Why Does Philips Hue Need Location?

Philips Hue is a smart bulb that brings a lot of features to the table, but why does Philips Hue need location? One might wonder why a bulb would need your location when all it needs to do is light up the area. Well, here’s the answer!

Philips Hue bulbs need location for the Home and Away feature. The feature uses your phone’s location to automatically turn on and off the lights as you enter or leave the house. This feature also creates a virtual fence called Geofence that lets the system know you have entered or left the set premises.

So, let’s dig a bit deeper and try to understand how Philips Hue bulbs function using your smartphone’s location and why it is necessary.

Also read: Does Philips Hue bridge need ethernet?

Turning on location for the Home and Away feature

If you have been using or it is your first time using the Home and Away feature, you might come across some basic issues. To fix them, you need to understand how your smartphone’s location works with the Home and Away feature of the Philips Hue bulb.

There is no trick to it; the Home and Away feature uses the GPS location of your smartphone to track when you arrive home and leave. This information is used to control your smart devices. The Home and Away feature allows the lights to automatically turn on when you enter the house and turn off when you leave.

However, this simple feature can get a bit buggy sometimes, and you can fix it easily by checking the connection of your smartphone with the bulbs.

Enabling the Home and Away feature

To enable the Home and Away feature, you simply need to visit the Settings in the Hue app. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to use any of the features in the Home and Away section unless you have enabled the Out of Home option.

If you have already enabled the feature, but the bulb or bulbs do not work, you will need to check the location services. Then again, Philips Hue will need your location to know when you enter the house and leave. Simply visit your smartphone’s location settings and turn it on. In most cases, the Home and Away feature begins working immediately.

Turning on location for Philips Hue Geofencing

Another reason Philips Hue bulbs may require your location is if you wish to use the Geofencing feature. In simple words, Geofencing is a virtual boundary you are setting up for yourself as well as your devices.

Therefore, the bulbs will need your location to know when they should and should not turn on, as it keeps track of your virtual boundary.

For instance, you can set up a virtual boundary with smart lights around your house. As you are pulling into your driveway, the lights will automatically turn on. The reason is that the lights will detect your activity within the virtual radius you have already set up.

Turning on location for Significant Locations on iPhones

Significant Locations is a feature in iPhones that keeps track of the places you have recently been to, how often you visit them, and when. This helps the system learn the places that are significant to you.

And since your home is going to the most often visited place at more or less the same time every day, the Hue system will recognize it as Home and turn on and off the lights when needed.

This might look like an invasion of privacy, but iPhone users should not be concerned about it much as it is simply required for the Philips Hue bulbs to work.

Also read: Why is my Philips Hue light unresponsive?

Concluding thoughts on why Philips Hue bulbs need location

In the end, Philips Hue bulbs require your location to automatically turn on and off. This smart, energy-efficient feature allows users to enter their house with the lights turned on and leave with them turned off without having to do it manually each time. And the only thing that needs to be enabled is the location; then, you are good to go!