People have been asking for this feature for years, and now it’s almost here. Even though there isn’t a specific launch date yet, Philips Hue has officially unveiled the “Backup & Restore” feature. According to Hue creator George Yianni, it’s set to launch in the coming months. However, there are some important details you absolutely need to know.
Over the past few weeks, quite a few leaks have surfaced, and overall, we can say that many of them turned out to be accurate. Only the Hue Go XXL and the kitchen lighting were not officially confirmed by Philips Hue today. In addition to the new hardware, we can also look forward to new software features, including the long-awaited “Backup & Restore.”
I briefly mentioned this yesterday in my weekly recap on hueblog.de, and I’ve since received some feedback from you all. The latest firmware update for the Hue Bridge Pro appears to be causing significant problems for some users. In addition to the posts on Reddit, I’ve also received a handful of emails from you.
Not a day goes by without questions in my inbox or in the small Hueblog community. With this e-mail from Philip, I would like to draw your attention to a topic that I am sure many of you are interested in: The backup function, which has been in development for quite some time, but has never been officially announced until now.
At the beginning of September, Philips Hue not only presented several new products at the Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin, but also numerous new software features. For example, the multi-bridge support was explained in detail and an impressive augmented reality function was shown. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually think to enquire about the possible backup function, which I reported on earlier this year.
It is one of the demands that Philips Hue users have repeatedly made: A backup function for the Bridge to be able to restore the installation that was set up with great care if the worst comes to the worst. I have never experienced a hardware defect that would make a backup necessary over the years, but you never know.
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.
Fabian