For many years, we had to make do with the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus. With 1,700 lumens, it was quite bright, but the spacing between the individual LEDs was really very large at six centimeters. It was not until the Philips Hue Ambiance Gradient Lightstrip that the spacing was significantly reduced, as can be seen in the following image.
I don’t want to get too involved in politics, but I would still like to report on the impact this has had on Philips Hue users. As announced last week, prices for Philips Hue products in the US have risen as a result of tariffs. As of 1 July, it is now clear by how much: almost all Hue products in the US have become around 10 percent more expensive.
In recent years, Philips Hue has always unveiled new products at the International Radio Exhibition in Berlin—and this year seems to be no different. An invitation has just landed in my mailbox. Under the motto “Reimagine your home,” Philips Hue plans to introduce new products on the evening of September 3, which is Wednesday during IFA week.
Voice control of Philips Hue with Alexa has now become a whole lot easier, at least if you use more than one Hue Bridge in your household. After what felt like an eternity, Philips Hue has finally delivered a feature that many of us have been waiting for for years. “Now you can use Alexa to control multiple bridges in your home”, says the update description for version 5.45.1, which is now available for download in the Apple App Store and will soon be available in the Google Play Store.
There is bad news for the many Hue fans in the United States: from July 1, numerous Philips Hue products will become even more expensive than they already are. The manufacturer announced this in a marketing newsletter at the beginning of the month and has now officially confirmed it to the Hueblog.
Along with the launch of new products last week, Philips Hue has made a significant change. This is not something that is done lightly, but rather after careful consideration. Philips Hue has changed its logo. This is clearly visible when comparing the old and new packaging. On the right side of the image, you can see part of the packaging for the new Philips Hue Play Wall Washer, which was unveiled last week.
As part of the announcement of the new Philips Hue Play Wall Washer, the manufacturer of our favorite lighting system has also shared new information about the Hue AI Assistant. The new tool is already available in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. At the end of August, the AI Assistant will be rolled out globally – though still only in English.
Philips Hue released another update for its official app on Thursday. However, I can keep this brief: there are no major new features. “Various bug fixes and stability improvements,” says the update description for version 5.44. Every now and then, new features do creep in, but so far I haven’t noticed anything.
Back in March, Philips Hue held a flash sale where you could save 25 percent with the right coupon code. Unfortunately, shortly after it started, the promotion was reduced to 15 percent in Germany. Now the promotion is back, and you can save 25 percent when you buy at least two products from the Philips Hue online shop.
If you are interested in the technical background and cloud connectivity of Philips Hue, then this blog post from Google will certainly be of interest to you. In it, the Philips Hue manufacturer, together with Google, explains some of the background to cloud connectivity. Since 2015, Philips Hue has been using the cloud container infrastructure Kubernetes, an open-source system from Google.
Fabian