philips hue

Philips Hue Will Soon Let Your Lights Work Together for Scenes

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philips hue

Signify’s Philips Hue line of colorful smart home lights is getting a new feature called Hue SpatialAware, a feature that uses algorithms and a quick phone scan to understand where your lights are in relation to each other and take this into account when rendering lighting scenes. This means that if you have a room full of Hue lights, some overhead, some on the floor, and some on shelves, you can create a full sunset scene without having to deal with complicated settings.

In a press briefing room at CES 2026, guided by the Hue app, I was able to point an iPhone camera at various lights in the room to let the app know where they are in relation to each other, then trigger a lighting scene to see a result that’s more consistent throughout the room from floor to ceiling.

https://youtu.be/wsuOC5gPgyA

The app does this by using the phone’s camera and LiDAR scanner. (This works with phones that lack LiDAR, but Hue representatives told me you’ll have to tag each light from multiple angles to triangulate their location.) Once pinned, you can move the light around by pointing the camera at it to make sure it’s positioned properly in space.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dWtoDbdKCvs

Users can then tap on the version of the scene with a small star icon below it to get the SpatialAware version. The effect, individually, can be dramatic, as in the orange and pink hues of a sunset scene, or subtle, as in an “energetic” scene that is meant to simulate daylight, and in which the brighter the light, the higher its actual temperature. I didn’t really feel like I was outside, but it was definitely bright in a way that I’m sure I would never want any room in my house to be. What should I say? I like cozy lighting.

SpatialAware will be available in the spring of this year.

In addition to the Spatial Aware feature, Hue also announced that its Hue Secure cameras now work with Apple Home, though they won’t have full HomeKit Secure. For example, this means you’ll be able to do things like view their footage in the Hue app, have their live feed pop up on your Apple TV when something is detected, but you won’t get free recordings saved to iCloud.

Finally, Signify announced that Hue users can now create automations using the app’s built-in cloud-based AI assistant — for example, one of Hue’s representatives told the assistant to turn off all of its lights at midnight. The assistant thought for a moment, then returned the same exact automation. Unlike a similar Google Home feature that debuted last year, Hue’s AI assistant is free to use.



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