Secretly, quietly, Philips Hue has launched a new generation of its motion sensor. Okay, new generation might not be the right word, but in any case it is a new, improved hardware revision. The focus is on a new sensor lens that, according to my information, has a slightly higher sensitivity.
If you have been wondering in the past few weeks why the geofencing of your Hue app no longer works properly, then I can tell you today: It's not your fault and it's not the fault of Philips Hue that your lights no longer switch on and off reliably when you come home or leave home.
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.
A few days ago, Philips Hue published an interesting announcement on the official developer website for all developers working on applications around the Hue system. The second version of the Hue API, which was launched a few weeks ago, can now also be used by them. The new interface is not yet completely finished, some special functions such as dynamic scenes, the gradient technology or also the fast transmission of status changes can already be integrated in third-party apps.
As already announced last week, Philips Hue has introduced an exciting innovation around the dynamic scenes with the now released update to version 4.8 of the official app. From now on, the speed of these scenes can be adjusted. The special feature here is that each dynamic scene from the Hue Light Scene Gallery comes with its own default setting, so that the speed of the colour changes matches the mood of the scene.
Philips Hue on the Apple Watch, that was a no-brainer until a few months ago. With the launch of Philips Hue 4.0, however, not only have the popular widgets disappeared, but the Apple Watch has also been dropped – and without replacement. But it seems that Philips Hue has not quite finished with the Apple Watch yet.
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.
Since today, version 4.7 of the Philips Hue app is available for download in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. As already announced by me, the dynamic scenes learn a lot with the update and work not only with the preset scenes, but also with self-created ones. Of course, this offers even more possibilities, even if the setting for adjusting the speed has unfortunately not yet been made available with this update.
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.
So, here I am again. After a little time off in the Netherlands, I'm back with daily news from the world of Philips Hue. I hope you still stopped by the blog last week, even though it was certainly a bit quieter. But there will be plenty of fodder in the coming days, because according to the official information from September, a batch of new Hue products will be launched tomorrow, 12 October.
Fabian