Philips Hue IoT lighting for smart homes

By Nandita Singh

BENGALURU: You have got mail… the lights at your home will serve the notification.

Now, you can shift your dependence from your smartphone to the lighting system at your home for a number of activities and can be up and about around your home without carrying your phone with you all the time or perpetually looking down at your smart watch.

That’s the promise of Philips Hue, launched this September by Philips Lighting, the leading lighting solutions company.

The dynamic web-enabled LED home lighting system Hue uses the open ZigBee Light Link standard that allows consumers to gain wireless control over the LED fixtures, light bulbs, timers, remotes and switches. It is a simple do-it-yourself install and manage product.

“It is more than a wireless lighting system, it is a platform with an ever-growing selection of third-party apps (more than 300 at present) that deliver exciting outcomes in the IoT environment,” explained George Yianni, Head of Technology-Connected Lighting, and Co-inventor of Philips Hue while giving a live product demo at a media briefing in Bengaluru.

To use Hue all that one has to do is download the iOS or Android app for Philips Hue that features expert pre-programmed LightRecipes, which has four pre-programmed lighting settings based on Philips’ research around the biological effects that lighting has on the body.  These scenarios adjust bulbs to the optimum shade and brightness of white light to help you relax, read, concentrate or energize.

This apart Hue has the IFTTT (If This Then That) service that enables you to connect your Hue lights to over 60 different products and services with IFTTT Recipes, customizing the scenarios according to individual preferences – right from setting lighting timers to manage your daily routine to recalling your favorite light scenes to controlling the lights at your home remotely – one can define and create any number of combination setting.

"Philips Hue will take connected LED lighting beyond illumination and creating value to enhance our lives,” said Harsh Chitale, CEO, Philips Lighting – South Asia.

The Philips Hue range has a Hue Starter Kit, which includes the bridge and three Hue lamps. The bridge in the Hue starter kit can be plugged into your home Wi-Fi router with the LAN cable and the three Hue lamps can go into the existing holders. After this, one simply needs to download the Hue app to start customizing lighting. Hue kit is upgradeable with the capability to add up to 50 additional light points and is priced at Rs16,995.

It is available at the Philips Light Lounges, Croma and Reliance Digital stores in 20 select cities of India including the metros and Tier 1 cities. It is also available at snapdeal for online sales at: http://philipshue.snapdeal.com.