Philips Hue’s latest update doesn’t solve its bridge problem

With its most recent app update, Signify-owned Philips Hue now lets you have two or a lot more Hue Bridges tied to a one Hue account, but that doesn’t fix the most important limitation of the Hue Bridge: its 50-device restrict.

The Hue update went dwell this 7 days (as 1st famous by HueBlog), and it adds the new possibility beneath the “My account location.” Here’s how it’s described in the application: “Multiple bridges for every account utilizing Hue Properties. Generally out of property manage.”

The important depth in this article is “out of house control” namely, you need to indication in to your Hue account to management your Hue lights when you are away from dwelling, and up until now, you could only assign just one Hue Bridge for each Hue account.

Earlier, end users with far more than 50 Hue devices–and as a result, much more than one particular Hue Bridge–had to make different Hue accounts to handle their lights when they were away. Now, Hue end users with far more than 1 bridge at residence no longer will need to juggle accounts when striving to handle their lights although they are out and about.

That’s a phase in the proper course, but it does not transform the actuality that the Zigbee-enabled Hue Bridge only supports a most of 50 products, and working with extra than a single bridge is a royal discomfort. (Yes, very first-entire world troubles, but nonetheless.) The Zigbee protocol that the Philips Hue program is centered on generally supports up to 250 nodes. It is possible to have Zigbee networks with far more than 250 nodes, but that can turn into far more intricate than a Do it yourself procedure such as Hue need to be.

Fifty Hue equipment may seem like a good deal, but it’s surprisingly simple to achieve that limit immediately after all, most of us have a lot more than a single mild in every place (my kitchen area, for example, has six Hue bulbs, as very well as an beneath-counter light strip.) And you can have Hue lights indoors as perfectly as outside–on your porch, outside the house exterior doorways, and in your landscaping. Also, you are going to want to take into account that the product limit features Hue add-ons, these as buttons, motion sensors, dimmer switches, and 3rd-social gathering Buddies of Hue products. If you are all-in with Hue lights, you may hit that 50-gadget rather speedily. (You basically can cram more than 50 gadgets on a single Hue Bridge 63 is the difficult restrict. But when you cross the 50 mark, dependability can consider a nosedive). 

Variation 4. of the Hue app additional the skill to immediately swap concerning two bridges, but there is still a digital wall among the Hue gadgets on just one bridge and the Hue products on yet another. In other text, you can not tap a button to control all your Hue lights throughout two bridges at the same time, nor can a solitary automation incorporate Hue lights across both equally bridges. 

Fortunately, there are workarounds, these types of as 3rd-party apps like iConnectHue that seamlessly support two Hue bridges. Apple’s HomeKit system will also enable you add and command a number of Hue bridges at as soon as. Nonetheless, it’s vexing that the formal Hue app only allows you to handle one particular Hue bridge at a time.

Hue creator and head of technology George Yianni dealt with the Hue bridge’s 50-unit limit at past year’s IFA meeting in Berlin, where by Hue app variation 4. was to start with declared. Here’s what he mentioned at the time:

We maintain the limit the way it is for now because we never want to compromise the dependability. This restrict that we have at 50, that seriously lets us promise no subject how your household set up is made that it will function really nicely.

That logic can make excellent feeling, but it also leaves the Hue ecosystem with (as just one Reddit user explained it) with an inherent “scalability” dilemma. In fact, there is a prolonged thread at the Hue subreddit riddled with complaints from focused Hue buyers on the lookout for tasteful methods to manage a number of Hue bridges concurrently. Unfortunately, there are not any silver bullets so far.

It is not crystal clear if Hue is actively performing on superior techniques to increase the 50-machine restrict of the Hue Bridge, or irrespective of whether it is even doable to do so with no releasing all-new hardware. I have arrived at out to Hue for remark.