Main Philips Hue leak reveals ‘Professional’ hub with a killer characteristic

Philips Hue seems to be teeing up a brand new, extra highly effective hub that may flip Hue bulbs into movement sensors, in keeping with leaked particulars and pictures that briefly appeared on Philips Hue’s personal web site. 

The unannounced merchandise, which have since been yanked from the “New on Hue” web page, included the “quicker” Hue Bridge Professional in addition to a wired video doorbell, a refreshed and extra environment friendly A19 bulb, everlasting and globe-style variations of Hue’s Festavia out of doors string lights, a gradient mild strip, and the power to regulate your Hue lights with the Sonos voice assistant. 

No pricing particulars had been included within the leaked particulars, which had been reside on the Hue web site for a number of hours Wednesday. The leaked merchandise on the Hue web site had been initially noticed by customers on Reddit.

I’ve reached out to Philips Hue for remark. 

Philips Hue usually rolls out its huge product releases through the annual IFA convention in Berlin, with this 12 months’s present slated to kick off on September 5, just some weeks from now. It’s totally doable that the leaked gadgets characterize Hue’s upcoming IFA product lineup, however that hasn’t been confirmed.

The spotlight of the leaked Hue gadgets is the Hue Bridge Professional, which is “quicker, has extra capability,” and affords “ultra-fast response instances” together with “superior AI options” and “expanded capability,” in keeping with the since-deleted advertising and marketing copy on Hue’s web site. 

Even higher, the Hue Bridge Professional boasts “built-in MotionAware expertise” that may “flip your sensible lights into movement sensors,” the Hue leak mentioned. 

The Hue description didn’t embody any extra particulars about its MotionAware characteristic, however I’ve beforehand written about Ambient Sensing, a expertise that permits Zigbee gadgets, equivalent to Philips Hue lights, to work collectively as movement sensors. 

Such performance would dovetail properly with Philips Hue’s entry into dwelling safety, and it could additionally mirror the Wi-Fi-oriented SpaceSense characteristic supplied by Hue’s sibling firm, WiZ. (Each Philips Hue and WiZ manufacturers are owned by the identical father or mother firm, Signify.) 

Filling in a few of the blanks is HueBlog, which reviews that the Hue Bridge Professional will boasts a whopping 8GB of RAM (up from simply 16MB within the current Bridge) and a Wi-Fi module that permits for a wi-fi connection to your private home router. The present Bridge wants a wired ethernet connection. 

The “expanded capability” of the Hue Bridge Professional is one other attention-grabbing element from the Hue leak. The present Hue Bridge has a tender machine cap of about 50 merchandise, a restrictive quantity for these with many Hue lights, sensors, and cameras of their houses. (You can go over the 50-device restrict, however the Bridge’s efficiency might undergo consequently.) A brand new “professional” Bridge with an expanded capability can be a lifesaver for these with massive Hue collections, to not point out a greater answer than making an attempt to juggle a number of Hue Bridges in your community.  

Circling again to the house safety theme, the Hue leak additionally revealed what can be Hue’s first video doorbell, a wired unit that gives a “crisp 2K video stream” (up from the 1080p video help on Hue’s current safety cameras) in addition to “immediate” movement alerts and two-way audio. 

Additionally within the leak had been particulars of help for Sonos Voice Management, which might enable customers to “give easy instructions to your Sonos gadgets to change Philips Hue lights on and off, dim or brighten, change their shade, or choose a light-weight scene.” Rumors of Hue lights gaining help for Sonos’s voice assistant started circulating earlier this month. 

In the meantime, Philips Hue’s workhorse A19 sensible bulb appears poised to get an replace, with the Hue leak describing a revamped A19 mild that consumes 40 % much less energy whereas providing the “widest vary of tunable white tones.”

Philips Hue

Different options for the unannounced A19 bulb detailed within the leak included “ultra-low” dimming and ChromaSync expertise for “exact, constant color-matching.” Hue’s ChromaSync performance beforehand appeared in Hue’s Twilight desk lamp.

Further leaked merchandise included Festavia out of doors lights that may be mounted completely on the surface of your private home (a lot of Hue’s opponents have already launched their very own everlasting out of doors lights) in addition to globe-style Festavia string lights, with every bulb boasting “an inside tube that completely balances shade and brightness.” 

Lastly, a brand new gradient indoor/out of doors mild strip will arrive with the identical ChromaSync expertise because the A19 bulb, together with “ultra-bright, true white mild” and OmniGlow, a “superior strip mild that’s made to be a visual characteristic in any room,” in keeping with the Hue leak. 

This information story is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the most effective sensible lights.