Philips Hue: How to create shortcuts and widgets on the iPhone

Once you have equipped your home with the smart lights, bulbs and LED strips from Philips Hue, you can control the intelligent light orchestra in many different ways:

Some mainly use ordinary light switches, others the haptic smart switches from Philips Hue. However, the lamps can also be controlled without classic or contemporary light switches – whether via the Amazon voice assistant Alexa or shortcuts on the smartphone.

SamaGame explains step by step how you can create the shortcuts and practical widgets for lamps from Philips Hue on your iPhone.

Create a shortcut for Philips Hue on iPhone:

1. 1

   On your iPhone, look for the Shortcuts app and select it.

2. 2

   In the Shortcuts app, click the “+” icon in the top right corner to create a new shortcut.

3. 3

   In the next window, click on “Add action”.

4. 4

   Now select “Hue” from the app selection for the shortcut.

5. 5

   From the different functions offered, we choose the main switch effect here for demonstration purposes: “All lights on/off” allows you to switch all Hue lights in your network on or off at the same time with a shortcut.

6. 6

   The shortcut for Philips Hue is now created and appears as a separate tile in the main menu of the Shortcuts app. To add this to your iPhone home screen, click this tile again.

Add Shortcut to iPhone Menu:

1. 1

   At the top of your new shortcut’s settings, click its title at the top to open a drop-down menu. Here you click “Add to Home Screen” to add the shortcut to your app selection on the iPhone home screen.

2. 2

   Before you click Add, you can change the name and appearance of the menu tile for your iPhone home screen.

3. 3

   Your shortcut will now appear on the iPhone home screen. You can move the shortcut tile between the different pages of the home screen and place it freely like normal apps.

Create Philips Hue widget on iPhone

1. 1

   If you also want to add the shortcut for Philips Hue to your widget gallery, you must first open it by swiping. When you get to the widget selection, first click on “Edit”.

2. 2

   Select “Shortcuts” from the list of widgets.

3. 3

   Here you can now select the shortcut created for Philips Hue

4. 4

   Your shortcut will now appear as a button in the widget selector on the iPhone.

Did you know that you can also automate the Philips Hue lights? In another tutorial, we’ll show you how the light turns off automatically when you leave the room.