No plans for Matter smart light bulbs from the industry leader
If you thought that the launch of Matter, with controllers all built into existing devices such as smart speakers, meant the end for dedicated smart home hubs then we’ve got some bad news for you.
Speaking at a breakout session after the Matter launch keynote, George Yianni, the head of technology for Philips Hue, said that as far as Hue is concerned there will always be a need for a dedicated hub (which Hue calls a Bridge).
Currently, the only Hue device that is Matter certified is the Hue Bridge – the bulbs themselves will only be able to play a part of a Matter smart home system when connected to the Bridge.
Update: Matter now live on Philips Hue
The Ambient asked Yianni could see a point in the future where Hue smart bulbs could connect directly to Matter controllers and/or Thread border routers such as an Amazon Echo, Google Nest Hub or Apple TV.
Yianni said that there was “no intention to support Matter bulbs in the mid-term.”
“The Bridge is much more than just a translator; we need to have a central point for managing our integrations, and to manage the lighting across a room or a house,” he explained.
“I spoke about the importance of not thinking of lighting as individual devices. When interacting with lighting as we think of units. Lighting is not a product at a time. It needs to work together seamlessly and our Bridge plays a pivotal role.
“There are all these things that we would not be able to do if we didn’t have this edge computing centralised point, which actually manages the lighting in your home as a whole.”
All of that is true and we don’t really have any counter argument against it, but it sounds like Philips Hue doesn’t really have any plans to let Hue bulbs sing and dance independently of the Bridge with Matter, like it currently does (albeit with limited functionality) with Zigbee bulbs connected directly to an Amazon Echo.
“We’ve been a proponent of Zigbee as the standard for actually working within the home, and it has proven itself amazingly over the last 10 years.
“And there is nothing else out there which is as proven to give you long term good quality and durability and reliability in a broad variety of home.”
Shots fired at Matter then but it’s friendly fire. Don’t forget that Signify – Hue’s parent company – is part of the Connected Standards Alliance (the group behind Matter) and Hue is bound to be a key player in the new smart home ecosystem.
However, it’s clear that Hue isn’t prepared to steer too far from its well-trodden path anytime soon.
Check out all of the latest news from the Launch Event over on our dedicated Matter hub.
