Wesley Hilliard
Matter is the future unifying connectivity standard for the smart home, and Philips Hue is promising a seamless transition to the new system.
Philips Hue is a brand of smart home products centered around lights and controllers. It has always been on the front line of adopting new standards and is one of the easiest entry points into Apple's HomeKit ecosystem.
The Connectivity Standard Alliance announced Matter, a new standard for the smart home that was produced by a group of popular tech companies. Signify, which owns the Philips Hue brand, told AppleInsider it would bring Matter to its existing products via a simple firmware update.
"Within Philips Hue, we are always looking to provide our users with the latest innovative and enhanced connected experiences with other smart home systems," said George Yianni, Head of Technology Philips Hue at Signify. "By actively participating in demos and testing the interoperability of Philips Hue with other smart home devices via Matter, we were able to raise the smart home experience with Philips Hue to the next level. I believe this single, unified connectivity standard will transform smart home technology from an emerging technology to mass household adoption."
The Hue Bridge is the link between a user's home network and Philips Hue devices, and it will receive an over-the-air update that will make all connected products a part of the Matter standard. This update will carry over all settings and other options the user has set up, so there is no fear of lost data or new setup.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance is made up of several companies that include Signify and Apple. Formerly referred to as "Project Connected Home over IP," Matter is a connectivity standard that promises to make shopping for smart home devices easier than ever. Rather than worry about being locked into a single ecosystem like Google or Apple, Matter enables devices to work with them all.
Look for products with the Matter branding in the last quarter of 2021. The Philips Hue software update will arrive after Matter launches to the public.
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Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Amber Neely
5 Comments
I wonder if WIZ will get the same treatment,
I wonder about the security implications of using Matter to include non-HomeKit devices on a HomeKit network. Also, what, if any, is the relationship between Matter and Thread?
Hue products are great, I'm sure. But they are way overpriced and require a bridge. Not for me...just my opinion.
I have nearly 20 Hue bulbs, and at any given time of the day a random couple of them are "not responding." At the time I write this, two Hue bulbs are not responding. I've tried changing the Zigbee channels, which has improved the situation from 50% "not responding" down to 10% not responding. It sounds like a hardware issue to me, so I'm not only avoiding Hue bulbs in the future, but anything that's Zigbee. I've got my new Thread HomePod Minis, which support Thread, and I want to try some Thread bulbs to see if that solves the problem.