It’s incredible how quickly time flies. Almost exactly ten years ago, Philips Hue introduced its still current Bridge (see header image). Back then, it was a modern piece of technology that was even made compatible with Apple HomeKit shortly afterwards. But one limit has never changed since then: The maximum number of connected lamps.
Until May 25, Philips Hue is offering many of its products at a big discount so that you can end the longest days of the year with the right lighting. The promotion applies around the globe and in many different countries, with slight differences in some cases. However, I’ll try to summarize the whole thing briefly for the largest groups of visitors to my blog.
I currently only have a wired Hue Secure camera in use, which performs its tasks reliably within the limits of its capabilities. However, I keep reading about problems with the battery-powered Hue Secure cameras in the comments and on social media. What is particularly interesting is that not all cameras seem to be affected by the problems, some of which are considerable.
We’re bridging the bridge between the public holiday and the weekend in Germany with two small firmware updates for Philips Hue. There is new software for the Philips Hue Bridge and the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box 4K. However, there are no major innovations, I can already say that in advance.
I’ve already introduced you to some Hue apps for the Mac in the past, but today I have an application for Windows for you. However, this also means that because I don’t have a PC with Windows, I haven’t been able to try ActiveHue out for myself yet. But that’s not a big problem, as the software can be downloaded free of charge from the developer’s website.
Equipping a second TV in the house with a Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box is not as easy as it might sound. The big problem is not even the price, after all, even the “old” Sync Box costs at least 200 euros and then there’s a good 150 to 200 euros for the Play Lightstrip on top of that.
In my last published list of the five oldest Hue products that are still being sold, the Hue Smart Button did not appear. The small switch was released on October 21, 2019 – so it’s already five years old. While the Hue Dimmer Switch and Hue Tap have received updates in the meantime, the Hue Smart Button shown in the cover image above has so far been left empty-handed.
This text could be quite short in principle, but I’ll try to expand a little anyway. It’s about the new USB-C cable for powering the Hue Secure Camera, which the manufacturer has been offering for €19.99 in its own online store for a few weeks now. With this USB-C cable, you can retire the supplied power cable, which is also three meters long and has a permanently connected transformer.
Philips Hue was one of the first partners to offer official Matter integration. Since November 2022, it has been possible to connect the Hue Bridge to the Matter smart home standard, at that time still as a beta. The official launch followed in September 2023. Now it seems that something is happening again with Philips Hue and Matter.
There is yet another new update for iConnectHue, probably the most comprehensive app for configuring the Philips Hue system. With version 5.9, German developer Stefan Göhler delivers a new switch editor that makes the selection of available actions for a button press even clearer. “Our switch editor has been given a glow-up,” the developer tells us.
Fabian