Philips' Next Hue Hub Appears Ahead Of Launch: A Serious Upgrade
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It’s true that companies sometimes leak their own products, either by mistake or as a clever way to generate buzz. That is exactly what happened with Signify’s Philips Hue, as the upcoming Hue Bridge Pro hub appeared on its website ahead of its expected launch. The leak is substantial, and the smart home hub’s features reveal major upgrades over the current model.
The current Philips Hue Bridge, or the second‑generation smart lighting hub, has been on the market for more than a decade. It’s no surprise that many have been anticipating a successor, especially as the smart home landscape has quickly evolved recently.
Hue Bridge Pro Is Incredibly Faster
On its own website (now taken offline), the smart-lighting maker seemingly listed the Hue Bridge Pro along with key details like technical specifications and an image of the accessory just too early.
Accordingly, the upcoming hub will carry over the design of the current non-Pro Hue Bridge, which is a square-top box, though it's unclear if it will be more compact. It also now comes in a black finish and has LED lights for notifications, while ports include a familiar Ethernet and a new USB-C that replaces the barrel plug for power input.
The major changes are within the hub's internals, which are depicted in the image as being powered by a "Hue Chip Pro" courtesy of a quad-core Cortex processor clocked at 1.7 GHz, along with 8 GB of RAM. There's also an integrated 8 GB eMMC flash memory. The RAM alone is a major upgrade from the current Bridge v2, which has 16 MB of RAM.
There's also a WLAN chip, which serves as a faster and seamless alternative to Ethernet when connecting to the network and setting up devices. We can also expect an overall boost in performance, with the new chipset fitted in the hub, marketed to have five times faster response time.
Bigger Smart Light and Accessory Capacity
Regarding its capacity, the Hue Bridge Pro will be able to handle about three times the load of the Hue Bridge, supporting 150 lights (up from 50), 50 accessories (up from 10), and up to 500 light scenes.
One of the special features in the Hue Bridge Pro is support for Motion Aware, which turns smart lights and bulbs into motion sensors using wireless signals like Wi-Fi and Zigbee. Of course, we should also see compatibility with smart home platforms, including Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, and the open standard, Matter.
The new Philips Hue Bridge Pro is expected to be unveiled sometime in September, though we don't know how much it will cost with these upgrades. A new set of Hue smart lights and a smart security doorbell are said to be tagged along.
Would you upgrade to the Hue Bridge Pro once it arrives? Share with us your plans.
Via: Stadt-bremerhaven
