Color-changing Philips Hue, LIFX and Eufy Lumos incandescent bulbs allow you to set the mood in your home, while the Google Assistant gives you the ability to change them with your voice. But you can also choose colors on the Google Home Hub touchscreen. Here’s how.

We think the Google Home Hub is a great device. From one place, you can hear the news, play music, turn your smart devices on and off, and see photos of friends and family. In a pinch, it’s a great cookbook and YouTube display. Most of these features revolve around voice commands, but you don’t have to count the score. Your photos look amazing on it, but it’s also a handy touch control panel for controlling your smarthome gadgets when they’re noisy.

If you have color-changing lights that are compatible with the Google Home Hub, they will now offer you color options when you select either the lights grouped in a room or the lights themselves. However, there is a catch here — you need your lights to be connected to the room in order to see them on the dashboard at all.

Google Home Hub with intelligent on-screen lighting control.
I have more than two smart bulbs, but the rest are not in the room right now, so I can’t see them.

Once you connect your smart lights and determine which room they belong to, you’ll get additional color options when you work with them in the toolbox. If you have a Google Home Hub in the same physical location as the smart lights, you must link them to the same room in the Google Assistant app. Then, when you open the Google Home Hub screen and tap on Rooms, the room the Hub is associated with will automatically be selected, saving multiple taps.

So, your first step is to group your smart devices into rooms in the Google Assistant app we’ve already talked about. In the Google App, click Add, then Device Setup. Then select «Do you already have settings?» And find the service you want to connect (Philips Hue, SmartThings, etc.). When you’re done connecting to the service and your devices are discovered, add them to rooms when prompted.

To access your lights, swipe down from the top of the Google Home Hub screen. It helps to start just above the screen, like you would with a smartphone, to reveal the notification bar.

Google Home center with a down arrow drawn at the top of the screen.

Click View Rooms in the top right corner. You can click «all lights», but View Rooms will separate your lights into groups.

Google Home Hub Command Center with a border around the View Rooms button

If your Google Home Hub is grouped in the same room as the lights you want to adjust, that room will already be selected. But if you want to control another room, click on it. Then click on the lights you want to work with. Do not press the on and off buttons below the lighting list.

Google Home Rooms dialog with arrows pointing to living rooms and lights.

Now that your lights have been selected, you should have a color option. Click on this to change the color of your lights. If you only want to adjust a specific light, click «X lights» (where X is the number of lights) and then the name of the light you want to adjust.

Living room lighting in Google Home Hub with a choice of colors and two lighting options

Using your voice to work with your lights is probably easier most of the time. But if you have a lot of background noise or Google just doesn’t understand you today, this is a quick and easy way to change the colors of your lights.

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