Hue Log

It started out with a lightbulb lighting up in the middle of the night - literally! What is really happening in my Philips Hue smart lightning system...? Given that it was in the middle of the night I didn't dig that deep into the problem. But the day after I discovered there is no log of events. And it is really hard to get an overview of rules, groups of lights, scenes, senors, and so on. There must be a way... but I couldn't find it. So scratching my own itch I tried to dig up data using the Philips Hue bridge API. And what started as a hack turned out into a much bigger side-project while I was discovering more and more pain points I could solve using that dat. Hue Log is a native macOS application, giving your real-time logs of everything that happens in your Philips Hue system. Additionally, it visualize temperature over time in different rooms, gives you instant overview of all devices battery status, all different rules and automations configured and their dependencies, how much of the internal resources you are using and how close to reach the limit you are, a way to discover if and of your devices have ZigBee range problems, and much more. Support multiple bridges for the true hardcore Philips Hue enthusiast. I've got some really great ideas about features, but I had to draw the line somewhere and get a first version out there. I decided for an up-front price, rather than a subscription (I think I have a bit of subscription fatigue in general...). It does also mean I sell more of what you get now, rather than a future promise that someone may expect if they commit to an annual payment. From a maker perspective - my thought is that the target audience are hardcore home automation enthusiasts. If it gets traction, I can broaden the perspective with a slightly more mainstream consumer product built on a lot of what I've already developed. So in a way the idea is to use a niche product for validation, and then do cross-selling and widen then audience. It is also my first commercial indie-product in over 10 years after doing the startup-race for a long time. It is great to be back!

Congrats on the launch @stpe - Your journey from "lightbulb moment" to creating Hue Log is really neat. Clearly the app addresses a gap in managing the Philips Hue system, particularly for those invested in home automation. An upfront price, given subscription fatigue is a cool approach (and something that I am going to look into haha) Q: Given Hue Log's ranging functionalities, how do you plan to ensure new users (Specifically the ones not into home automation) find the app user-friendly?

It's possible to have something like turn on the light of my phillips hue go when I unlock my mac book pro ?