FabianThe Philips Hue software team really can’t be accused of being idle this year. After numerous app updates, there is now a new firmware for the Hue Secure cameras with numerous improvements and bug fixes. One new feature sounds very promising, but I haven’t been able to try it out myself yet. Maybe one of you will be quicker?
In the release notes, Philips Hue writes: ‘Allows a camera to be added to another Home using the property card without removing it from the existing Home.’
So is it now possible to use the Hue Secure cameras with two Hue Bridges at the same time? Unfortunately not. Previously, you had to remove the camera from the first Bridge in order to add it to another Bridge. Now you can add it to a second Bridge and only use it with this Bridge if you have the Ownership Card. Previously, you had to remove the camera from the old bridge beforehand, which is of course difficult to do in the event of a defect.
Further improvements for the Hue Secure cameras
- Overlays will now appear on every video clip.
- Updated package detection.
- Added Hue logo watermark to live view.
- Improved firmware update stability.
- Increased firmware update speed.
- Improved firmware update failure reporting.
- Improved video clip response time on battery cameras to ensure camera captures shorter events.
- Improved Bluetooth connection speed.
- Reduce the false events triggered by rain and trees.
- Improvements in people detection.
All bug fixes at a glance
- Fixed live view timeouts and connection issues.
- Fixed issues with live view showing as mostly black or mostly white.
- Fixed events triggered by activity outside of Activity zones.
- Fixed issues with false alarms or missed detections on battery cameras after they’d been in sleep mode for a long period of time.
- Made sure battery camera won’t go into sleep mode without turning off Bluetooth
This is undoubtedly quite a long list of improvements. What is still missing is support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, which Philips Hue has already promised. Apple Home is being left out for the time being, as the company wants to wait for camera support for the Matter standard.
Philips Hue Secure Camera
from $199.99 / €199.99 / £174.99
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Frederick
Why are they defacing our videos with a non-removable watermark and logo? I know the video is from a Philips camera. This just feels like forced advertising if I share my footage with anyone. It feels really cheap. Not something I expect or associate with Philips. I hope they add the ability to disable it or I’m not buying anymore of their cameras.
Is anyone else having issues with firmware upgrade to the cameras?
I recently tried to connect to brand new cameras, and after they updated their firmware out of the box, they Got stuck rebooting. Purple LED On the camera would just flash for hours. They would not finish rebooting. Upon removing power from the cameras and plugging it back into power, they are both non-functional no lights no LEDs nothing.
Why don’t Philips Hue Secure cameras support RTSP or ONVIF? Doesn’t GDPR require companies to make personal data interoperable? I’m thinking about asking the data protection office about this.