New API makes interaction with Philips Hue faster

A lot has happened at Philips Hue in the past weeks and months. For users, this was primarily visible through the much-discussed update of the Philips Hue app, but a lot has also happened in the background. Philips Hue has comprehensively revised the API, the interface for requests and responses to the Hue Bridge.

In particular, the response times have been significantly improved. What exactly is meant by this can be explained with a simple example: If you switched a lamp on or off with a Hue switch, it used to take a few seconds until the current status was displayed in the Hue app.

New Hue API offers push message instead of pull command

The previous API could not tell you when the status of a light had changed. Instead, it was always necessary to ask whether something had changed. For example, an app previously had to send a request to the bridge every five seconds: “Has the status of the light changed?” The answer used to be “No”, or “Yes, the light in the kitchen is now on.” This method naturally led to certain delays.

With the introduction of the new API, this has changed. Now the Hue Bridge can send messages to apps and other smart home systems. For example, an app no longer has to ask every few seconds if something has changed. Instead, it receives a message from the Hue Bridge immediately after the change: “The light in the kitchen is now on.”

Developers of apps or smart home systems first have to integrate the new API. But you can already see how quickly the Hue Bridge communicates changes in the new Hue app. There, it only takes a moment for the status of the light to be displayed correctly after you have changed it via a switch.