We are unlikely to see an update to the Philips Hue Ap this week, but Signify has nevertheless continued to work on the software for its lighting system. A firmware update for the Philips Hue Bridge has been available for a few days. In the past, these updates have been rolled out over several days and are installed automatically if you have activated the corresponding function in the settings of your Hue app.
After around ten years as CEO of Signify, the manufacturer of Philips Hue, Eric Rondolat is stepping down from his position. He will remain CEO until the Annual General Meeting on April 25, 2025, after which he will also step down from the Management Board. This was announced by the company this week.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance is not only responsible for the Matter smart home standard, but also takes care of the Zigbee protocol. This technology is used by numerous smart home devices to communicate with each other, including the Philips Hue Bridge and the numerous Philips Hue lamps. A new Zigbee function has now been officially announced: Ambient Sensing.
On Monday, I was already able to give you the first information about the new Philips Hue Sync TV app for LG TVs. Signify has now officially confirmed the expansion of the Sync app, which was previously only available for Samsung TVs. All LG TVs equipped with at least webOS 24 will receive the new app.
The software development of Philips Hue continues to progress. A new firmware for the Hue Bridge is currently being rolled out, software version 1968096020 has been on its way to you since Thursday. In addition to the usual bug fixes, the new version also delivers some real improvements. For example, the brightness for sleep automations is said to have been improved.
Philips Hue always offers seasonal scenes in the Hue light scene gallery that are only available for a limited period of time. Currently, for example, there are ten Christmas scenes from the “Winter holidays” category. You can simply select the scenes and save them in a room of your choice. If you have missed this and the Christmas scenes have already disappeared from the Hue light scene gallery (or not yet back), you can now download them from me: Snow sparkle (Download-Link) Under the tree (Download-Link) Nutcracker (Download-Link) Jolly (Download-Link) Golden star (Download-Link) Silent night (Download-Link) Color Burst (Download-Link) Crystalline (Download-Link) Rosy sparkle (Download-Link) Festive fun (Download-Link) Simply click on the desired download link using a smartphone or tablet on which you have installed the Hue app.
We’ve been waiting a long time for this, but this week it finally became possible: several Hue Bridges can be combined into one home. Multi-Bridge support finally makes it possible to control all lights directly in the app without having to constantly switch between different views. However, not all the functions that the Hue community would like to see are integrated.
In December 2022, Philips Hue launched its first automatically running scene: Natural Light. This scene uses different shades of warm to cool white light that are automatically adjusted throughout the day. “Start with bright, cool shades to energize you in the morning and end the day with a warmer, golden hue to help you relax in the evening,” Philips Hue writes about the Natural Light scene.
I’m not really familiar with the Android world, but I could imagine that something like this has existed there for some time. With iOS 18, Apple has expanded Dark Mode and now also offers darkening on the home screen. To be more precise, app icons can be darkened. However, this still requires the help of the app developers in some cases, including Philips Hue.
Philips Hue has been offering another firmware update for its Bridge since last week. With software version 1966117030, the long-lost “Do not disturb my scene” function, which was previously part of the now discontinued Hue Labs, is also set to return. At the moment, I assume that this function will be rolled out slowly.
Fabian