In September 2022, Philips Hue presented the Lightguide series. Three stylish E27 glass light bulbs with an internal light tube were to be launched on the market at the time. However, sales were stopped a short time later and the Ellipse model was only launched a few months later. The Lightguide Globe and Triangular versions were postponed indefinitely.
The Philips Hue app has received another update and this is particularly interesting for users of an iPhone or iPad. After a long, long time, there are finally widgets for Philips Hue again. I’ll explain exactly what you can expect in this article. Several years ago, the widgets in iOS could still be found in the Today view, and Philips Hue widgets were already available back then.
I really couldn’t think of a good story this time, so unfortunately the April Fool’s joke has been cancelled this year. Instead, I have some really exciting news for you, at least if you are looking for a particularly bright E14 bulb. You can now get them from Ikea. The Swedish furniture store has come up with the extremely innovative idea of shrinking the base on its Trådfri light bulb.
With the latest update to the Hue app, Philips Hue has already made its somewhat outdated Hue Tap smarter. In principle, the switch contains exactly the same module that we know from the Friends of Hue switches – just with slightly different firmware. I had already noted at the time that the third-party switches would be next in line.
In January 2023, Philips Hue launched a surprising cooperation with Samsung in the TV environment: the Hue Sync TV app was born. It can be used to synchronise lights to match the screen, regardless of where the picture content comes from. It is supported. The app is available on all 2022 devices from the Q60 model upwards and can be easily installed via the App Store, albeit for a hefty 129.99 euros.
Synchronising the light to match the content on the TV. Philips pursued this idea several years ago with Ambilight and Philips Hue has had its HDMI Play Sync Box at the start for some time now, and I’m expecting the successor with HDMI 2.1 this year. But why additional hardware, couldn’t it be simpler?
Over 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.
This afternoon, Philips Hue released another update in the App Store: version 5.13.0 of the official app is now available for download. And once again, a lot has changed – even more than can be read in the update description in the App Store. For example, the latest version of the app makes it much easier to edit and then save an existing scene.
In March 2024, Ikea launched a new smart socket on the market. It’s called Ikea Tretakt and costs just €7.99. The plug is currently sold out in the online shop, but is in stock in many furniture stores. And for just 2 euros more, you can also get Tretakt in a bundle with Rodret, a wireless remote control.
This morning I received an email from Amazon. “Philips Hue has published information on the product safety of a product you purchased on Amazon.de due to the following risk: manufacturing defect,” it said about an outdoor lightstrip I bought years ago. I was even more surprised by the fact that several internet blogs reported shortly afterwards that Philips Hue had launched a new replacement programme.
Fabian