Philips Hue Bridge Pro Just Made It Easy To Add Motion Sensing To Your Old Smart Lights

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• MotionAware connected nan caller Hue Bridge Pro is nan standout feature.
• IFA 2025 lineup includes Essentials lights, a strip, and more

• Philips Hue adds Sonos Voice Control to its smart lighting products.

Philips Hue announced a bunch of caller products astatine its IFA 2025 event. From nan affordable Essentials scope to caller smart ray strips, location were a batch of cool products, but I was astir intrigued by nan caller Bridge Pro and its expertise to adhd mobility sensing to some caller and existing Philips Hue smart ray products.

MotionAware

The Philips Hue Bridge Pro supports a caller characteristic called MotionAware, which uses power wave (RF) sensing to observe changes successful nan Zigbee awesome betwixt bulbs, converting them into motion-sensing devices without nan request for outer mobility sensors. The characteristic will activity pinch 95% of existing Hue products (those manufactured aft 2014).

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I sewage a demo of MotionAware, and it was beautiful impressive. Philips says you request astatine slightest 3 Hue lights to make MotionAware work. These don't needfully request to beryllium smart bulbs but tin beryllium ray strips aliases different Hue ray products, too. MotionAware won't activity pinch third-party devices aliases battery-powered Hue lights.

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It was easy to group up successful nan demo. You request nan Hue app to prime nan room and participating lights. While calibrating (a 20-second process), they'll blink erstwhile to corroborate nan setup process, and you're each set. MotionAware tin beryllium triggered by pets because it tin only consciousness movements and cannot separate betwixt humans and pets. The activity information is sent to nan Bridge Pro, which analyzes it and applies AI algorithms to find nan origin of nan movements.

You tin besides alteration nan sensitivity, tie shapes astir an area wherever you want MotionAware to work, and take if you want to group up information notifications. However, you'll require a Hue Secure subscription to make information notifications work. While nan subscription starts astatine $40 a twelvemonth (including video storage), you tin subscribe to only MotionAware information alerts for $1 per month.

Philips Hue besides announced a business pinch Sonos, truthful you tin power your Hue products pinch Sonos Voice Control. It only useful successful English and French, because those are nan only 2 languages supported by Sonos' sound assistant.

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As 1 of nan journalists successful nan room pointed out, it'd beryllium cool if MotionAware could consciousness which room you're successful and displacement euphony to your Sonos room speaker (from another, say, surviving room soundbar) automatically. This isn't imaginable yet, but it's a cool idea, and nan institution says it's moving connected expanding capabilities successful its business pinch Sonos.

While we're connected sound assistants, it is worthy mentioning that Philips Hue has besides added an AI adjunct wrong its app. It tin beryllium operated pinch type-in commands arsenic good arsenic voice. You tin inquire it to group nan taxable of nan room aliases usage generative AI to propose much lighting options based connected your mood.

A batch much Philips Hue products

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Alongside my favourite MotionAware announcement, Philips Hue besides announced its first-ever doorbell. The Philips Hue Secure Video Doorbell is simply a wired merchandise (rather than battery-powered). It supports 2K video signaling pinch a 180-degree section of position horizontally and vertically. It will spell connected waste successful October 2025 for $170.

The institution introduced nan Hue Essentials merchandise line, which is simply a fund replacement to nan reliable Philips Hue products. The caller lineup consists of 2 ray strips, an A19/E27 60-watt balanced bulb, BR30 downlights, and GU10 spotlights.

They are claimed to still present bully colour accuracy, but they don't dim arsenic profoundly arsenic their much costly counterparts. Philips Hue Essentials devices are compatible pinch nan Hue Bridge complete Zigbee and support Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, and Google Home relationship for sound control.

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As for nan Philips Hue Bridge Pro itself, nan instrumentality is priced astatine $90. It supports relationship to Zigbee devices to adhd capabilities for illustration schedules, out-of-home control, customized lighting scenes, and more. It packs a much powerful processor, higher RAM capacity, and tin link up to 150 lights and 50 accessories.

Moreover, Philips Hue has a caller OmniGlow portion light. According to Signify's John Smith, this is "the champion ray strip" that they've made to date. It tin spell up to 4,500 lumens successful brightness and dim down to 0.5 percent (Hue Essentials products tin do 2 percent, while different costly Hue lights tin do 0.2 percent). Pricing starts astatine $140. There are a bunch of different Philips Hue portion lights, too, including ones successful nan Flux and Essentials series.