a way to just select a time zone? That seems like an overly reasonable way to easily get it set instead of wondering why an isolated network is trying to access google maps.
Location isn’t the useful item here, as you both mention, it’s time zone. There’s not a direct way to select the actual piece of information that’s relevant, but instead a convoluted workaround that doesn’t improve functionality.
The location popup will no longer be shown for automations that don’t require it with version 4.3.7. It is already available on the Apple App Store, other platforms will follow soon.
@baconator It is still required for sunrise/sunset automations. It may seem like a time zone would be good enough, but that is not the case. It is impossible to determine sunrise times from only a time zone. The sunrise time could be hours apart for two different locations within the same time zone.
Guys, seems like you’re all confusing what requires what.
Sunrise/sunset based triggers - that needs location
time-based triggers - does NOT need to additionally set anything at all. it just follows the internal clock on the Bridge
you don’t need location to figure out local TZ or DST and you don’t have to manually select those when you create a trigger either. that’s all handled by the bridge’s clock. you already selected the TZ when you first set up the bridge, and then it updates by NTP.
