Five bright ideas
At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Signify (the company behind Philips Hue) announced that the Hue ecosystem will soon have its own generative AI assistant to make lighting your home easier.
Details are quite scant so far, but we know that it will be possible to control the tool using typed or spoken commands, and that it will create « personalized lighting scenes based on mood, occasion, or style. » You’ll also be able to give feedback to help improve the assistant’s output in the future.
There’s no word on exactly when the assistant will be released, but late last month, the editor of fan site Hueblog.com noticed that the usual magnifying glass icon in the Hue app’s search box had been replaced by the cluster of stars that typically represent AI features.
The launch could happen at any time, but what exactly will it bring? Will it just focus on changing the colors of your lights, or will it change how you use your whole Philips Hue system?
As someone with a complete set of Hue lights at home, I’m intrigued to see what’s coming, and I’ve got a wish list of things I’d love to see when the assistant eventually lands.1. No subscription fee
This might be too much to ask, considering the time and cost of developing and running AI tools. Even so, Philips Hue products are already among the most expensive smart lights on the market, and adding an extra subscription fee for AI features might put off some potential customers – even if those tools are optional.
The backlash against the AI-powered Garmin Connect+ subscription demonstrates how angry customers can become if new features are locked behind a paywall after paying for the hardware.
