Glow

What it does

• See every lamp grouped by your Hue rooms, as tiles that glow in each lamp's real color.
• Click a tile to switch a lamp on or off, or drag sideways to dim it.
• Right-click for colors and whites (Glow only offers what that lamp supports).
• Room switches turn a whole room on or off.
• All off turns everything off now, or in 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. The timer runs on the bridge, so it still works while your Mac sleeps.
• Lamps & Rooms in Settings lets you drag rooms and lamps into your desired order and hide the ones you never interact with. It only changes Glow, so your Hue setup isn't touched.
• Changes from the Hue app, wall switches and voice assistants show up live.
• Works in dark and light mode, with keyboard and VoiceOver support.

Install

You need:

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• a Philips Hue Bridge on the same network as your Mac (Bluetooth-only bulbs aren't supported)

Steps:

1. Download Glow-x.y.z.dmg from the latest release. Open it and drag Glow onto Applications.
2. Open Glow. macOS says it can't be opened, because Glow isn't signed by an Apple-registered developer. Click Done.
3. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, click Open Anyway next to the message about Glow, and confirm. You only do this the first time.
4. Click the bulb in your menu bar and Allow Glow to find devices on your local network.
5. When Glow asks, press the round button on your Hue Bridge. You have 3 minutes. Your lamps then appear.

Already use Home Assistant? On the pairing screen you can paste its Hue key instead of pressing the button.

Privacy & security

• Glow controls your lamps directly through your Hue Bridge, on your home network, with no account, cloud service or analytics involved.
  • Glow only goes online for two things. It asks Philips' bridge-finder (discovery.meethue.com) where your bridge is, during setup and whenever it can't find it any more. Also, it asks GitHub once a day for the latest version number, which you can turn off in Settings. It never sends your lamps, your usage or any account data.
• The bridge key is stored in a private file that only your user account can read (~/Library/Application Support/Glow).
• Glow checks that the bridge is a genuine Philips Hue Bridge:
  • its certificate must be signed by Philips' Hue root and issued to that bridge
  • Glow then pins that certificate
  • a pasted key is never sent to a device that hasn't passed this check
• Found a security issue? See SECURITY.md.

Build from source

You only need Apple's Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install). Xcode works too.

git clone https://github.com/merbil/glow && cd glow
swift build && .build/debug/Glow --demo        # run with sample lamps, no bridge needed
.build/debug/Glow --selftest                    # ~500 built-in checks, including a fake Hue Bridge
scripts/build-app.sh --install                  # build Glow.app and install it to /Applications
scripts/make-dmg.sh                             # build the installer DMG

build-app.sh signs with a local certificate named "Glow Local Signing" if you have one, so macOS keeps Glow's permissions across rebuilds. Without it, the build is signed ad hoc. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Roadmap

• A Nest thermostat card (current and target temperature)

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Glow is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Signify or Philips Hue. "Philips Hue" is a trademark of Signify. Licensed under the MIT License.