From today, Google Home users with Philips Hue lights will be able to use a new gentle sleep and wake feature designed to help you get more sleep and feel more rested.
Using the new feature, users can set a routine that gradually turns your Philips Hue smart lights on (wake) or off (sleep) over the course of 30 minutes, to mimic the sunrise or help you prepare for bed.
This gradual change of light helps improve the quality of your sleep. Just say, “Hey Google,” then:
- “Turn on Gentle Wake up” to have your daily morning alarms pair with gradual brightening. Make sure to enable Gentle Wake Up on the same Google Home device you’ll set your alarms on.
- “Wake up my lights.” You can also say, “Hey Google, wake up my lights in the bedroom at 6:30 a.m.” This will start to gradually brighten your Philips Hue lights at the time that you set and can be set up to 24 hours in advance.
- “Sleep my lights.” You can also say, “Hey Google, sleep the lights in the living room.” This will gradually start to dim your Philips Hue lights and can be programmed up to 24 hours in advance.
The Gentle Sleep & Wake feature is available in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Singapore and India in English only.
For other ways to wind down at the end of the day, you can also tune out noises from street traffic or construction next door by saying, “Hey Google, play white noise.”
There’s some other great rest and relaxation options available too which you can try – OK Google, tell Headspace I’m ready for bed – try out some meditation or sleep exercises as well.
The announcements are part of Google’s “Spring into healthy habits” story, which (given the timing) coincides with the northern Spring, unlike us on the way into the southern Autumn (and almost winter).
The white noise feature has been available for years.
I find it odd that they’ve limited this to the smart speakers and displays. I like to drive alarms from my phone and the Clock app can trigger an Assistant routine when dismissing an alarm. I’d just want a setting in the routine to enable Gentle Wake Up ahead of the alarm.
Any word when it will work with non Hue? I have Xiaomi lights
Xiaomi is not such a good choice for lighting because it is not available on automation hubs such as IFTTT. That means you can’t program Xiaomi lights to do what you want.
With IFTTT or Stringify (R.I.P Stringify) you can set your light fade up time, independent of Google’s latest feature. LIFX lights and Philips Hue are available on IFTTT.
There are heaps of integrations for Xiaomi Yeelights:
https://ifttt.com/search/query/yeelight
Been using them for a couple of years now.
Plus lots of things work with the Assistant as well. However those above mentioned in the article don’t work I think but you can use Google Routines or/and simple webhook to integrate.
Also the lights work on WiFi so don’t need a silly hub.
Finally they are far cheaper than LIFX and Philips.