Philips Hue Bridge Matter Support Update Now Available

[MacRumors]

Matter support is now being rolled out to Philips Hue Bridge owners via a software update, according to the company, enabling the smart home system's interoperability with third-party lights.

Matter is a connectivity standard that enables smart home accessories to work together seamlessly across multiple platforms, including Apple's HomeKit, Amazon's Alexa, Google's Home, and others. For households with multiple smart home platforms or different smartphone brands, it means the Matter lights can be controlled from any device.

For Hue Bridge owners who control only Philips Hue lights via Apple's Home app or the Hue app, nothing changes. For Android and iPhone users who own third-party lights with Matter support, they will now be able to set up and control these accessories via the Hue Bridge, provided they own a Matter border router, such as an Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD (fourth generation), Apple HomePod, or HomePod mini.

Pairing codes for Matter-compatible accessories can be requested in the Hue app by tapping the plus button in the Settings -> Smart Home screen.

When Matter was officially launched in November 2022, Philips Hue declared itself a supporter of the new smart home standard. At the time, parent company Signify said a software update that would bring compatibility to its Philips Hue lineup would be available to all users in the first quarter of 2023, but the update was delayed.

Apple added support for Matter on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16, and tvOS 16.1 last year, with a HomePod or Apple TV required to control Matter accessories in the Home app or with Siri.

Article Link: Philips Hue Bridge Matter Support Update Now Available

 

[HQuest]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

 

[missingar]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

And for this exact reason, I’m not changing anything until the next time I move

 

[hifimac]

What are the advantages to Matter?

 

[kiranmk2]

I don't really see the benefit. Philips/Signify have been really good at supporting Alexa/Google assistant/Homekit for many years. In fact our lights are routinely controlled via Alexa (our usual voice assistant) and also Siri (usually with the Apple TV remote). Am I missing something? I'm guessing this makes it easier to set up automations with other brands of light or triggers?

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

NameDrop should work cross-platform like Matter accessories will. Apple would do well to work with Google to sort this out.

 

[JapanApple]

Yeah we have a bunch of those. Work extremely well very happy with them. Glad there’s an update to make them better.

 

[iMatt.]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

Yeah I just tried to update it. It removed my existing config now keeps failing to add the new one 🙃

 

[watsonjm]

Main thing more me is getting Govee lights on Homekit. Hoping I can do this via Hue bridge rather than getting a new Apple TV or iPad

 

[SoldOnApple]

I’m not even sure what the Bridge does. It’s so light, feels like it’s empty. Why didn’t they just build the bridge into the bulbs?

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

Yep just discovered this. Oh well, luckily I hadn't done too many customizations. It'll suck more for others.

 

[AlyMourad]

I don't really see the benefit. Philips/Signify have been really good at supporting Alexa/Google assistant/Homekit for many years. In fact our lights are routinely controlled via Alexa (our usual voice assistant) and also Siri (usually with the Apple TV remote). Am I missing something? I'm guessing this makes it easier to set up automations with other brands of light or triggers?

I'm not sure about other benefits but one I'm very happy to use since installing the homebridge with matter beta is being able to control my Ikea bulbs (activated on Hue homebridge) via Apple Home app natively

 

[watsonjm]

.

 

[watsonjm]

I'm not sure about other benefits but one I'm very happy to use since installing the homebridge with matter beta is being able to control my Ikea bulbs (activated on Hue homebridge) via Apple Home app natively

Do you think this will work the same with Govee lights?

 

[StudioMacs]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

Thanks for the warning.

 

[ipedro]

What are the advantages to Matter?

Mesh network resilience. If you’ve been using Hue for more than a few years, you’ll recall the network related issues we’ve endured for over a decade. Delays or no response are one of the most frustrating parts of smart homes when you just want your light to work as if you were flicking a physical switch.

This happens because all the data traffic goes through your Internet router. A bad setup or a busy network could mess up your lights’ response. One minute everything is working fine, the next none of your lights respond while you’re there waiting in the dark.

HomeKit 2.0 appears to have addressed this primarily by keeping the current status of every light locally on every device that controls them like your Apple TV, HomePods, iPhone, iPad and Mac so that doesn’t have to be fetched from the light before issuing a command, avoiding that two way trip.

That said, if you have a janky router or internet or if the router is offline for whatever reason, then your light simply won’t work. Matter solves that.

Having the Hue hub on Matter means that it becomes a part of a mesh network, independent of your internet router. The Hue hub connects directly to Matter controllers like Apple TV and HomePods in your home, and self heals if one of them goes offline. Any of them, usually the closest with the strongest connection, can control a Matter hub directly, with no internet or router necessary.

So even if you use HomeKit where things have gotten more reliable in the last year, you’ll benefit from your Hue hub being on Matter. I imagine that a Threads enabled hub will be coming or better, that Hue will start incorporating Thread into lights directly so that eventually no hub is needed at all. For me, I’m only buying Threads lights going forward, Philips or not.

 

[iMacDragon]

I’m not even sure what the Bridge does. It’s so light, feels like it’s empty. Why didn’t they just build the bridge into the bulbs?

It translates between wifi to zigbee, and runs their scheduling scripts etc.

If every bulb had it built in, they'd be wasting a lot of power relatively speaking.

 

[Valve1138]

Doesn’t sound like there is any point to doing this other than causing a headache.

 

[Powerbooky]

I'm not sure about other benefits but one I'm very happy to use since installing the homebridge with matter beta is being able to control my Ikea bulbs (activated on Hue homebridge) via Apple Home app natively

Controlling third party Zigbee/HUE devices in Homebridge was possible without Matter. I would rather have direct control from HomeKit, HUE just doesn't allow non-Friends of HUE dimmers to show up in HomeKit.

btw... I got the new firmware too from HUE. It didn't show me Matter, instead the HUE app bugged me with messages that "you have to create an HUE account" as if it is mandatory for HUE to function. Of course that's BS, we have HomeKit for remote access. Meanwhile the HUE hub still keeps on trying to access NTP servers on Chinese datacenters - why?

 

[CarAnalogy]

For Hue Bridge owners who control only Philips Hue lights via Apple's Home app or the Hue app, nothing changes. For Android and iPhone users who own third-party lights with Matter support, they will now be able to set up and control these accessories via the Hue Bridge, provided they own a Matter border router, such as an Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD (fourth generation), Apple HomePod, or HomePod mini.

Or several of each that all compete to be the Matter border router, in a Three Stooges kind of way.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Beta user for the past 6 months here. Migration from traditional, Home based to Matter/Thread based is a pain. You basically remove your existing bridge, then re-add it in the new standard. All your customizations will be gone. And so a lot of automations too: not all features are supported by Matter at this time. Unless you only have lights, sure, give it a try. For more complex, moving parts involving sensors and switches, be prepared to redo everything and discover what will and will not work while resetting.

Same as every day with smart home gear, got it.

 

[Htsi]

HomeKit > Matter for Hue.

 

[RamGuy]

If I understand this correctly. I have to remove my current HomeKit setup in the Hue app, and re-add HomeKit using the Matter option?

 

[ipedro]

I just set it up and wanted to add my perspective as the general sense in this thread is that it messes things up. Not for me.

It was great!



After adding the bridge to the Home app, it went through all of my lights in an easy to understand flow, with an Identify button so I knew which one it was asking about, and asked to confirm the room, the light’s name and reviewed the automations that were setup.



This enabled me to harmonize the names of my hue lights which Hue never updated when I changed them in the Home app over the past few years. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time and the Home app walk through made it painless.

It also found my Hue Taps, Dials and sensors and added them all into the Home app. I no longer need the Hue app at all.



I have about 25 Hue lights and accessories and this took me under 10 minutes to walk around and confirm. Would’ve been ever faster if I trusted Hue to have updated changes I made in the Home app which it didn’t. In the end, I have a much cleaner setup that I can oversee entirely in the Home app. So glad I went ahead and did this.

 

[PhoenixDown]

If I understand this correctly. I have to remove my current HomeKit setup in the Hue app, and re-add HomeKit using the Matter option?

I did it last night -- the Hue app asked me to unlink my current setup, all I had to do was say okay. Then I added Matter and had to reassign the various bulbs, switches and outlets to the right rooms. I don't have automations. All in all took less than 15 minutes and that's because I had to create a HUE account.

The switch fixed a few issues I was having and it seems faster and more repsonsive now.