Philips Hue adds attractive Lightguide bulbs and new gaming options

Signify, the company behind Philips Hue has boosted its range of light bulbs and PC gaming options at IFA 2022 in Berlin.

If there’s one minor complaint about Hue, it’s that its colour changing and temperature controllable bulbs don’t look great when turned off. That changes now, with two new options. First, there’s a new Hue White Ambiance Filament candle bulb available (available September 13, £39.99). These look like old-fashioned bulbs, but now include temperature control as well as the dimming control that the older bulbs provided.

Lightguide bulbs

More impressive to our eyes are the new Lightguide bulbs, which are designed to look as good when turned off as on, while providing the colour and temperature-changing aspects that we’ve come to expect from the company. Available in three shapes (large globe, ellipse and triangular), the Lightguide bulbs have a smart glossy outer case, with an inner tube that produces the light.

These new bulbs are designed to be put on show, hanging directly from a pendant without needing a lampshade. If you don’t have a suitable pendant, then Philips has made the Lightguide pendant chords, available in black or white (£49.99).

Ranging in price from £74.99 to £89.99, the Lightguide bulbs will be available in Q4 2022.

Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC

The Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip was originally launched for larger TVs, working with the Hue Play Sync box to match the light colour to the on-screen action, much like an Ambilight TV. Now, there’s the Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC, which does the same thing only for a PC monitor.

As the Gradient light strip can’t be cut to size, you have to buy the right version to match your monitor’s size: 24/27-inch (£129.99), 32/34-inch (£149.99) or the three-screen 24/27-inch version (£219.99). Unlike the TV version, the Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC requires no hardware and, instead, works directly with the Hue Sync desktop app. This monitor’s what’s on screen and matches the colour of the light strip automatically.

That should make Hue’s version easier to install and control than the rival Govee DreamView G1 Pro system, which uses a camera to watch the monitor for colour matching. Hue synchronisation will also move out of its own app and into the main Hue app in Q4 this year.

Signify also announced a partnership with Corsair. to integrate its lights into Corsair iCue. With this you can set your lights to match Corsair’s RGB products.

Mimic delivers presence automation

Back in the day, the Works with Nest programme had an automated feature that would turn your Hue lights on and off automatically, mimicking occupancy. It was a great little security feature, that made it look as though somebody was home. After Google completely broke Works with Nest, the presence automation stopped working, until now with the Mimic feature.

Available from early September 2022, Mimic will turn the lights you select on and off automatically at times when you usually use them, with option to run during the day or only when it’s dark outside.