Philips declared the second-era Hue center on Monday, demonstrating how you can say “Hey Siri, wake up” and have all lights in your home switch on in the early morning. Scene activation is also Siri-ready, meaning you can choose lighting presets from Philips (or create your own) and mark them for Siri so you can turn them on or off using voice commands.
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The Hue Bridge 2.0 will be available as part of Philips’ Hue starter kits, which will be released today, October6 in North America and in Europe for US$60.
As such, HomeKit-enabled new Philips Hue line of lights will allow “smart” homemakers to control the lights simply by talking to Apple’s “Siri” digital personal assistant. So with only one command you can unlock the front door, turn the lights on and the heating up, truly transforming how you experience and interact with your home.
“Lighting is the most accessible aspect of the connected home, and as the lighting expert for the internet of things we are taking connected lighting to the next phase”. Other than voice controls with Siri, everything that you can do with Hue on an iPhone will be the same on an Android phone.
The company said the new Hue Bridge also supports Nest’s Weave unified home automation platform.
Philips also revealed that it’s updating Hue’s A19 bulbs to 800 lumens and emphasized that the original Philips Hue Bridge will “continue to be supported with software updates”.
Unfortunately, a new Hue control box is required to make use of voice commands. At just 600 lumens, the existing Hue bulbs fell awkwardly in between the brightness you’d expect from a 45-watt bulb and what you’d get with a 60-watt bulb.
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Philips also rebranded Hue Lux bulbs to Hue White and introduced the new LEDs “Philips Hue White and Color”. In its studies of how lighting affects people and our quality of life, Philips has come up with what it calls “light recipes” for when you need a certain kind of mood in your home. The standalone new Philips Hue starter kit has been priced at $199 (approximately Rs. 13,000) and can be purchased from the company’s store or other online retailers.
