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.
Motion sensors are a really great thing. They can automatically switch on the light depending on the brightness and time of day when you move through the room. In my home, I have activated a motion sensor in the stairwell that activates a night light for 30 seconds at night, for example.
I announced it quite a while ago, now it is finally available in the App Store and also in the Google Play Store. The latest update for the Philips Hue app, which at least fixes a few small things. In the new version of the app, you can finally dim lamps directly in the room view again – to do this, you simply hold your finger down on a switched-on lamp for a long time and can then move your finger up or down to adjust the brightness.
Even though I personally find the foundation that Philips Hue has laid with the new app quite appealing, overall I still find a lot missing in the current version. In particular, I think the tile view and the constant switching from one bridge to another are extremely annoying. Of course, there are some apps that offer multi-bridge functionality, especially iConnectHue or Hue Essentials.
A few weeks ago, Hueblog reader Johan from Sweden was kind enough not only to inform me about the launch of the new filament lamps from Ikea, but also to get me the novelties when they were not yet available in Germany. Unfortunately, it took a little longer than planned with the postal delivery and in the meantime I was able to find out that Philips Hue will launch its first E14 filament in autumn.
A lot has happened at Philips Hue in the past weeks and months. For users, this was primarily visible through the much-discussed update of the Philips Hue app, but a lot has also happened in the background. Philips Hue has comprehensively revised the API, the interface for requests and responses to the Hue Bridge.
Along with the launch of the new Philips Hue app in June, our favourite manufacturer has announced a new feature that will be unlocked with a later update: Dynamic Scenes. In this article I would like to keep you updated with all the information around these new possibilities. What do you have to look out for?
A visit to Ikea is worth it twice this month. Next week there will be a new Sonos speaker and four new light bulbs from the Trådfri series are already available. Today I would like to take a look at the new ZigBee lamps with frosted glass. In my opinion, these are a real eye-catcher.
Fabian