FabianTogether with the Hue Bridge Pro, Philips Hue has introduced a new technology that turns Hue lights into motion sensors. In addition to the new bridge, MotionAware requires three or four lamps in a room, arranged in a suitable configuration. As soon as movement is detected by changes in radio frequencies within this area, the lights can be switched on.
In the future, Philips Hue will certainly put even more work into this new feature and provide us with additional functions. George Yianni gave us a first glimpse of this in a detailed YouTube interview with HomeKit Insider. “Theoretically, we can detect more than just movement. The next step would then be presence,” says the Hue inventor.
Presence detection could open up a whole new range of possibilities. With the appropriate upgrade, MotionAware could detect when everyone has left the room or movement area and switch the lights off immediately. Currently, this is only possible after a fixed time period.
The number of MotionAware zones is also set to increase.
But that’s not all. There is also hope for pet owners: “Perhaps we will find a way to detect more things in the future. But we only want to do that once we are sure that it works reliably.”
Philips Hue also wants to address a limitation that already exists. “We want to see how we can spread MotionAware even more widely in the home and support more areas over time. The challenge again is that we have to take care of the network load so that everything else runs smoothly.” Currently, MotionAware is limited to four motion areas per Hue Bridge Pro.
However, I still hope that Philips Hue will not rely solely on software in this regard, but will also keep an eye on its classic motion detector. After all these years, it certainly deserves an upgrade to a presence sensor, although this would of course only be possible with new hardware. This would definitely be justified, as not all rooms are designed for proper use with MotionAware.
Hue Bridge Pro
$98.99 / €89.99
Really excited to hear George Yianni hint at more advanced use cases. Expanding beyond simple motion to understanding presence could unlock a whole new level of automation—especially for rooms where movement is minimal.
Looking forward to this working more as setting the right name for scene control in Apple HomeKit for my partner to use on voice command is limiting
Still waiting delivery of pro bridge so I can finally have cameras , lights through out house working in sync currently 110+ devices and 3 separate bridges around the house on WiFi extenders
Slim lining the system to work efficiently with HomeKit is my end goal
I really wish there was a way to use motionaware to trigger automations or scenes (especially outside of the Hue environment – such as in Apple Shortcuts) without having to pay for Hue Secure. Anyone figure out a way to do so?