Is there a way to get a Philips Hue bulb to flicker on/off quickly like a strobe light? Some videos online show 3rd party apps doing a strobe effect and I’d like to use this as a ‘silent alarm’ type of warning in ST.
I’ve already setup the Hue bulb to turn on in the Smart Home Monitor when a door sensor is triggered in Arm mode so that part is all set. Wanted to further this functionality w/ a Hue strobe.
I think you’ll need a physical switch with that capability, like the Aeon DSC26103. On/off scheduling via the cloud simply isn’t precise enough.
It seems like some people have gotten the Hue to flicker without additional hardware?
http://www.everyhue.com/vanilla/discussion/718/the-strobe-effect
And:
We Used to be able to do this with a smart app called “notify with Hue,” but it went away after V two of the mobile app was released and I haven’t seen the blink capability in the official smart apps.
It may be in there somewhere, I just haven’t seen it.
However, it’s still an action in the Hue IFTTT channel, so it’s really easy to set up that way. It’s more of a blink then a strobe, but it works for most visual notifications. I have a friend who is deaf and uses it for a doorbell.
Looks like they really want the strobe effect based on the link. Original Hue bulbs could do this. It’s an undocumented part of the Hue API that was never intended to be used by Phillips (called Pointsymbols), and they have removed this functionality from all the new bulbs they just released.
You won’t be able to do this via the integration with ST, but maybe by using IFTTT as JD suggested, you could find a 3rd party app that takes advantage of this API quirk. Otherwise, you would need to really dig into the Hue API and alter the Hue Connect SmartApp.
Thanks, I setup a Hue IFTTT “blink” command and that works. But it seems like this will trigger every time the door is opened. Is there a way to modify the IFTTT so that it talks to ST and will only trigger when in Smart Home Monitor ‘Arm’ mode and be ignored when in ‘Disarm’?
Yes, but it could get complex. I’m sure community members will be glad to help you with step one or two below.
This might take mode, presence, routines, smart lighting, smart apps, whatever. But get your restrictions set up so one particular switch goes on when all your restrictions are met and it goes off again when are your restrictions are not met
You can also use one of the third-party rules engines that work with SmartThings to set up the restrictions if you want.
( you also need to decide what will turn that switch off again, but that’s going to depend in part on exactly what restrictions you set up in the first scenario. Again other people will be able to help you with that. )
Three) now it’s easy. “If” for your IFTTT recipe is that switch going on. 
