Demo mode and improved control of multiple Hue bridges may be coming soon, too
The Philips Hue apps have been going through plenty of changes lately. We recently saw Bluetooth capabilities come right to the main app, and Signify’s been offering up some new color options to keep your home looking fresh. That progress continues with a couple of recent updates, including a few extra scenes and the arrival of some new functionality.
The Hue app’s v4.16 update appears to add three new entries to the Hue scene gallery (spotted by the folks at Hueblog.com). If you scroll down to the Party Vibes section, you may find the new options — Miami, Rio and Cancun — right at your fingertips to help get the party started. We haven’t spotted them on our devices yet, so there may also be a regional or server-side component to their deployment.
Signify’s also bringing the app a new “My account” option, located at the top of the settings screen. Tapping that brings up an interface with a button to sign in to your Hue account (alternatively, you can just tap the “Sign In” button at the right edge of the settings screen). Logging in with this method doesn’t currently seem to offer any extra functionality, but at least one theory suggests this could be a starting point for eventually allowing control of multiple Hue bridges from outside the home. So far, that’s required you to be on the same network as the bridges, or have each bridge be set up with a unique email address.
Finally, while we’re not seeing this on our devices, a minor update to version 4.16.1 has given some users a new demo mode. This presents photos of various rooms, simulating what you might have in your own home, and lets you virtually try out Hue functionality to get a taste for how the effects may look in a real-life environment.
While none of these changes alone are necessarily Earth-shattering, we certainly welcome the small improvements Philips Hue continues to make to its flagship smart lights and their software.
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