Philips Hue Thinking Indicator

Visual AI activity indicator — Connect your AI assistant's work status to your physical environment through Philips Hue smart lights.

What It Does

Turns a Philips Hue light into an AI activity indicator:

Why Use This?

• Ambient awareness — Know when your AI is working without checking screens
• Flow state protection — Visual indicator prevents interruptions during deep work
• Satisfying completion — Green light signals "ready for next task"
• Conversation starter — "My AI has a physical presence in my house"

Quick Start

1. Setup Your Hue Bridge

# Find your bridge IP (check router or Hue app), then run:
hue setup <bridge-ip>

# Example:
hue setup 192.168.1.100

2. Find Your Light

hue lights

# Output:
#   2: Bed room 1 💡 ON
#   3: Bedroom 2 ⚫ OFF
#   5: Front door 💡 ON  ← Use this one

3. Use It

# AI starts thinking
hue thinking 5

# AI is done
hue done 5

Installation

Option 1: Copy to PATH

# Clone or download
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/philips-hue-thinking.git

# Add to PATH
cp philips-hue-thinking/hue /usr/local/bin/
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/hue

Option 2: Use Directly

# Add to your shell profile (.zshrc or .bashrc)
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/philips-hue-thinking"

# Then reload
source ~/.zshrc

Commands

Core Commands

# Setup (press bridge button first!)
hue setup <bridge-ip>

# List all lights
hue lights

# Thinking mode (pulsing red)
hue thinking <light-id>

# Done (solid green)
hue done <light-id>

# Set any color
hue set <light-id> <color>

Available Colors

hue set 5 red
hue set 5 green
hue set 5 blue
hue set 5 yellow
hue set 5 purple
hue set 5 orange

Utility Commands

# Turn off
hue off 5

# Pulse continuously
hue pulse 5 --color red

Workflow Integration

With AI Assistants

Planning Mode:

User: "Planning mode — I want to build a website"
AI:  [runs 'hue thinking 5'] 🔴 Pulsing...
     "Here are my questions..."
User: [answers]
AI:  [runs 'hue done 5'] ✅ Green
     "Starting build now..."
     [runs 'hue thinking 5'] 🔴 Solid red while building
AI:  [runs 'hue done 5'] ✅ Green
     "Done!"

Shell Aliases

Add to ~/.zshrc:

# Quick aliases
alias think='hue thinking 5'
alias done='hue done 5'

Then just type:

think  # Light pulses red
done   # Light turns green

Technical Details

How It Works

1. Hue Bridge API — Communicates via local HTTP API
2. Color XY Values — Uses CIE color space for accurate colors
3. Background Pulse — Bash loop dims/brightens light
4. Stateless — Stores config in ~/.config/philips-hue/

Color XY Values

The Pulse Effect

# Brightness oscillation
254 (bright) → 50 (dim) → 254

# Timing
~2 second cycle
Background process keeps pulsing

Configuration

Config stored in: ~/.config/philips-hue/config.json

{
  "bridge_ip": "192.168.1.100",
  "username": "your-api-key"
}

Requirements

• Philips Hue Bridge (v2)
• Philips Hue color bulbs
• macOS/Linux with curl
• Bash 4.0+

Troubleshooting

"Link button not pressed"

Press the physical button on your Hue Bridge, then run setup within 30 seconds.

Light not responding

# Check connection
hue lights

# Verify config
cat ~/.config/philips-hue/config.json

Pulse won't stop

# Kill background process
pkill -f "hue-pulse-loop"

# Reset light
hue done 5

Future Ideas

• Auto-trigger via AI session lifecycle
• Multiple lights for different task types
• Heartbeat mode (gentle pulse every 30 min)
• Error state (flash purple)
• Success celebration (rainbow effect)

License

MIT — See LICENSE file

Credits

Created by Jesse & Kate (Clawdbot)
Inspired by the need for AI physical presence

Questions? Open an issue or DM @jesse on Twitter