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.
Motion detection with Philips Hue has been possible for what feels like ages with the Hue Motion Sensor. The motion detector is available for indoor and outdoor use, and its tasks can now also be performed by a Hue Secure camera. I told you some time ago that Philips Hue is working on motion detection without additional hardware.
Last October, I was able to announce that Philips Hue was working on AI-generated scenes for its lighting system. The feature was officially announced in early 2025, and at least the icon has already appeared in the Hue app. Now the official rollout is beginning, albeit with some limitations. “Earlier this week, we started an initial rollout of the Hue AI assistant to our English-speaking users in the Benelux”, explains Hue inventor George Yianni.
In recent years, I have been repeatedly confronted with support requests on this very topic, and now Philips Hue has finally integrated a solution into its app. With version 5.43 of the Hue app, which is already available in the Apple App Store and will soon also be available in the Google Play Store, a small accessory trap has been fixed.
In April 2019, Signify, formerly Philips Lighting, acquired the French company WiZ. Since then, it has been operating as a low-budget brand with WiFi connectivity right next to the top dog Philips Hue. Now I ask myself: could the products of the two brands WiZ and Philips Hue soon be compatible with each other?
Fabian