Philips puts details Hue Bridge with HomeKit support online – update
Philips has already published the specifications of the new Philips Hue Bridge in a PDF on its own site. The information shows that the new hue bridge can control a maximum of fifty hue lamps and is 8.8×8.8×2.6 centimeters in size.
More information about the new bridge leaked out last week through, among other things, a product listing on Amazon.com with even more brief information. A Reddit user also got his hands on the starter set and posted photos of it on Imgur. Now it appears that Philips itself has already put a few pages about the Hue Bridge on several Philips sites, including a PDF with the specifications.
This shows that in addition to fifty lamps, ten different accessories can be connected. Furthermore, the gem covers a frequency band from 2400 to 2483.5MHz, the device consumes a maximum of 250mA and the standby power is 0.1 watts. The bridge has two physical connections: an electrical connection for the adapter and an Ethernet port.
The bridge can be controlled with iOS 8 or higher, which in practice means that an iPhone 4S or higher is required for communication. In addition to iOS devices, devices with Android 2.3 or higher are usable. Thanks to the integration with Apple’s HomeKit, the bridge can also be controlled via Siri and it is possible to connect it with other HomeKit devices and apps.
According to various reports, the new Hue Bridge will be officially released on October 6 and will probably cost around sixty euros. Several sites are reporting on the basis of rumors that a new bridge would not be necessary to enjoy HomeKit, because there would be a software update for certain existing products. It is unknown what those might be.
Update 14:43: The press release issued on Monday afternoon about the arrival of the Hue Bridge 2.0 makes it clear that the new Bridge will cost 59.95 euros and will be available from October 6. The existing Hue Bridge will remain “supported by software updates,” according to the report. Whether this means that the first Hue Bridge will also support HomeKit after a software update has not yet been confirmed or denied by Philips, but it seems that the 33 percent discount for a new Bridge for owners of the old ones points to a ‘ No’.