Wesley Hilliard
New and brighter Philips Hue bulbs are expected to launch by September with refinements to existing designs.
The Philips Hue lineup supports many different lighting form factors, and new lights are being added all the time. Philips Hue is compatible with Apple's HomeKit via a connected bridge and is often one of the first smart home devices purchased by customers.
According to hueblog, Philips will announce new bulbs in August or September. The new bulbs include brighter versions of the standard bulbs, filament bulbs, and a new E14 filament base for the European region.
The current standard bulb is rated for 806 lumens, but this will increase to 1,100 lumens, and 1,600 lumens depending on the wattage purchased. The new bulbs require more passive cooling, so the bulb frame will be larger.
The filament bulb lineup will soon have a white ambiance version. The maximum brightness will be 550 lumens.
For European customers, Philips is introducing a new small filament bulb with the E14 base. However, these bulbs will only be available with a fixed color temperature at launch.
The hueblog post also mentions "top secret" new products. These are said to include technology found in the gradient light strip that enables simultaneous output of multiple colors.
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15 Comments
Bulbs should not get me this excited.
Every day I use over a dozen Hue bulbs in my home, and perhaps the frequencies they use are too crowded from my neighbours' own devices, (so your results may be better) but during the course of the day there are always random bulbs with "No Response." As I write this I have three Hue bulbs saying "No response." I've switched zigbee frequencies, with different results, but never get very good results. I'm done with Hue (I think the real problem is zigbee) due to many daily failures to work properly. I'll wait for bulbs that use Thread.
By the way, despite what the manufacturer claims, the bulbs are all dimmer than incandescent bulbs, and it takes extra bulbs to get the same amount of light. So unless you have the vision of an owl, get the brightest bulbs you can get, since they are all supposed to be energy efficient anyway. And don't bother with colour bulbs, which cost way too much extra and are rarely useful.
/opinion
I always thought this Philips Hue stuff was a major wank.
But hey, about a year ago I bought one of the lights for a "give it a try...mate".
What a shocker. I know have 40 various Hue lights around and in my house !! Brilliant stuff just brilliant !
The best ones are the 10 garden lights that go up my driveway.
Hey, does anyone know how I can I make them turn on one after the other as I motor up the driveway? Or even change colour as I drive up the drive way.?
Like the internal space ship lights in one of those sci-fi movies.
Any word on whether the new bulbs will support the Thread protocol?