Philips introduces Hue – the world’s smartest LED bulb

20 May 2013

Philips introduces Hue – the world’s smartest LED bulb

New Zealand – Today Philips marks a new era in home lighting in New Zealand with the launch of Philips Hue, the world’s smartest web-enabled LED home lighting system that can be controlled from your smartphone or tablet.

Philips Hue can be set up in minutes. The intuitive app allows you to remotely control and personalise your home lighting experience with custom settings, and to programme timers.

David Procter of Philips Lighting New Zealand says, “The intuitive Hue application introduces a completely new way of interacting with and experiencing light. In the way phones, media and entertainment have been revolutionised by digital technology, now we can also personalise light and enjoy limitless applications”.

With its high quality energy-saving LED light, Philips Hue allows you to tune shades of white light or create any colour. In addition, Philips Hue can:

· Save your favourite light scenes for each room or time of day and recall them in an instant

· Use any photo on your phone as a colour palette to paint your room with light and bring your memories back to life

· Tune white light from warm candlelight to vibrant, cool white light

· Create ambience or complement your decor with the colours of the rainbow

· Control and monitor your lights remotely when not at home for security and peace of mind

· Set timers to help manage your daily routine

· Let light wake you up refreshed or help your loved ones fall asleep.

“Philips continues to be the global leader in LED technology, providing innovative and unique solutions for home lighting. Hue takes it one step further by providing great energy-efficient LED light quality that is integrated with the latest technology, helping to make our lives that little bit easier,” says Mr Procter.

Philips Hue is now available for purchase online via the Apple Store (http://store.apple.com/nz) for RRP NZ$279. A starter pack includes three bulbs[1] that simply screw into your existing lamps, and a bridge that you plug into your home Wi-Fi router. Simply download the Hue app to start experiencing light in a completely new way.

Hue app version 1.1 – key features designed to intuitively enhance your lifestyle

Using the internet automating service IFTTT (If This Then That), Hue enables you to hook up to the internet via your smartphone or tablet and use your bulbs as indicators for weather, stocks, sports scores, emails, social media and more. They can be set to behave in any way you choose. For example, the bulbs can change colour if it’s going to rain and blink if you get an urgent email. They can also illuminate gradually as the sun sets, or flash in your sports team’s colours when they score.

The new ‘geofencing’ feature means your smartphone or tablet can detect when you or your family are approaching or leaving home and trigger Hue’s bulbs to turn on/off automatically, or change colour or light setting – all without having to even take your device out of your pocket.

The Philips Hue app also features expert LightRecipes, which are four pre-programmed lighting settings based on research that Philips has done around the biological effects that lighting has on the body. These scenarios adjust the bulbs to the optimum shade and brightness of white light to help you relax, read, concentrate or energise.

The ‘recurring schedules’ feature means you can programme Hue to enhance your family’s daily routine and create settings for activities such as waking up, homework or bedtime – without the need to reset each day. If you go on holiday, the timer function can be set to turn lights on and off at random times while you’re away to give you peace of mind.

Limitless potential – the future of Hue

An intuitive and seamless system, Philips Hue is upgradeable and future-proof. The future includes possible extensions to Hue’s capabilities through new applications and integration with other products and services. Philips has opened up the Hue app to the developer community by creating an open source platform at developers.meethue.com for developers to explore the app and unleash even more possibilities for enhancing life with light.

Since Philips published Hue’s open APIs and software developers’ kit on 11 March, over thirty new apps have already hit the market. Some of these allow Hue’s smart bulbs to coordinate with music and album art, visualise your heart rate for home workouts, assist in planetary study, respond to spoken commands, and synchronise with television screens for an ambient, immersive viewing experience.

Philips Hue uses the open ZigBee Light Link standard so that it can be integrated with other ZigBee certified systems. This means Hue bulbs can not only communicate with each other, they also have the potential for communicating with other ZigBee-based devices such as motion sensors and home thermostats, while offering a broad signal range and using significantly less stand-by power than traditional Wi-Fi systems.

Anyone can share light scenes or get inspired on the www.meethue.com community site. Additional apps developed for Hue are available through app stores or meethue.com. Further innovations such as new Hue bulb types are also due to be announced later this year.

ends

© Scoop Media