Smart Home

Smart Home lets your home react to what you’re watching. When playback starts, pauses, reaches the credits or finishes in Zuno, it can tell your smart home system, so you can dim the lights for the film, bring them up when you pause for a drink or when the credits roll, and switch them back to normal at the end.

Zuno can do this in three ways, and you can use any of them together:

Philips Hue: Zuno connects to your Hue Bridge and controls your lights itself. No account or extra app needed.
Apple Home: Zuno runs the scenes you’ve made in the Home app, on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.
Webhooks: a web address your smart home gives you, which Zuno calls at the right moment. Home Assistant, Homebridge, Node-RED and many other systems support them.

Philips Hue

Open Settings → Zuno Connect → Smart Home on the device you watch on, and turn on Smart Home on This Device.
Choose Connect Hue Bridge. Zuno looks for your bridge on your home network. Choose it from the list, or type its IP address under Enter Manually (you’ll find it in the Hue app under Settings → Bridges).
When asked, press the large round button on top of your Hue Bridge. You have 30 seconds.
Choose the Room or Zone you want Zuno to control.

For each moment, choose what your lights do:

Turn Off
Brightness at 10%, 30%, 50% or 100%
Restore: puts the lights back exactly how they were when playback started
Any of the room’s Hue scenes
Do Nothing

When you first choose a room, Zuno turns the lights off when playback starts, sets them to 30% when you pause, and restores them when the credits start and when you finish. Fade sets how long the lights take to change.

Only When Lights Are On: if the room’s lights are off when playback starts, Zuno leaves them alone until you finish, so daytime viewing stays as it is. This is on by default, and it’s decided when playback starts, so Zuno never switches the lights on halfway through a film.

Colour Sync

On Apple TV, Colour Sync makes the Hue lights around your TV follow the colours on screen while something plays, like an ambient light built into the TV. You don’t need a Hue Sync Box or any other extra hardware, just your Hue Bridge and colour Hue lights.

In the Hue app, create an Entertainment area under Settings → Entertainment areas, with the colour lights around your TV, and place them where they really are. Zuno uses their positions to decide which part of the picture each light follows.
In Zuno, connect your Hue Bridge as above, then turn on Colour Sync.
Choose your Entertainment Area.

You can then adjust:

Intensity: how strongly the lights follow the picture, from Subtle to Max.
Brightness: the brightest the lights go while syncing.
Timing: if the lights change slightly before or after the picture, move them later or earlier. The change applies the next time something plays.

Colour Sync starts when playback starts and stops when the credits start, then your When Credits Start choice runs, so Restore brings the room back to how it was. If you choose Do Nothing for the credits, Colour Sync carries on until playback finishes. While you’re paused, the lights hold the colours of the paused picture. Only When Lights Are On and the Only When settings apply to Colour Sync too.

It works with SDR, HDR and Dolby Vision titles, and follows the picture rather than the black bars on widescreen films. Subtitles and Zuno’s controls are never picked up, so white subtitles don’t flash the lights. Zuno also limits fast flashing, so the lights never strobe.

Colour Sync is available on Apple TV. It is not supported for HDR and Dolby Vision titles with Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby Atmos sound.

If another app, such as the Hue Sync app or a Sync Box, is already using the Entertainment area, Zuno leaves it alone and the Activity list says so.

Zuno isn’t made by or affiliated with Signify, the maker of Philips Hue.

Apple Home

On iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, Zuno can run the scenes you’ve made in the Home app, so anything a scene controls (lights, blinds, speakers and more) can react to what you’re watching.

In the Home app, create a scene for each moment you want to use, for example “Film Time” to dim the lights.
In Zuno, open Settings → Zuno Connect → Smart Home on the device you watch on, and turn on Smart Home on This Device.
Choose Connect Apple Home, and allow Zuno to use your home data when asked.
If you have more than one home, choose the right one under Home.
Choose a scene for When Playback Starts, When Paused, When Credits Start and When Playback Finishes. Choose Do Nothing for any moment you want to leave alone.

If your home has no scenes yet, Zuno says so. Create one in the Home app and come back to Zuno, and it appears straight away.

On iPhone and iPad, Apple Home can only be controlled while Zuno is open, so a scene for When Playback Finishes doesn’t run if Zuno is in the background when playback ends.

Webhooks

In your smart home system, create a webhook for each moment you want to use and copy its address. In Home Assistant, add an automation with a Webhook trigger, and it shows you the address.
In Zuno, open Settings → Zuno Connect → Smart Home on the device you watch on.
Turn on Smart Home on This Device, if you haven’t already.
Paste the addresses into When Playback Starts, When Paused, When Credits Start and When Playback Finishes. You can leave any of them empty.
Tap Send Test for each one to check it works.

If your system needs a password for its webhooks, add it as a Bearer Token. It’s stored securely in your Keychain.

When each moment happens

When Playback Starts: as soon as something starts playing, and again when you resume after a pause or the next episode starts playing automatically.
When Paused: only once you’ve stayed paused for a few seconds, so a quick pause doesn’t flash your lights. Choose the wait under Count a Pause After (5 seconds by default).
When Credits Start: once, when the end credits begin. If the next episode is about to play automatically, Zuno skips this moment, so the lights don’t come up between episodes. Dismiss Up Next and the credits moment runs as normal.
When Playback Finishes: when you close the player or the last episode ends.

Seeking, skipping and buffering never trigger anything, and neither do trailers, theme music or previews.

Only When

Under Only When, choose which playback Smart Home reacts to. These apply to Philips Hue, Colour Sync, Apple Home and webhooks alike.

Active Hours: choose Scheduled and set From and Until to only react to playback that starts within those hours, for example 18:00 to 06:00.
What’s Playing: react to Films and Episodes, Films Only or Episodes Only.
Not on Kids Profiles: playback on a kids profile never triggers anything.

These are decided when playback starts and kept until it finishes, so nothing changes halfway through a film, and a skipped film doesn’t get a lone “finished” call either.

What Zuno sends to webhooks

Each call includes details of what’s playing, so your automations can do more than switch scenes, for example only dimming the lights for films, or only on a particular profile:

Detail	Example
`event`	`playing`, `paused`, `credits` or `finished`
`device`	`Living Room Apple TV`
`profile`	`Alex`
`title`	`Pilot`
`type`	`movie` or `episode`
`show`, `season`, `episode`	`My Favourite Show`, `1`, `1`
`dynamic_range`	`Dolby Vision`, when the title is HDR
`position`, `duration`	How far in you are, and the running time, in seconds

For example, when an episode starts playing on your Apple TV, Zuno sends:

{
  "device": "Living Room Apple TV",
  "duration": 1320,
  "episode": 1,
  "event": "playing",
  "position": 0,
  "profile": "Alex",
  "season": 1,
  "show": "My Favourite Show",
  "title": "Pilot",
  "type": "episode"
}

Details that don’t apply are left out, such as show for a film or dynamic_range for a title that isn’t HDR.

On iPhone and iPad, device is just “iPhone” or “iPad”, because iOS doesn’t share your device’s name with apps.

Checking it’s working

The Activity list on the Smart Home page shows the last 25 things this device has done since Zuno was opened: each light change, scene and webhook call, with the time, what was playing and whether it worked. When Zuno leaves something alone because of your Only When settings, or because your lights were off, Activity says so.

Zuno can’t find your Hue Bridge. Check your device is on the same network as the bridge, and that you allowed Zuno to find devices on your local network. You can also enter the bridge’s IP address yourself.

“Scene not found”. The scene was deleted in the Home app. Choose another one in Zuno.

“Zuno isn’t allowed to use Apple Home”. Allow Zuno to use your home data in your device’s Settings under Privacy & Security, then come back to Zuno.

Colour Sync doesn’t start. Check the Activity list for the reason. “Entertainment area not found” means it was deleted in the Hue app: choose another one. “In use by another app” means the Hue Sync app or a Sync Box is using it: stop that first.

“Can’t reach your Hue Bridge”. The bridge may be off or have a new IP address. Choose Disconnect Hue Bridge and connect it again.

Nothing arrives. Check the address is complete, including http:// or https://, and that this device is on the same network as your smart home system if the address is a local one. The first time, your device may ask to find devices on your local network: allow it.

It says it failed. The reason is shown next to the call. A “401” or “403” usually means a missing or wrong Bearer Token. A “404” usually means the address has a typo.