I had mixed feelings when I tested the Hue Secure camera. The integration into an existing Hue installation and the Hue app is really well done. In contrast to other smart home cameras, however, some functions and extras are still missing. From 14 November, Philips Hue will at least expand its hardware selection somewhat.
Philips Hue has not launched any new light strips this year. My favourite remains the Philips Hue Ambiance Gradient Lightstrip, which can display several colours and has quite small distances between the individual LEDs. However, at a price of well over 100 euros, the two metre long light strip is not particularly cheap.
Yesterday afternoon, Philips Hue released another update for its app. The official application for controlling your smart lights is now available in version 5.3.1. The latest update brings “various bug fixes and stability improvements”. I've gone through the entire app several times now, but haven't noticed any changes so far. If you have discovered an improvement, please write in the comments.
Innr already made a name for itself a few years ago as a manufacturer of Hue accessories. Just like Signify, the Dutch brand had already brought out some exciting products before Philips Hue followed suit. Innr was also a little quicker when it came to smart plugs, but thanks to ZigBee they were always compatible with the Hue Bridge.
A community post by Jenaih brought a rather interesting story to my attention. He writes in his comment: “Am I the only one who noticed that the effects Candle, Fireplace and Prism also run on Hue lamps without Bluetooth?” I can now answer this question with a partially “yes”. But let's start from the beginning.
Earlier this week I published my review of the Hue Secure camera for you. The new cameras are perfectly integrated into the Hue system, but there is still room for improvement in some areas. Among other things, I found out that clips with a maximum length of 15 seconds are recorded when movements are detected.
I'm sure I reported on this last year or the year before, but the question keeps coming back to me – twice this week, in fact: How do you link a second Philips Hue Bridge to your Philips Hue account? For example, Paul writes to me in an email: “I have a holiday home in which I operate a second Hue Bridge.
We have been using the new Philips Hue Secure Camera in our office for almost a week now. Today I would like to provide you with further experiences, you are welcome to see this article as a kind of review. But there are probably so many details that I can't go into all the little things.
It's probably the horror scenario in the smart home: someone external gets access to your camera and can watch you in your most private moments. To prevent just that, Philips Hue relies on standard end-to-end encryption for its new Hue Secure cameras. This is exactly what is far from standard in the industry.
It's finally here – the Philips Hue Secure Camera. I am very curious to see how the latest product from Philips Hue will perform in practice. Before I test the camera in my home, I would like to tell you about my first impressions of the unboxing and installation. Just like with its other products, Philips Hue uses plastic-free packaging for the Hue Secure camera.
Fabian