The Philips Hue Motion Sensor gets triggered when it detects a movement and turns on the lights at any time of the night and day. Special daylight sensors installed in it allow for varying settings for night and day.
The Hue Motions sensor’s LED indicator is integrated into its housing that flashes various colors to indicate different things. There are 5 different light situations you should know.
- Long red flash at detection: Your sensor can’t reach the Hue Bridge
- Short red flash when detecting: Battery is almost empty
- Short orange flash when detecting: Low battery
- Green blinking: Your sensor is identified
- Orange blinking: Your sensor is ready to connect the Hue Bridge
You will easily know what stage of set up your Hue motion sensor is at in terms of the different patterns and colors. You can quickly find out the problem depending on the LED lights and solve it.
The Philips Hue’s smart lighting paired up with your Philips Hue Motion Sensor will maximize energy saving, convenience and comfort.
Table of Contents
What Are The Hue Motion Sensors?
Many of the most popular manufacturers in smart industries and smart homes should produce motion sensors. From security systems to lighting and more, motion sensors are an effective and simple way to save energy while gathering helpful data.
Motion sensors form part of both outdoor and indoor security systems. The big difference between them comes down to durability and weatherproofing.
Indoor Motion Sensor
Do you remember stumbling for the switch or fumbling for keys? With indoor motion sensors and lights, you can feel safe inside your own home and see your way. But it is important to avoid false positives and glitches.
Pros:
- Custom alerts each time there is a trigger
- Gives a feeling of security to you
- Some also include lights
- Protects all the house or each room
- They can link to timers
Cons:
- False positives are annoying
- Might be fragile
Outdoor Motion Sensor
Outdoor devices are meant for garages, yards, and parks. It is crucial to scare criminals off and keep them away from your property.
Pros:
- Custom alerts and apps
- Direct communication with the police
- Resist snow, water, and wind
- Have a wider range
- Cannot be tampered
Cons:
- Pricier since it needs to be waterproof to last
Hue Bridge is important to your Hue motion sensors that get it to connect to the rest of your smart system. While the Hue sensor can be used by other connected platforms, it really works best when driving Hue lights via your Hue bridge itself because it provides some more advanced functionality this way.
If you don’t just want to control your Hue lights through Hue Bridge, you can create routines to have your motion sensor with devices that are connected to your Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, or Amazon Alexa smart home ecosystem, expanding its features beyond just light bulbs.
If you want to know how your Hue motion sensors will work, read more.
What Can A Hue Motion Sensor Be Used For?
The indoor Smart Motion Sensor works just like the Outdoor Motion Sensor, automating your lights when motion is detected and turn off when there is no motion detected. There is also another functionality you should know.
Whether you are returning at night with your hands full of groceries or slipping out of your bed to look at your baby in the middle of the night, automatic your lights to save you stumbling and fumbling.
The lights can also be turned off automatically after a period of inactivity by setting your motion sensors. However this leads to a reduced lack of control on your behalf, and you will usually run into a few snags with it. On some occasions, you might be working play with your phone in bed, or reading a book carefully when your lights go off. As a result, you will have to move frequently to keep your light on. So aside from your motion sensor lights, you may also want to have additional lights that you can manually shut on and off at your own accord. Times go some way toward mitigating these snags.
Motion sensors designed to work with HomeKit aren’t cheap. The popular Motion sensor from Philips Hue is more capable but costs $40, and it requires hub devices to communicate with HomeKit. An apple home hub is also required, which can be an iPad, Apple TV, or Homepod.
Working with the Apple HomeKit, Philips Hue Bridge, and Bluetooth, the Philips Hue Smart plug is the most versatile such unit. The humble smart plug is always one of the best devices that can turn your dumb products such as kettle, lamp, or coffee machine into ones you can control remotely. You can almost turn on any device in your room with a smart plug and a motion sensor.
Works beautifully, is easy setup, and does almost everything I hoped. I love them, and they made our home automation journey much more pleasant. However, it does come with its own sets of problems, and you can know what’s up with its own integrated LED light when flashing or changing colors.
I will decode the mystery and tell you something about the LED lights.
Hue Motion Sensor Has A Green Light
When your motions sensor connects with your Hue app, there will be a blinking green light in front of you. Your motion sensor should remain connected after a second while the blinking green light will go away.
The green LED light is a good sign that your motion sensor is working great.
However, if you see a blinking red and green in a short period of time, or blinking green light on your Hue motion sensor, you can try to reset it by pressing the recessed button on the back of your motions sensor.
There is a little button inside of a small hole on the back of the Hue motion sensor. I usually use a paperclip or a needle to push its reset buttons.
Please remember that you should push the button for at least five seconds to reset your hue motion sensor. The LED light will blink several times and as soon as the blinking is over, your reset is complete.
You will know that the reset can solve a lot of errors and if you can’t solve it, you can leave a message below.
Ok, let’s talk about other colors of LED light such as yellow or orange light.
Hue Motion Sensor Has A Orange or Yellow Light
What color do you think it is? Orange or yellow? This is still a very confusing question, and there is no exact answer in the Philips Hue community. I think we can refer to this as the yellow-orange LED light while the official Philips Hue website refers to it as the orange LED light
When your Hue motion sensor starts flashing orange LED light, it usually means two situations.
The first is during setup. The LED light will flash orange for a short period of time when you are setting up or connecting your Philips Hue motion sensor. It usually means that your Hue motion sensor is ready to connect to your Hue Bridge. After your Hue motion sensor has connected to your Hue bridge successfully, the orange LED light will stop flashing.
The second is when the battery is getting low. It will start flashing an orange LED light if the battery is low, which means you should give it a battery change.
What does red light mean on the Hue motion sensor?
When your Hue motion sensor starts to flash a red LED signal, it means there is a problem with your device. There are some reasons you should know.
Short red flashes mean your battery is about to die. This is the most common reason you should be not worried. The battery is about to run out if the red light turns on, and you should give a battery change when it is experiencing short red flashes.
Long red flashes mean a connectivity problem. If your Hue motion sensor starts experiencing long red flashes when it is struggling to connect to your Hue Bridge, it means there are connectivity problems between your Hue motion sensor and Hue Bridge.
How to solve their connectivity problems
The range within Your Motion sensor and Bridge
If you have connectivity problems between your Hue motion sensor and Hue Bridge, the first thing you should check is the range between them. You should make sure they are within range of each other.
ZigBee Interference
ZigBee and WiFi channels both exist in the 2.4 GHz band, existing in the exact same frequency space. Operating a WiFi network and a ZigBee network on the same frequency will cause them to interfere each other. Usually, the WiFi network will interfere with your ZigBee network, the ZigBee will take the hit.
WiFi and ZigBee use different channels on the Band. The channels ZigBee uses are 15, 20, or 25. Channel 25 might have a shorter range than some other channels.
You can see the ZigBee channel of your Hue Bridge through the Hue app. You can click “settings”, then click “Bridge settings”, you will see the channel there.
If you can’t solve your problem using the above methods, you should try to reset your Hue Bridge to see if it will work.
Anyway, once you are experiencing these problems, two ways you should always give it a try.
- Reset your Hue Bridge
- Reset your Hue motion sensor
Conclusion
Don’t worry, there are always solutions to any problems. Here are some simplified answers below.
- Green blinking: It works great, just waiting
- Long red flash at detection: You can change their range within your motion sensor and Bridge or reset them.
- Short red flash when detecting: You can try to give it a battery change.
- Short orange flash when detecting: You can try to give it a battery change.
- Orange blinking: It is normal, doesn’t need to do anything
If you can’t solve them by using these methods, please leave a message below. I will reply to you as soon as possible.