Philips Hue to unveil its own smart home camera

Philips Hue usually introduces new products around the International Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin. Signify CEO Eric Rondolat has now revealed what we can expect this year during a conference call. One thing is already certain: Philips Hue will get a home monitoring system, similar to what Signify's second brand Wiz already got a few months ago.

“The idea here is also to use security for lighting and lighting for security,” Rondolat looks ahead to the future fusion of cameras and lighting. He also immediately provides a practical example: a burglar in the house triggers the alarm and all the lights flash red. ” Why is that interesting? Because sound alarms cannot be heard from a distance as they are really kept inside the house. But, the light can be seen from a long distance.”

At the same time, Philips Hue cameras and security products should also be able to be used for lighting. Again, the idea is simple: cameras in the home can detect movement and automatically activate lighting, similar to what is already possible with the Hue motion sensor.

It is already clear that data protection will play an important role. That's why Rondolat says: “Our cameras will be the first with end-to-end encryption.” This means that it should not even be possible for the manufacturer itself to decrypt your videos that might be stored in the cloud.

What might a Philips Hue camera look like?

What exactly the home monitoring product will look like that Philips Hue will introduce at the end of the summer is still open. I think a stand-alone camera is very likely, after all Signify has already brought a corresponding model onto the market with the Wiz Indoor Camera. But it is also conceivable that Philips Hue will follow the example of other smart home manufacturers and combine a lamp with a camera, which would be particularly suitable for outdoor use.

It will also be exciting to see how Philips Hue integrates home monitoring into the Hue app. Simple things such as motion detection are already included in the Hue app. However, there should be a completely new area around the topic of cameras and video recording.