News from Hue: AI assistant and lamp sync with LG TVs
Hue lamps will soon be able to synchronise with LG televisions and thus light up your home cinema in all the colours that can be seen on the screen. An AI assistant for the Hue app has also been confirmed and is due to be released later this year.
Signify, the company behind the Philips Hue brand, has announced some new features for Ent-hue-siasten. The Hue app will soon have an AI assistant that can respond to your lighting preferences. You will also soon be able to synchronise your Hue lights with an LG TV, allowing you to adjust the lighting to what's on TV.
Generative AI for the Hue app
The announcement of an AI assistant comes as no surprise: back in October 2024, the well-informed Hue blog reported that Hue was working on an AI. Commands are also listed there, such as: "Create a scene for a child's birthday party" or "Create a scene for a cosy breakfast".
Signify confirms that you will be able to interact with the assistant via text and voice input. Signify is otherwise very tight-lipped about the performance of its AI. In the Hueblog, the author initially suspected limited functionality and that the AI might not initially be able to create new scenes. Instead, it could only offer suitable suggestions from existing scenes.
Source: Philips Hue
According to Signify, the assistant "delivers personalised lighting scenes" without specifying what is meant by this. However, the Signify announcement talks about a generative AI, i.e. an AI that can create content. This suggests that it will not just provide suggestions. The new feature will also be continuously improved through feedback.
Signify is not giving an exact date for the release of the AI assistant, instead only mentioning the year 2025. It will initially only be available in English and "in selected markets".
LG TVs will soon be able to control your Hue lights
Signify also announced a partnership with LG. From the beginning of 2025, the Hue Sync TV app will also be available for LG TVs after Samsung.
With the app, your TV synchronises the connected lamps without the need for additional hardware - such as the Hue Sync Box. This means that the lighting adapts to the screen content being played - regardless of whether you are watching films and series or playing games. According to the announcement, formats such as Dolby Vision and 8K are also supported.
Not only LG televisions that are being released this year are compatible, but also some models from previous years. The TV only needs to be equipped with the WebOS24 operating system (or higher).
The app has already been available for Samsung televisions for two years. However, dynamic lighting control comes at a price. The app costs around 130 euros/francs as a one-off or around three euros/francs per month.
Security cameras recognise smoke detector alarms
There is also news for users of Hue security devices. Wired Hue Security cameras will "in future" be able to recognise smoke detector alarm signals. If a camera identifies a smoke detector alarm, Hue will send a message to your smartphone and switch on a red light so that you can see better in the event of smoke.
In addition, it will soon be possible to stream the live feed from your cameras to the screens of Amazon Alexa, Google Nest and "other devices". Signify does not provide any further details on the other devices.
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