Goodnight: fade your Hue lights to off as you fall asleep

A sleep timer for your Hue lights

Switching the lights off can leave you in sudden darkness, and leaving them on all night wastes energy. Goodnight sits between the two: it lowers a whole room's brightness gradually until the lights are off. You can read for a few more minutes, or fall asleep while the room gets darker.

How to start a Goodnight fade

1. Open the room you want to fade. The Goodnight button appears when at least one light in the room is on.
2. Tap Goodnight and pick a duration: 1, 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes.
3. A message confirms the fade has started. You can close the app and lock your phone.

Why it keeps going after you close the app

Some sleep timers work by having your phone send a series of slightly dimmer commands, which stops as soon as the phone locks or the app is closed. Goodnight works differently. It sends your Hue Bridge one command with a long transition time, and the Bridge does the fading. Your phone doesn't need to stay awake, stay on Wi-Fi or even stay switched on.

If someone changes those lights during the fade, for example by switching them on with a dimmer switch, the new command replaces the fade. That's standard Hue behaviour.

Which duration to choose

• 1 minute: a gentle alternative to a hard switch-off, for example when you leave a room
• 5 minutes: time to get into bed
• 15 to 30 minutes: for reading or a child's bedtime story
• 60 minutes: the slowest fade, for falling asleep to a dim, gradually darker room

For a softer start, choose a warm, dim scene before you start the fade. Circadian lighting can also warm your lights through the evening.

Troubleshooting

• No Goodnight button? It only appears when at least one light in the room is on. Turn a light on first
• The fade stopped early? Something else sent the lights a new command, such as a switch, another app or a scheduled automation. Start Goodnight again
• Nothing happened? Your device needs to reach the Bridge for the moment it takes to send the command, either on your home network or, with Pro, through remote access

To change your lights automatically at set times through the evening, see the Day Planner (Pro).

Where Goodnight works

Goodnight is in the room screen on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro. On Apple TV you can start it with the Siri Remote at the end of a film. It is not on the Apple Watch app.

Goodnight is free. It does not need Pro, an account or an internet connection, only your Hue Bridge on the local network.

Free vs Pro: the app is a free download and everyday light control is free. Pro (monthly, yearly, or a one-time lifetime unlock) adds remote access, geofencing, multi-bridge, bridge backup, the energy dashboard, Entertainment streaming, AI scenes and more.