Lumen Circle

For Apple Home and Philips Hue

Your home at a glance.

An iPad on the wall you can read from two metres away. The iPhone as a remote control. The Apple Watch as a dial.

CHF 8 a year the first four days free

Not in the App Store yet. As soon as the app is approved, the link will be here.

Lumen Circle on an iPad: a large clock, below it the rooms with their light rings, temperature and air for each room.

Three devices, one home

Each does what it does best.

The iPad in its rest state: a large clock, the date, temperature and air for each room, and which rooms have a light on.

iPad

The wall panel

Runs around the clock. Shows rooms instead of devices, temperature and air, and what the light is drawing right now. After a good minute without a touch it turns into a calm picture with the time and the weather. Nothing burns in, and nothing glares at night.

The iPhone dashboard: the time, scenes, a chip with power draw and monthly costs, below them the rooms with their light rings.

iPhone

The remote control

The same picture, in your hand. A tap opens the ring, a drag dims the whole room. Whoever leaves with a light still on gets a notification.

Apple Watch

The dial

The Digital Crown dims the room, with clicks in the hardware. The watch face tells you whether a light is still on.

Light

The ring is the control.

How far the arc is closed shows how much light is on in the room. Its colour is the colour your lamps have right now.

  • One tap opens the ring at full size.
  • One drag sets every lamp in the room at once; each percent clicks into place, and you can feel it.
  • A single lamp? Open up the room, and there it is.

Thirty lamps as a list are a wall of tiles. As rooms they are six rows. In your head it is “there’s a light on in the living room”, not “lamp 3 of 7 is at 72%”.

The Energy screen: electricity price with high and low tariff, the power draw right now, consumption and costs for the month, below them the switches for alerts.

Energy

What the light costs.

Hue lamps do not measure their own consumption. Lumen Circle works it out, with curves measured on real lamps: for every model, from one percent to full blast. A lamp dimmed to half often draws only a third.

  • Right now: the power draw per room and in total, on the panel and in the screen saver.
  • Day, week, month, year: costs at your electricity price, with high and low tariff if you like.
  • New lamp? The app fetches its profile by itself.
  • If you like: a daily summary in the evening, an alert on high load, a monthly limit in francs. All three off out of the box.

Press the button on the Hue Bridge once, and that is the whole setup. The measurements come from the open Powercalc project.

Also

What else it does.

Air, before you notice
CO₂ builds up over hours; your concentration drops long before that. Lumen Circle does not just give you the number, it tells you that airing the room helps.
Forgot the light?
Whoever leaves with a light still on gets a notification on the iPhone and on the Watch. Needs the location permission set to “Always”. Off out of the box.
Widgets and complications
Is a light still on? The answer is on the Home Screen and on the watch face, without opening the app.
Ten palettes
From Aurora through Graphite to Paper. At night the panel switches to a warm profile by itself.
Large text
Follows the text size from the iOS settings. A panel in the hallway is read by everyone, not only by those with good eyes.
Shortcuts as tiles
Robot vacuum, coffee machine, anything without HomeKit: whatever the Shortcuts app can do gets a tile. Five-step guide included.
Wake light
Starts at one percent in deep amber and rises to daylight by the wake time.
Party mode
The light follows the beat. Only the level is measured, right on the device; nothing is recorded.

Setup

Three steps, no account.

  1. Allow access to your home.

    Rooms, names and scenes come from the Home app. The app talks directly to HomeKit, with no sign-in and no service in between.

  2. Press the button on the Hue Bridge.

    That sets the energy meter running. The app finds the bridge on your home network by itself.

  3. iOS asks for the rest when the time comes.

    Weather, notifications, leaving alert, Party mode: each one the first time it is needed. If you say no, you lose exactly that function and nothing else.

What you need is a home in Apple’s Home app. You reach accessories without HomeKit, such as some dishwashers or robot vacuums, through a shortcut.

Price

CHF 8 a year.

The first four days free, with everything included. The purchase covers every device with the same Apple ID and can be restored. You can cancel it in the Apple settings, like any subscription there.

Lumen Circle is not in the App Store yet. This page describes the current state of development.

Privacy

Stays on the device.

There are no servers, and nothing is analysed. Only three things leave the device: a rough position for Apple’s weather service, the purchase through the App Store, and a lamp’s model identifier, “LCT015” for instance, when the app fetches its consumption profile from the open Powercalc library. No name, no location, no word on how many of them you have. The full version.