Philips Hue recently announced integration with music streaming service Spotify. Once the integration is active, your lights will respond to the music you’re playing. And this time without hacks – because until now this was officially not possible.
Until now, you could only have the lamps in your Philips Hue network respond to music via a detour. Usually this went through a program or app that you had to pay for. Signify, the company behind those smart lamps, is now changing that by making the integration accessible and free for anyone who wants to achieve this in their home. The hacks can continue: the new way works entirely in the cloud and is the official way in which both companies present the option. However, you still have to jump through some hoops for the time being.
Integrating Philips Hue and Spotify
For example, you need to sign up for the early access program that is now live. Fortunately, you can arrange this via the Explore tab within the Philips Hue app. Do you use the app in Dutch? Then press the tab Discover (you must have that icon with that rocket). At the time of writing, the integration with Spotify is being pushed considerably, so you will see a large map at the top that you have to tap on. You can hardly get around it: the head that is used is Philips Hue + Spotify. If you don’t see the card in question, don’t worry – sooner or later it will appear on your screen. When you tap on the map and tap on the wide, blue bar at the bottom (Enable early access), a new tab will appear at the bottom of the screen called Sync. You want that tab.
Follow the steps in the picture by clicking the next blue button (To work) to tap. On the next screen you can choose from several synchronization options. You can arrange the link directly within your Spotify account, for example. Do you have the Play HDMI Sync Box? Then you can also arrange that via that accessory. The last option available to you is via PC and a Mac. If you want to arrange this via Spotify, it is good to know that it does not matter whether you pay for a subscription or not. The option is available to all Spotify users, thankfully.
After linking you will be asked to which set of lamps you want to add the new option. The app talks about an Entertainment area. If you do not have a Sync Box, then that term is not yet familiar to you, but otherwise it is. You can link a total of up to ten lamps to the service and set up your own voice assistant. When you do that, the app will also tell you which command to use for this in the future. After setting, you will find the options for operating your lamps under the Sync option. You set the brightness and color and influence the intensity of the lamps. Make it as crazy or quiet as you want.
Note that while the feature is currently working, it is also in beta. If you run into any problems, it can help this page on the Philips Hue website.
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