It happens to the best of us: you leave the house, drive away and realize you left the lights on. With Hue, you don’t have to worry about that anymore: you can set your lights to turn off automatically when you leave the house (and turn them on automatically when you get home).
Hue does this using a function called geofence which is a fancy term that describes a virtual fence that surrounds a specific location. When you enter or exit this fenced area, a certain action occurs. In this case, your Philips Hue lights can turn on when you enter this virtual fenced area, and they can turn off when you leave.
CONNECTED: What is a «geozone»?
Geofencing uses a combination of your phone’s GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular coverage to determine your location. This combination allows your phone to save more battery than other GPS-based apps, making this trick quite effective. It won’t drain your battery like, say, a navigation app.
To set this up, open the Philips Hue app on your phone and tap the menu icon in the top left corner.
Select Geofences.
If «Geofence» is grayed out, it means Philips Hue apps do not have permission to use your location, so you will need to go to settings on your iPhone or Android device and grant it access.
Once you log in, there are two geofencing options, Arrival and Departure, and you can enable both if you wish. To have your lights turn off automatically when you leave, select Leave.
