At least Philips Hue has a small update today. According to the update description, you can look forward to seven new scenes in the Hue light scenes gallery, of which only four are actually new. Miami, Cancun and Rio have already been available for a few weeks. Newly added are the scenes Blossom, Crocus, Precious and Narcissa in the “Refreshing” area.
Only last week, I explained in a small guide how to control several bridges on the go – until now, it was necessary to set up several Hue accounts. I could have saved myself the effort, because with the update to version 4.16 Philips Hue seems to offer new possibilities. This new option is hidden in the settings of the Philips Hue app.
It is probably the absolute worst case that especially users with a large installation fear: A total failure of the bridge. Unfortunately, Philips Hue still does not offer any backup function, even almost ten years after its launch. This means that if the bridge fails and cannot be restarted, there is a lot of work to do.
You have to hand it to Tomas Baran, the developer of Ambee: He was clearly faster than Philips Hue. Back in 2013, he offered an app, then still called Goldee, with which you could use dynamic scenes. It was eight years later that the manufacturer itself integrated such a function into his app.
When it comes to apps around Philips Hue, apart from the official app, we mainly think of apps like iConnectHue or Hue Essentials. How about a new release for a change? Hue Engage is now available in the Google Play Store. Hue Engage comes from Daniel Meyer, a developer from Switzerland.
In August, the timers returned to the Philips Hue app, but one important function was missing until now: You could switch lamps on or off and activate scenes after the timer had expired, but you could not make the lamps flash. This is now possible again. To use the function, you must first create a timer – this can be done in the Automation area.
Personally, I still don’t really like the look of Hue Essentials (Apple/Android), but that is ultimately a matter of personal taste. What is clear is that the app offers numerous functions that are not available in the Hue app. With the update to version 1.17.0, however, a function is now added that was originally introduced with the Hue app: You can colour gradient products with colour gradients.
A few weeks ago I praised the software development team of Philips Hue: Currently, new features are delivered almost every two weeks. Now the release of version 4.8 is imminent. With this update, Philips Hue will introduce a feature that many of us have been waiting for. The dynamic scenes introduced a few weeks ago will be a bit better with the upcoming update, when you will also be able to freely adjust the speed of the animation.
In the past few weeks, Philips Hue has not only launched numerous new hardware products, but has also made significant changes to the software. In addition to the new gradient function and Spotify integration, we were also pleased to see the introduction of dynamic scenes. These dynamic scenes work very simply and are integrated directly into the room view.
In addition to the many new products and the launch of the new Spotify integration, Philips Hue has even more in store today. Not only are there two more new features for the Philips Hue app, but there’s also an update promise for the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box that will especially please PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X owners.
Fabian