Philips Hue is an intelligent lighting system that allows people to control the colour and brightness of their lighting via a smartphone. That's all fine and dandy, but what about people who use a Mac more than a smartphone or would just like the same functionality via their Mac?

Say hello to Hue Menu. It's a Mac menu bar app that provides direct control over Philips Hue light bulbs. Philips recently opened up Hue’s API so third party developers could create add-on software and programs, and Hue Menu is one such software.

Hue Menu has controls for on/off, brightness, individual lights, colour and more. To change the colour of Hue lights, just use the traditional Mac OS colour picker, save colour presets or even select colours from photos stored on a Mac. Hue Menu also has a random mode that changes the colour every 15 seconds for all lights or for a specific light bulb.

Read: Philips Friends of Hue LightStrips review

In Pocket-lint's review of Philips Hue, we found the £180 system to be a thing of the future that's also incredibly useful. With Hue Menu, the system becomes even more useful and accessible. And with upcoming updates to Hue Menu, the Phillips Hue could get even more feature-rich. Developer Charles Aroutiounian has already said alarms, timer-based lighting settings and geofencing are in the works.

Read: Philips Hue (complete system) review

For even more information on Hue customisations options, check out Pocket-lint's review of the Philips LightSrips. It's a new Hue accessory in the form of bendable LED light strips that you can place around the home for dramatic mood lighting. Pretty cool.

Check out the gallery below for more screenshots of Hue Menu. The app is now available in the Mac App Store for $2.99 (£2) and requires OS X 10.6.6 or later and a 64-bit processor.