Hey everyone, I’ve been tinkering with my Philips Hue setup and noticed something a bit odd with the color temperature slider. At first glance, it seemed pretty straightforward, but the more I used it, the more I realized something wasn’t quite right. The slider for color temperature has low color temperatures (yellowish tones) towards the right and high color temperatures (blueish tones) towards the left. While it’s functional, it feels counterintuitive to how I’ve used similar controls in other software and devices.
I started thinking about why this might be the case. One possibility is that it’s an implementation artifact rather than a deliberate UI decision. For instance, in digital cameras, a bulb icon typically represents yellowish color temps, and a sun or fluorescent bulb icon represents higher color temps. It’s a common convention that Philips Hue might have deviated from here.
Another angle is the technical side. Philips Hue uses mireds, a less common unit, which might be causing this confusion. On the packaging of light bulbs, we see color temperatures in Kelvin (like 2700K for warm white), not mireds. Even Philips’ own GUIs hide this detail, so why does the slider direction reflect this technicality?
I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this. Would it make sense for Philips to switch the slider direction to align with the more intuitive high K on the right? Or maybe they could add a different icon for high K temps, like a sun, instead of the bulb icon. That could make it more user-friendly without changing the slider direction entirely.
If anyone has any insights or workarounds, I’d be thrilled to hear them! Let’s make Philips Hue even better together. 