The Philips Hue smart lighting range is now bigger with multi-colour and warm-to-cool versions of, ironically, the smallest bulbs it offers. There are also new panel lights available now, with a couple of additional features also coming to the Hue app to make your home setup even smarter.
The Philips Hue E14 luster bulb has been available in a soft warm white colourway for a while, but you can now get warm-to-cool white and full colour variants, to match the options available in the E14 candle shape.
The bulb itself is approximately the size of a golf ball and equally round. That means it'll suit smaller lamps and fixtures. That makes it ideal for a bedside lamp or multi-light array in the corner of a living room.
It naturally connects to the Philips Hue system, so can expand your lighting experience into corners otherwise unlit.
There are new variants in both the Philips Hue Aurelle and Surimu panel light styles.
The Hue Aurelle is now available with a black finish in all available shapes, including square, rectangular and round. No matter the design, it fills a room with warm-to-cool white light, and seemingly floats from a ceiling.
The Philips Hue Surimu is now available in a round shape for the first, plus a smaller square shape that's half the size of the existing model. This comes with a white frame and offers a white and colour light experience.
No matter whether you opt for the new lighting panels or bulbs, or just want to improve your existing Philips Hue lighting, the dedicated iOS and Android app will soon come with additional features to improve system usability.
A new brightness balancer function enables customisation of the relative brightness of individual lights in an entertainment area. At present, users can only raise or lower the brightness of a group when watching a film or playing a game - which can mean that bulbs with higher lumens remain brighter than others.
With the brightness balancer, you can ensure your lighting maintains an even ambience no matter the lumens of each individual bulb. The feature will launch in the third quarter of the year.
The second major new feature will enhance the abilities of Philips Hue motion sensors. Your Hue Bridge will receive an update that will increase the amount of user allocated time slots for the sensors from two to 10. In addition, a natural light scene can be selected as one of those slots, so the sensors can activate lighting to mimic the sun throughout the day.
Again, this feature will be available from Q3.
The Philips Hue E14 luster bulb is priced £29.99 for the warm-to-cool white version, £54.99 for the white and colour ambience model. The Hue white and colour ambience Surimu panel will set you back £209.99 for the 300 x 300mm variant, £219.99 for the larger round panel.
The black Aurelle panel light comes in multiple sizes and starts at £149.99.
