Philips Hue and Spotify are partnering to make your smart lights party-worthy

Party's on! Philips Hue is introducing a new algorithm so that its lights will be better able to sync with songs you play on Spotify. In addition, Signify (Philips Hue's parent company) is also launching a series of new smart lights, including a gradient light tube, new filament bulbs, and ceiling lights. 

Update: Philips Hue just reinvented the table lamp and track lighting — here’s how.

We can’t wait to see and try the changes for ourselves, but in the meantime, here’s what you can look forward to. 

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The biggest news is the improved Philips Hue and Spotify integration. We’ve been able to sync Philips Hue lights to Spotify tracks for some time now, but the difference with this latest announcement is that the Hue app can now analyse the metadata of each track, meaning it can anticipate the beat and even reflect the genre and tone in the lighting. Think of it as an illustration to go along with the song, rather than just flashing lights to match the tempo. 

This creates a host of possibilities depending on your musical preferences as well, whether you want some relaxing tones in the background after a hard day’s work, or you’re looking to party into the night. It can be personalized too if the show’s not quite to your taste, via the new Sync tab in the Philips Hue app. You can adjust the brightness and intensity, or select the colours of your choosing. Signify claims this will create an immersive light and music experience like no other.   

“As a world leader in smart lighting, we are constantly looking for new ways to keep offering our Philips Hue users the most advanced smart lighting experience. Entertainment, of which audio is an important ingredient, is a key focus for Philips Hue. By innovating with Spotify as a leading industry partner, we are proud to offer our users an immersive integration of music and light in a way never done before,” said Jasper Vervoort, Business Leader Philips Hue at Signify.

 This new feature will be free to use via the Philips Hue app and it just requires a Hue Bridge and color-capable Philips Hue lights. It will be available to a selection of users from today and will take 7 days for the update to be available to everyone. You will need to enable Early access to be one of the first to try it. From October, it will be a permanent part of the Hue app.  

But, what about the new range? There’s quite a selection of new Philips Hue smart lights as of today, but here are the highlights (pun intended). Last year, Philips announced its Play Gradient Lightstrip, a lightstrip which mounts on the back of a TV to reflect the colors onto the wall. Now, it’s expanding this range to include the Play Gradient Light Tube. It claims this can blend multiple colors of light into a single lamp and it sits above or below a TV. Available in black or white, you can blend this addition in with your decor.  

The Philips Hue Filament bulbs are also now available in White ambiance, making these popular retro-looking lights more versatile in providing different tones of white light. There will also be a White Filament E14 candle bulb to add to the range. 

If you’re a fan of the traditional Philips Hue smart bulbs, these too are expanding, literally. They will now be available in 1100 and 1600 lumens, should you need more brightness. The 1600 bulb is bigger than others in this range though. 

Let’s not forget the ceiling lights. There’s a new Philips Hue Surimu ceiling panel which features a very modern design and sits flush against the ceiling. It’s available in both square and rectangular designs. If that doesn’t interest you, then the new Philips Hue Enrave ceiling light might. It’s available in black and white and offers warm to cool tones which can suit multiple rooms around the house. It can also come as a pendant, making it an ideal centerpiece in your living room or above the dining table. Philips also plans to launch the Philips Hue Infuse ceiling light later this year, which can provide both white and colored light from the ceiling.  

There’s new bathroom lights coming to the range as well, including the chrome-plated Philips Hue Xamento recessed spots and the Philips Hue Devere ceiling light which provides indirect lighting and warm-cool lights depending on whether you want to wake up in the morning, or wind down and relax in the evening. The Philips Hue Xamento ceiling light will also join the range later this year, providing both white and colored lights.  

Another software update worth mentioning is the ‘dynamic scenes’. Rather than each light displaying one color, with dynamic scenes, they can now transition through a color selection, giving the overall atmosphere more character and wow-factor. On top of that, yet another feature which will be coming to the Hue scene gallery in the Fall of 2021, will allow your Hue lights to naturally adjust their color and tone over 24 hours. So while white and focused in the morning for work, they will gradually grow more warm as you relax into the evening. 

For all you keen gamers, the final addition will be a software update to the Philips Hue Play HDMI sync box in the Fall of 2021. The sync box will then be compatible with the newest games consoles’ 120 Hz support, giving you a higher refresh rate. The sync box will be able support an image resolution of 1080p and 1440p, but if you want the highest image resolution of 4K, the current sync box will support this with a refresh rate of 60Hz.