Philips Hue
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Philips' Hue Beyond brings smart lighting to lamps and table lights
Here's a thing that we learned today: an enclosed light fitting, like a table lamp or a pendant light is technically called a luminaire. The reason that we now know this, is because that's the phrase Philips is using to describe the latest addition to its lineup of connected lighting devices. Hue Beyond, despite the sci-fi sounding name, is a range of lamps and ceiling lights luminaires with a dual light source -- a "tunable" white light for seeing and a color-changing bulb that you can tweak to your heart's content. Of course, as a Hue device, it's this second element that'll offer the same smart integration with online services like email alerts and IFTTT recipes. It'll hit stores in the US and Europe toward the end of this month, but be warned, adding a little bit of technical ambience to your home doesn't come cheap. The table lamp version of Beyond, for instance, will set you back €330 ($430, £260), while both the ceiling light and pendant light editions are priced up at a whopping €530 ($695, £420)
How to make your dumb home smarter without spending a fortune
If you go all out connecting your house, you can end up spending as much upgrading a smart home as it costs to build a dumb one. But you don't need a ton of proprietary gear to pimp your crib with 21st-century tech. Your smartphone and tablet already serve to consolidate your digital life, and they can do the same with your lights, power outlets, air conditioning and nanny cam -- even your door locks and Crock-Pot can be app-controlled, if you so please. Join us below to explore affordable options for your entire home, all of which can be installed yourself.
Video: Philips hue and two fun apps stir up FIFA World Cup finals fever
Do you have any of the Philips hue smart lightbulbs installed in your home? If you do, grab your iPhone, pull up the App Store, and grab two apps that promise to get you in the mood for the remaining FIFA World Cup games. Those games are scheduled for Saturday at 4 PM ET to determine the third-place team (host country Brazil vs. The Netherlands) and on Sunday at 3 PM ET to crown the World Cup champion and second-place team (Germany vs. Argentina). The first app is Hue World Cup for Philips hue (US$1.99), which is a "sound and light effects board" that works with the Philips hue bulbs to create a wild mix of light and sound. Select a country, and you can play the national anthem accompanied by a light show featuring that country's flag colors. There are plenty of sound effects to get you in the mood, even if you can't be in Brazil for the last few games: crowd noises, drums, horns, you name it! Developer David Pewzner's OnSwitch for Philips hue and LIFX (free) provides different moods that evoke Iceland, New Mexico, the Sahara, and other light tints. He's added special World Flag effects now, which provide special lighting and sound whenever a goal is scored. Of course, being "that guy" who likes to control everything in his house from his iPhone, I just had to give this setup a try with the Philips hue lightbulbs I have installed. The free OnSwitch app was tested first -- the app provides two sets of country flags. On Saturday, for example, I could use the World Flags 1 set which contains both Red/White/Blue countries (Netherlands) and the Green/Yellow/Blue flag of Brazil. Selecting a flag for the team I'm rooting for lets me know that if I'm running the app when a goal is scored by my team, the lights will flash in a spectrum of colors and I'll hear a horn. The rest of the time, the app cycles the lights between the country's colors -- with the Netherlands, it cycled between red, white and blue. . But it's the Hue World Cup for Philips hue app that is really a lot of fun. You can start off the game with the national anthem of your country's team, accompanied by the flag colors flashing on the lights. There are a number of sound effects you can choose to play, and all of the sounds can be sent to speakers over AirPlay. Crowd noises, horns, drums, clapping -- you name it, they've thought of it. It's probably the closest thing to being at the Estádio Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro for the final. . If you're a football (soccer) fan who already has Philips hue lights, it's time to grab the apps and get ready for this weekend's matches. No Philips hue lights? No problem -- head to your local Apple Store and pick up the Philips hue Connected Bulb Starter Pack for $199.95. Photo: AP Photo/Francois Xavier Marit, Pool
Philips Hue app-controlled lighting family add three new members
The Philips Hue app-controlled lighting products were among the first "Internet of Things" products we covered here at TUAW, and the product line has become quite popular. Now the company has announced three new products in the Hue line, including a new lower-cost model. Hue Lux is that inexpensive model, a white-only version of the Hue bulb that can act as a smart LED bulb that can be dimmed from the Hue app or any of over 100 third-party applications. A starter kit with two bulbs and a bridge priced at US$99.95 will be available in the second half of 2014. Each additional bulb will be $39.95. In addition, Philips announced 3D-printed table and pendant luminaires that will be made to order. No price was listed for these works of art, which you can see in the following slideshow: Nice, aren't they? I'm seeing some new hanging app-happy light fixtures in my home in the near future. The final product is a new controller for the Hue line named Tap for those times when you don't want to dig your smartphone or tablet out to be able to control a light. According to Philips you can put your own color/intensity creations from the Hue app onto the four buttons of Hue Tap. The controller is unique in that it uses no batteries -- instead, it is powered from the kinetic energy imparted by your finger taps. For those who want to dip into the world of Philips Hue lighting without spending an arm and a leg, the Lux is a nice addition. And for interior designers, the 3D luminaires offer a stylish way to add app-controlled multi-color LED lighting to homes, hotels, restaurants and offices.
Feedback Loop: 30 years of Mac, mechanical keyboards, Bitcoin alternatives and more!
Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There's so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week. This week, the Macintosh turned 30, so naturally, we had to share our fondest memories of our first Mac. We also dove into the complex world of mechanical keyboards, examined the potential health benefits of WiFi-connected LED lightbulbs, discussed the viability of Bitcoin alternatives and asked about the best laptops for software development. Click past the break and read what fellow Engadget users like you have to say.
Engadget's 2013 Holiday Gift Guide: Household
Welcome to Engadget's holiday gift guide! Head back to our hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month. If you ask us, gadgets for the home make some of the greatest gifts. After all, your parents may be doing just fine with their smartphones du jour, but now's your chance to give them the intelligent thermostat they never knew they were missing. The picks in this category represent some of the freshest ways to tech up the living room -- seriously, even the vacuums are cool.
Philips Hue gets down with app-controlled BR30 recessed lights
Philips' latest connected lighting product is taking aim at your recessed fixtures. The new Hue bulb, named BR30 to match the existing standard, screws into sockets typically pre-installed in kitchens, hallways and living rooms. They focus output in a beam, compared to the original Hue bulbs, which yield omni-directional light. That detail is the primary differentiator here -- functionality is identical, as is the price tag of $59 per individual bulb or $199 for a three-pack that includes a Hue bridge. As with their siblings, including the LightStrips and Bloom, you can control the LED BR30s from a smartphone, computer or tablet, letting you assign any color and brightness to individual bulbs. They're rated for a 15,000-hour lifespan, and Philips reports energy savings of up to 80 percent over conventional bulbs. You can pick up the BR30 beginning today from Amazon or Apple retail stores, while European customers can now order a GU10 version, which is more common in track lighting. That latter flavor will ship stateside in December.
Daily Update for August 29, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Philips Hue susceptible to hack, vulnerable to blackouts (update)
Oh, Philips. Why'd you have to make it so easy for ne'er-do-wells to go full Aiden Pearce on Hue smart light users? A recent study by researcher Nitesh Dhanjani reveals that Hue's control portal -- known as the bridge -- uses a shoddy authentication system when communicating with smartphones and computers. That system uses the bridge's MAC address, which is easy to detect. As such it's also easy to hack the device and cause a blackout. In Dhanjani's demo video below, he introduces malware into the bridge through a compromised website. This lets him find the right MAC address and take control, turning the lights off again and again, ad infinitum, regardless of the switch's status. Sure, there's no immediate threat of widescale blackouts -- smart lighting has yet to be adopted en masse, after all -- but this is a security issue companies need to address, especially since lighting plays such a critical safety role.
Daily Update for August 6, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Philips expands iOS-controlled Hue line
Still love it when the lights in your house flash a rainbow of colors every time you're mentioned in a tweet? According to The Verge, Philips has announced two new additions to the Hue line of internet-controlled lighting; the US$89.95 LightStrips and the $79.95 Bloom. LightStrips are flexible, sticky-backed two-meter lengths of small LEDs made for accent lighting and things like frames. The Bloom (seen below, from the German Philips website) is a portable lamp that can be used to highlight an entire wall with its 120-lumen LED bulb. Both lights require the Philips Hue wireless bridge, which is part of the $199.95 starter kit available at Apple Stores and other retail locations. That kit includes the bridge and three controllable LED bulbs. All of the Hue lighting products are energy-efficient and can be controlled through the Hue app or IFTTT recipes to display any of more than 16 million colors in a number of intensity levels. A source for The Verge explained that the new lights are supposed to appear in Apple Stores and on Apple's online store soon, although the publication was not able to get a response from either Apple or Philips.
Philips Hue digital lighting system will be exclusive to Apple Stores
Did you ever think that you'd be able to purchase light bulbs at an Apple Store? Well, starting tomorrow, the Philips Hue web-enabled smart bulb will be available only in Apple Stores. Like the Greenwave Reality smart LED bulbs covered by TUAW's Mike Rose last week, the Philips Hue system can be controlled from your favorite iOS device. Not only can you turn the bulbs on and off, but as the name suggests, you can adjust the color and intensity of the light. All of that is done through a free iOS app, available now. That app even allows you to match lighting to a color from any one of the photos found in your Photo Library. The bulbs aren't cheap -- a starter pack goes for US$199, including three LED bulbs and a special Wi-Fi controller. Additional bulbs cost $59 each. But the benefits are pretty incredible, using about 80 percent less power and having a bulb lifetime estimated at 15 years or 15,000 burning hours. Check out the new use for your iOS device as a light-bulb controller in the video below, or visit the Philips Hue website for more information.
Philips hue: the 'world's smartest' LED lightbulb that saves you time during Red Alerts
Historically, altering the lighting color of a room required draping a gossamer-thin cloth over a lamp or buying a new bulb from the store. Philips has sought to solve that most taxing of first-world problems with the hue, a smartphone-controlled LED bulb that can cycle through shades at your whim. As well as block colors, you can use photos to create palette and can control the units even when away from home. It'll be an Apple Store exclusive from October 30th, with individual units setting you back $59 (£49, €59) and three-bulb introduction pack with a wireless bridge for $199 (£179, €199). If that seems a little steep, just console yourself in the knowledge that it's a thousand times more useful than other lighting devices we've seen this year.
