They recently announced new, brighter lights. Re the app: then don't use it, just program the hub directly yourself - see https://developers.meethue.com/ https

They recently announced new, brighter lights. Re the app: then don't use it, just program the hub directly yourself - see https://developers.meethue.com/ https://developers.meethue.com/. It all runs locally on the hub - I've set it up for auto-day/night colour switching, plus manual override via a switch. I also used a light meter to more precisely tune the colour temperature ;)