Yesterday evening Apple gave us a preview of their new operating systems for iPhone, iPad and Co. Also included were some new features for HomeKit, which is not entirely uninteresting for us Hue users. After all, Philips Hue was one of the first manufacturers to offer HomeKit support a few years ago with the launch of the second-generation Hue Bridge.
As rumors have been circulating for a while now, HomeKit will offer a new function around smart lighting starting this fall: Adaptive Lighting. This requires an Apple TV, HomePod or iPad that has been configured as the control centre for HomeKit.
Activating light in the morning and cosy light in the evening
Once Adaptive Lighting is activated, HomeKit controls the colour temperature of the lamps. In the morning hours and throughout the day there are cooler, activating white tones, while in the evening the light automatically becomes warmer and more yellow.
It remains to be seen how exactly this new function will interact with the control via Hue switches. I have not yet been able to try out Adaptive Lighting myself.
I could well imagine Philips Hue integrating such a function itself in the future. After all, a similar approach has already been taken with the Smart Button, where button presses were assigned to different scenes at different times. But Philips Hue does not yet offer an automatic change of the color temperature during the day.