[ad_1]
With its newest application update, Signify-owned Philips Hue now allows you have two or more Hue Bridges tied to a solitary Hue account, but that doesn’t deal with the greatest limitation of the Hue Bridge: its 50-device limit.
The Hue update went reside this week (as to start with mentioned by HueBlog), and it adds the new choice below the “My account placing.” Here’s how it’s explained in the app: “Multiple bridges for every account employing Hue Households. Always out of home management.”
The vital detail listed here is “out of dwelling control” namely, you ought to indicator in to your Hue account to regulate your Hue lights when you are absent from property, and up till now, you could only assign one particular Hue Bridge for every Hue account.
Formerly, end users with a lot more than 50 Hue devices–and as a result, more than one particular Hue Bridge–had to create separate Hue accounts to manage their lights when they were away. Now, Hue customers with a lot more than a person bridge at household no lengthier need to have to juggle accounts when striving to manage their lights although they are out and about.
Which is a phase in the ideal direction, but it does not improve the truth that the Zigbee-enabled Hue Bridge only supports a highest of 50 gadgets, and working with much more than a single bridge is a royal discomfort. (Indeed, 1st-globe issues, but nonetheless.) The Zigbee protocol that the Philips Hue program is based mostly on usually supports up to 250 nodes. It is feasible to have Zigbee networks with additional than 250 nodes, but that can grow to be a lot more difficult than a Diy system these as Hue should really be.
Fifty Hue devices may well audio like a lot, but it’s remarkably simple to access that restrict just after all, most of us have additional than one light in each individual room (my kitchen, for illustration, has 6 Hue bulbs, as nicely as an below-counter mild strip.) And you can have Hue lights indoors as effectively as outside–on your porch, outside exterior doorways, and in your landscaping. Also, you will want to contemplate that the device restrict involves Hue equipment, these as buttons, motion sensors, dimmer switches, and third-celebration Buddies of Hue products. If you’re all-in with Hue lighting, you might strike that 50-product pretty promptly. (You truly can cram a lot more than 50 gadgets on a single Hue Bridge 63 is the tricky restrict. But at the time you cross the 50 mark, dependability can acquire a nosedive).
Variation 4. of the Hue app included the ability to swiftly swap among two bridges, but there’s continue to a digital wall between the Hue units on just one bridge and the Hue units on an additional. In other words and phrases, you just cannot tap a button to manage all your Hue lights across two bridges concurrently, nor can a solitary automation involve Hue lights across each bridges.
Luckily, there are workarounds, these as third-social gathering applications like iConnectHue that seamlessly support two Hue bridges. Apple’s HomeKit system will also permit you add and manage numerous Hue bridges at the moment. Nonetheless, it’s vexing that the formal Hue application only enables you to management 1 Hue bridge at a time.
Hue creator and head of engineering George Yianni dealt with the Hue bridge’s 50-system limit at last year’s IFA convention in Berlin, in which Hue app edition 4. was very first declared. Here’s what he mentioned at the time:
We continue to keep the limit the way it is for now because we really don’t want to compromise the reliability. This limit that we have at 50, that genuinely lets us warranty no subject how your property set up is built that it will work really very well.
That logic can make excellent perception, but it also leaves the Hue ecosystem with (as a person Reddit user explained it) with an inherent “scalability” trouble. Certainly, there’s a prolonged thread at the Hue subreddit riddled with complaints from dedicated Hue customers searching for exquisite means to control a number of Hue bridges simultaneously. Unfortunately, there are not any silver bullets so far.
It’s not apparent if Hue is actively operating on much better approaches to extend the 50-system limit of the Hue Bridge, or irrespective of whether it is even attainable to do so with no releasing all-new hardware. I have achieved out to Hue for remark.
[ad_2]
Resource link