Philips has announced that Bosch, Logitech and Samsung SmartThings-branded appliances will now work with its Hue smart lights.
This means that you’ll be able to do things like have your Hue lights come on or flash a certain colour if things like smoke alarms, motion sensors and heating controls are triggered.
Philips’s business leader of connected home systems Sridhar Kumaraswamy says that expanding the ‘Friends of Hue’ ecosystem builds on previous partnerships with the likes of Nest and Apple.
Related: Nest, Philips Hue and Yale Locks now work with SwannOne cameras and sensorsKumaraswamy said: “All of these Friends of Hue partnerships strengthen the impact of lighting to help realize the Internet of Things for homes.
“By integrating our lights with innovations from our partners, we can deliver new lighting experiences today and far into the future, unlocking the value of light beyond illumination.”
As well as pairing with smart heaters and utility-based services, the partnership with Logitech means that you’ll be able to dim the lights with your Harmony remote TV controls as well as make your Hues glow the same colour as the on-screen action, perhaps taking taking nods from work that Philips has done with SyFy and Microsoft.
Other hypothetical Internet of Things love-ins mooted by Phillips include the ability for Hue lights to be paired with Honeywell thermostats, Bose speakers and other devices that fall under the Samsung SmartThings umbrella.
Philips’s expansion of its IoT ecosystem comes in the wake of it launching a new version of its Hue Bridge wireless controller, the first device from the company that works with Apple’s HomeKit system.
As Kumaraswamy notes, ‘consumers need products to work seamlessly with each other,’ something that HomeKit promises. So far, owing mainly to the lack of HomeKit-branded devices on the shelves, this promises hasn’t been delivered from Apple.
In the meantime, hub and spoke-type systems from Samsung (SmartThings) and Swann (SwannOne) and cloud-based IFTTT (If This Then That) recipes give buyers the freedom to daisy chain their Internet of Things things together, with varying results.
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