The Philips Hue series, a wireless lighting system that prides itself on its personal touch, now connects to the Apple Homekit to let users turn off lights, turn on heaters and activate other systems via Siri voice command. The app connects all wirelessly connected devices in the home to a single menu and integrated system.
The Philips Hue suite allows for both profile and on-demand adjustments. Individual users can create a suite of lighting and temperature settings, which the suite will automatically set upon voice activation of that profile. Voice commands can also change individual device settings a la carte, or create a special profile for parties, movie nights or similar recurring events.
Though this is not the first application to offer this kind of functionality, integration with Siri makes it the first to be fully voice-driven.
Philips Hue also adds suggestions for settings, such as ideal lighting for your sleep needs or for watching television, which the user can activate via voice command through Siri.
In general, homes connected by the Internet of Things have seen strong developments in recent years but have remained toys for early adopters rather than widespread acceptance by the general consumer market. In part, this has been because of the distributed and sometimes complex interfaces used by the individual devices. The Philips Hue-Apple Homekit Bridge has potential to make the entire genre of technology more popular, since phone users are already familiar with Siri and voice-activation is significantly more accessible than the interfaces already in the market.
To make the interface even more accessible, the Hue hub can be set so that informal, or coded, voice commands activate a specific set of commands. “Siri, it’s time for Game of Thrones” could be set to tell the hub to turn off all the lights, turn on the TV, and shut down heating to every room except where the TV is housed.
The Philips Hue homebase integration comes with an upgrade to the Apple Homekit, available for download.
This article was written by Jason Brick from PSFK and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
