Philips Hue's outdoor lights add old-fashioned charm to your smart home

Spring is coming (soon, we promise), and smart lighting company Philips Hue has some new products that can help you spruce up your outdoor space, so that when the snow finally melts you're more be out for Enjoy spending time.

Signify, which owns Philips Hue, has announced three new additions to its outdoor smart lighting line, all coming to the US on March 1, 2022. Plus, two new lighting effects are coming to the Hue app later this year to add to the features. , For its indoor smart bulb.

The Philips Hue Inara Wall Light ($99.99, available March 1) is a vintage-style exterior wall light with a filament bulb. Also known as an Edison bulb, the "electric" of the filament bulb is visible through the filament bulb, which resembles the first incandescent bulb designed by Thomas Edison.

This traditional look is popular in fixtures that have an exposed bulb, and they have been everywhere indoors for some time. This is the first outdoor version we've seen, the Inara uses one of Hue's indoor bulbs (the Hue ST19 filament bulb) in an IP44 weatherproof light fixture. Sadly, should you not put one of these bulbs in an outdoor fixture, Hue recommends that its bulbs be used only inside the company's own fixtures "for longevity and safety."

The Inara doesn't have the color-changing options of Hue's signature bulb; instead, you can adjust the filament bulb's brightness in the app with a remote control (sold separately), or with your voice (it's compatible with Amazon Alexa). Huh. ) , Apple's Siri, and Google Assistant voice assistants.)

For something a little more colorful and a lot more contemporary, the new Lucca wall light ($99.99, available March 1) is an outdoor wall fixture with a round shape and black bands wrapped around it.

Lucca offers white or color-changing lighting and is designed to be bold and bright, making it a great choice for smart lighting on a porch or balcony space where you want to see what you want. Huh. are doing.

The third new product is the Resonate Wall Light in Black (available March 1 for $159.99). It's more than an atmospheric addition, with a minimalist design that keeps either white light or colored lights up and down the wall. This type of lighting is commonly used to highlight architectural features.

All new light fixtures work with the Philips Hue app and require a Philips Hue Bridge for automation such as turning on lights as soon as you get home. Hue offers an external motion sensor that can pair with any of its lights for automatic activation. Hue products also work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings and Apple HomeKit smart home platforms.

Signify also announced that the Philips Hue app is getting an update in the first quarter of 2022. Two new effects are coming to the company's indoor bulb, Candle and Fireplace, that will let you set your Hue bulbs to mimic the glow of candlelight. Chimney.

Third-party apps have offered these features for Hue bulbs for a while, and candlelight was part of Hue's Labs section of its app, but it's now making its way to the main app. Candle and fireplace effects will work on compatible Philips Hue lights with Zigbee and Bluetooth connectivity. The company has not clarified whether this feature will come to its older Zigbee-only bulbs.