FabianOver the past seven years, Philips Hue has repeatedly tried out small and useful new functions and made them available in Hue Labs. Some of the features made available there for testing even made it into the Hue app. But that's all over now: As Philips Hue has announced in a support document, Hue Labs will be discontinued in June 2024.
“After June 2024, automated formulas will continue to run as is, but you won't be able to edit them”, Philips Hue announced.
What about the previous formulas from Hue Labs?
Thanks to Hue Labs, a number of exciting functions have become possible over the past seven years, some of which are still exclusive to this beta environment. However, Philips Hue has already provided a direct replacement for most of the formulas from Hue Labs directly in the Hue app.
An overview of all Hue Labs formulas, their functions and the possibilities in the Hue app can be found in the following graphic.
Some features have not yet made it into the Hue app, such as “Sensor Couple” for the cooperation of two motion detectors in a room or zone. However, Philips Hue has now announced that this function is already being planned. The same applies to “Personal go to sleep”, “Sunset Simulation” and “Do not disturb my scene”. Some of these options are already available in third-party apps such as iConnectHue.
Beta functions directly in the Philips Hue app in future
In future, Philips Hue will no longer offer new functions in Hue Labs, but will integrate them directly into the app and label them as beta features. “You’ll see ‘Beta' next to the features that we’re currently testing out”, says Philips Hue.
Personally, I won't really miss Hue Labs, because the beta environment wasn't really user-friendly. Everything always seemed a bit cobbled together. So I'm all the more excited about the implementation of the beta functions in Philips Hue.
This is great! I actually suggested much of this multiple times as feedback.
As an early adopter of Hue products as they were clearly way ahead of anyone 15 years ago, I was disappointed that they didn’t support their hardware with intuitive software. 3rd parties did most of the work first
I used Hue Labs a few years ago, mainly for the Tap control. However, I found Labs too cumbersome when it came to reprogramming, for example, so I won’t miss this add-on either. And now the old Tap control has gotten scene cycles in the app 🙂
This is great news. I can’t wait to get the Do not Disturb My Scene feature to work with natural light.
Guess this is why they don’t send test products anymore, I’ve acquired a lot of Phillips hardware over the years, haven’t been sent anything for about 18 months now. I’m still part of the Labs program that’s not public. Guess that’s it. I would never pay the asking price for the products they work nicely but not at the prices they charge.