I&#x27;ve had some of the Hue bulbs for a year or so, and I definitely wouldn&#x27;t go back.<p>I now see two distinct kinds of lighting: task and ambient. For task lighting, I still want fast manual control, for which dumb bulbs are fine. But for ambient lighting, I want it to be almost entirely automatic.<p>In the morning, my lights gradually come on, starting very dim and warm. In the middle of the day, they&#x27;re bright and like daylight in color. In the evening, they slowly dim and shift toward red. They go out on their own about when I want to go to bed.<p>One good part is that I don&#x27;t have to mess with lightswitches all the time. But the much more valuable part is that it helps me establish a strong diurnal body clock. I now wake up on time without an alarm, I get enough sleep, and my mood is more even.<p>One alternative would be to put the smarts in the switches, as early home automation had it. But my old wiring isn&#x27;t compatible with that. And even if it were, that at best gets you brightness control, not color temperature control.<p>If anybody&#x27;s curious, my code is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wpietri&#x2F;sunrise" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wpietri&#x2F;sunrise</a>