How do you guys use colour?

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Hey all!

I have my house kitted out in LIFX color bulbs, and a few Lightify warm/cool white lights. However, I feel like the colour potential is not being used to its maximum! How do you use colour in your house? Do you feel you exploit the power of your lights?

I have the following automations that use colour:

  • Dawn/dusk automations to change the shade of white throughout the day
  • Hall light blinks pink twice to indicate if you left a window open when leaving
  • Bathroom lights can be triggered with a switch to “Spa Mode” (colour loop)
  • Thinking about adding a “it will rain in next 30min” gentle blue indicator to the hall light too

Hopefully this topic will help give us all some new ideas!

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At the moment I have a lamp that indicates if the room is too hot, just right, or too cold by colour.

I plan to have my automated room lights turn on low brightness red if I’ve been in bed and it’s not yet sunrise - to retain night vision if I have to get up.

I’d like to use colour accent lights in my home cinema based on content (e.g. blue for under sea movies, orange for desert, green for jungle), but I haven’t worked out how yet.

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My main use case is with my Philips TVs, they integrate with the Hue lights so that when I watch TV the whole room is in-sync with the picture.

Then there’s the obvious “flux” automation to have the right light temperature at any time of the day.

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I’ve made a load of different ‘scenes’, which I can select from an input_select. These are set automatically at different points in the day.

I’ve also set up two binary switches for each room named “Primary Lights” and “Secondary Lights”. The point of this is that sometimes I want cool light effects going on (secondary lights)… but then when I walk into a room I want normal lighting (primary lights)… So for example my kitchen and dining room are joined up. If I’m in the dining room, the kitchen lights can be a nice secondary lighting effect (like dark purple or red or whatever)… but then if you go into the kitchen you trigger the primary light (normal yellow light). This is via motion sensors. I’m still very much playing around with this set up though.

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I’m so jealous of the Ambilight/Hue integration on Philips TVs. I want that, but to setup Hyperion to do just that seems so onerous (money and time).

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That’s a cool idea. Make it look like the adverts but keep the practical aspect haha. Are the scenes you use “just” colours, or do you use effects too?

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Then there’s automations I do just for shits and giggles.

I just wrote an automation to flash my lounge lamp green at sunset.

- id: lounge_lamp_green_flash
  alias: 'Green Flash'
  trigger:
    platform: sun
    event: sunset
  condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: alarm_control_panel.house # Only if someone is home
    state: disarmed
  - condition: state
    entity_id: light.lifx_lounge_entrance_lamp
    state: 'on'
  action:
    service: light.turn_on
    entity_id:  light.lifx_lounge_entrance_lamp
    data:
      brightness: 255
      color_name: 'Lime'

It’s reset by my lounge lamp temperature routine.

- id: lounge_lamp_temp
  alias: 'Lounge Lamp Temperature Colour'
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id:
    - sensor.aeotec_lounge_temperature
  condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id:  light.lifx_lounge_entrance_lamp # Only if lamp is on
    state: 'on'
  action:
  - service: light.turn_on
    data_template:
      entity_id:  light.lifx_lounge_entrance_lamp
      brightness: 255
      color_name: >
        {% set temp = states('sensor.aeotec_lounge_temperature') | float(1000) %}
        {% if temp < states.input_number.lounge_ac_heat_temp_set.state | float %}
          blue
        {% elif temp < states.input_number.lounge_ac_cool_temp_set.state | float %}
          orange
        {% elif temp < 1000 %}
          red
        {% else %}
          fuchsia
        {% endif %}
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For LIFX flashes, consider using light.lifx_effect_pulse which will automatically reset the light.

Also note light.lifx_set_state which can alter the color even when the light is off. It will then be the expected color when it is eventually turned on.

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I use the Circadian Lighting custom component for the lights in my bedroom and ensuite. It’s much nicer when it’s late at night

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@amelchio Thanks for that. Very handy. I changed the automation to:

  action:
  - service: light.lifx_effect_pulse
    data:
      entity_id: light.lifx_lounge_entrance_lamp
      rgb_color: [0,255,0]
      period: 4
      cycles: 1
      mode: blink

Is there a description of the modes somewhere?

This doesn’t tell me much:

Valid modes: blink (default), breathe , ping , strobe , solid .

If not, I’ll write a short script to try them all.

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Just try them out (with defaults for period and cycles) and you will see.

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Hey @amelchio, you have a lot of LIFX bulbs at home right?
Do you find yourself using a lot of colour? Typically for alerts, or much more?

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I’m going to try this out! Did you use Flux beforehand?

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No, I started out straight into Circadian Lightning. It’s been working great without any issues so far. I’m happy with it

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Hi @chimpy … yeah I have LIFX in most rooms but besides shades of white, I barely use colors. I have a few subtle notifications for open windows, coming home, new mail, etc. but that’s it.

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Check this out: GitHub - samclane/LIFX-Control-Panel: As LIFX no longer supports their Windows 10 app, I created an open-source alternative for controlling LIFX-brand smart lights.

I’ve been playing with it tonight. The average screen colour → light effect seems to work really well.

There’s also this kodi addon which from the look of the demo videos isn’t quite as good. [Release] Lifx Ambilight Addon for Kodi

I’ll try it tomorrow night and see.

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This is cool but I use an Apple TV :frowning: