In the course of the week, I was able to introduce you to an exciting new release that Philips Hue actually wanted to present in September: The new Gradient Lightstrip Ambiance, a multi-coloured upgrade for the well-known Lightstrip. But that will not be all, because another Gradient product is now announced.
A normal Philips Hue lamp achieves 806 lumens. We have become used to this in recent years. We already know that this will soon change, because a month ago I was able to reveal new Hue bulbs that also manage up to 1,100 and 1,600 lumens. But that's not the only change we can look forward to.
When I asked you at the beginning of 2020 what a new light strip should be able to do, over 40 percent of you answered that it should be able to display several colours at the same time. In the meantime, the Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip is on the market, but it is specially designed to be mounted behind a TV.
When Lidl had a power strip with ZigBee on sale for just under 30 euros last December, the interest was really high. Unfortunately, there was a small problem: despite Lidl's promises, the power strip could not be paired with the Philips Hue Bridge. Müller-Licht made another attempt with the Tint power strip, which in my view was an absolute mistake: only two of the four plugs could be controlled via app – and only together.
Actually, it sounds pretty great: you can easily expand the Ambilight of your Philips TV with Philips Hue light sources. You don't even need the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box to do this, instead you just click through the TV menu a bit and you're ready to go. What sounds so simple, however, currently seems to be causing big problems again.
One of the biggest criticisms of the current Philips Hue app for many users is the tile view. What still looks quite pretty with the scenes and is also quite good to use thanks to two rows, is a big cramp with the lamps. Here, only one row is used for the display and on many smartphones there is a lot of unused space, yet you can only see three bulbs without having to scroll horizontally.
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In addition to the criticism around the widgets, one thing can be read again and again in reviews and comments around the new Philips Hue app: users would like to see the timer function back. Shortly after the launch of the new app, already more than one and a half months ago, Philips Hue promised to bring back the functionality with a future update.
The subject of widgets has kept the Hue community very busy in recent weeks. Not without reason, because the widgets, which were popular with many users, have been virtually eliminated without replacement on the iPhone and iPad. Siri shortcuts and the corresponding iOS widgets are to serve as a replacement. A workaround, because only these can perform actions directly from the homescreen without having to open the Hue app.
It should only be about a month and a half until Philips Hue presents its new products. Usually, the International Funkausstellung in Berlin has been the usual time in the past years. This is supported by the fact that Philips Hue will also participate in this year's digital keynote of the Smart Home League, which will take place on 2 September.
On Wednesday evening, Philips Hue released version 4.1 of its app and fine-tuned it again. Today I would like to take a look at one particular change: “Made it easier to select and change the color of a single light in the color picker”. This small innovation means that you can no longer drag several lamps together in the colour selector and then simply move them together to change the colour of several Hue lamps at the same time.
