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