As we reported last week, Philips is readying new HomeKit enabled smart home accessories, including new lights with better color reproduction and a HomeKit-compatible bridge box, for early October launch. However, it seems that some of the new products have appeared on sites like Amazon and Best Buy a bit prematurely, as Philips is yet to officially acknowledge the new devices.
- Philips Hue Bridge – $59.99
- Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter A19 Kit — $199.99
- Philips Hue White Starter A19 Kit
This is not a complete list of what Philips has in the wings, more should surface soon …
Combined with the new bridge box, the Hue lights finally bring full support for Apple’s HomeKit technology allowing you to control Hue lights using integrated apps on the iPhone and with voice commands through Siri, such as ‘turn off all the lights’ or ‘start the party scene’. The Hue Bridge only supports HomeKit light protocols however, so devices like the Hue Tap will not be included in the HomeKit ecosystem.
One user on Reddit has already got his hands on the new gear and has posted some photos of the new products. It also confirms that one of the new Hue lights can indeed max out at 800 lumens, as we claimed in our report from last week.
We had heard an official launch was planned for October 6th. This may have been brought forward given the advance listings on Amazon and other sites. Hue lights were already popular; the addition of HomeKit integration will only continue their trajectory into the smart home.
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“The Hue Bridge only supports HomeKit light protocols however, so devices like the Hue Tap will not be included in the HomeKit ecosystem”
Does this mean that the system will no longer work with the Echo if you hook the bridge in line, or that the system with the built in HomeKit integration will not allow anything outside of HomeKit to communicate with the lights?
-JAE
Yeah this is an interesting one.. technically, the Hue Tap doesn’t need to work with HomeKit because it’s just a switch so long as Hue Tap works with the new Bridge (which I would imagine it has to if they keep selling the Tap) it should be fine.. but will it communicate with other devices it supported officially (Echo) or unofficially (the GE bulbs)
Saw this on Cnet “Of course, Siri isn’t the only voice control platform that can control Hue LEDs. The bulbs already work with the Amazon Echo smart speaker, and more specifically with “Alexa,” the cloud-connected, voice-activated artificial assistant housed within. However, Alexa can only turn Hue lights on or off, or dim them — the engineers at Philips tell me they’re still working with Amazon on programming spoken commands for color-changes and scene launches. It’s a battle worth paying attention to as Siri and Alexa continue duking it out to serve as the smart home’s voice of choice.”
http://www.cnet.com/products/philips-hue-bridge-2-0-with-apple-homekit-support/
So no homekit support for the older bridge then?
The price you pay sometimes for being an early adopter. The problem is that you need new hardware to support HomeKit. It’s not as simple as just taking a software update. So it’s not that they don’t want to do it….It’s that it is physically impossible
This kit is on the front page of the Best Buy weekly ad, and it is in stock at several Best Buy stores already.
Just got my kit at Bestbuy
Does it work only with 110V or it also works with 220V?
Looking forward to these becoming more mainstream (i.e. lower cost). My family room has a single outlet that’s connected to the wall switch which is not where I want my floor lamp to be. So now I have to manually go to the lamp and flip the switch (I’ve got three lamps in that room) when ever it gets dark. Would be nice to just tap a button on my phone to turn all three lights on/off. Though I’m not ready to drop $200 for that luxury.
It’s just too expensive for what it is…
All these high tech items will not really go far as these items are not really a day to day use items like the iphone. if they were priced more reasonably, then every one would gladly get them. now why would the day to day individual pay over $40 for 3 or 4 lite bulb just because you can control them from a distance. most people are just as happy with regular bulbs. if they were priced cheaper, then the company could make a huge profit just on volume of sell.
I literally bought the philips hue lux starter kit with the old bridge about 3 weeks ago… will Philips replace my bridge with the new one for free? Why sell something that they know is going to be superseded in such a short timeframe?
The same happened for me. I bought my starter kit less than one month ago and I bought it because Philips told the old bulbs will work later with Homekit but they never specified that it would need a new bridge. I already wrote to Philips Switzerland to know if an exchange is possible.
I also read on another UK blog that Philips will do a 33% discount to existing Customer.
Hope they’ll have a good replacement programm.
I believe they’re selling the new bridge for $40 to existing bridge owners (whether recent or long-term)
What smart lock is that shown in the video? I’ve looked everywhere and I don’t think it’s a Philips lock? Any ideas?