Philips Hue about to get a motion sensor module

Philip's Hue family of devices is about to welcome a well needed new member: a wireless motion sensor to free you from the apps.

Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus now shine brighter than ever

After adding the LED lightstrips to the Hue familiy, Philips finally answers the most common criticisms and suggestions with its new Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus.

Philips turns LED lights into indoor GPS system

Tired of getting lost inside those big shopping stores trying to find out what you need? If you go to the Carrefour store in Lille, France, you'll know exactly where you are at all times, thanks to the LED lamps from Philips that act as an indoor "GPS".

Philips Hue Go levam as cores a qualquer lado

The Philips Hue family has very recently received the new Hue Phoenix, but there's already a new colorful member that can now be taken anywhere you want: the Hue Go.

SyFy's 12 Monkeys will sync with Philips Hue

If you've received some Philips Hue lamps for Christmas you'll soon be able to put them to even better use. SyFy's upcoming 12 Monkeys TV series will sync up with them to enhance your multimedia viewing experience.

Philips Hue adds LED strips and Portable Bloom Lamps to the family

Philips is about to expand its family of Philips Hue smart LED lamps with other kinds of LED illumination that will certainly be welcomed by everyone that has a special attraction for decorative lighting (such as... me). After the regular styled LED light bulbs you can install in any regular lamp socket, Philips now brings us Philips Hue LED strips, and also a Bloom portable lamp you can place anywhere without concern about having a power socket nearby - which you'll be able to use to create great color scenes whenever the need arises.

Just like the original Hue LED lamps, the major thing in favor of this range of products (over those that come with a simple remote control) is that you can easily control them in a variety os ways. Besides being able to control it via a smartphone app or via preset scheduled routines, you can also create complex patterns and alerts using services like IFTTT (you can, for instance, make one of these lights flash when you have an incoming urgent email - or change its color if it's going to rain; or any other number of things you might come up with).

The only thing between you and all this is... it's price. At $89.95 for a 2m LED strip and $79.95 for the portable Bloom lampm it isn't exactly cheap - and you'll still need the Hue Hub ZigBee gateway that comes with the original Philips Hue pack ($199.95). I'm still glad to see Philips pushing this technology forward and making it available for consumers... but I hope it won't take long for it to come down in price so that every LED lamp can have this sort of control included, without any noticeable increase in price.

Philips Hue Intelligent LED Lamps on Apple Store

It's kind of sad that nearly two years after promising us intelligent, smartphone controlable, high-efficiency LED lamps with the Android@Home project, Google (and its partners) has so far failed to produce a single lamp.

So, I wasn't too surprised when I saw Apple now has intelligent lamps in their Apple Store. (You can only delay things so much, until someone else jumps in to fill the void).

These aren't Apple lamps, but that's for the best: These are the Philips Hue LED lamps.

Thes Philips Hue are "intelligent" LED lamps that you can control remotely via your iPhone or iPad (an Android App is expected for December).

The starter kit comes with three LED lamps and a ZigBee gateway you connect your home network. As for the lamps, just put them wherever you see fit.
After the initial setup (pressing a button), you'll have remote access to all your Hue lamps, meaning you can dim/brighten them at will, and even change their colors to suit your mood. You can also use preset scenes (or make your own), as well as create timers and scheduled events.

You can even set it to notify you in case someone doesn't turn on a light in a specified time frame: meaning you can receive a notification in case an elderly person did in fact get out of bed - or maybe a sleepy youngster trying not to get to  school on time.

The starter kit costs $199 with the ZigBee gateway and three Hue lamps, and you can buy extra lamps for  $59 each. It isn't cheap, but at least you're buying lamps that are using an open standard that will certainly be helpful in case you want to integrate it in a more powerful home automation system.

Philips Monitor Enforces Right Posture

Stop! Notice exactly how you are right now. If you're using a desktop computer and monitor, chances are you're now bending forward, or at least, with an arched back that won't do you much good in the long run.

To try and prevent those common errors, Philips now has a monitor that tries to help you keep the correct posture as well as take regular breakes.

Thanks to its Ergosensor, that can measure your distance from the screen as well as your angle, this 24" desktop LCD monitor uses can remind you to sit up straight and/or move to an appropriate distance from the screen.

As one would expect, this monitor comes with all imaginable options in regards to adjusting its height, tilt, swivel and rotation. And you can also count with it prompting you to take regular brakes, so you can stand up and move your eyes away for a while.

As you do that, the monitor detects it and enters a power saving mode, and lights up once again when you come back and sit in front of it.

Philips Cinema 21:9 now with 3D and Local Dimming

The Philips Cinema 21:9 os one of the most coveted LCD screens available today, but guess what: the best got even better!

This 21:9 LCD screen grew from 56 to 58", and besides being 3D-ready (you probably already know I'm not "into" that 3D marketing hype) it indeed has something I greatly value - and I don't mean the Ambilight surround light. I'm referring to the local LED dimming technology, which Philips here calls LED PRO.



Now, all I need is to come up with 4000€ so I can stare at it on my own wall...

Philips expands amBX into Quake Territory

For those who haven't heard of Philip's amBX before, it's a technology that hopes to bring a much more immersive and interactive environment to video games, movies, music, and even the internet.

For instance, some of Philips peripherals allow ambient light to change (similar to their ambilight technology used in their TV sets), wind to be blown (either a gentle breeze or a stronger wind), and vibrations and rumble to be felt.

Now, Philips has just signed a deal with id Software (the company that brought us Doom and Quake) to provide an amBX enable mod to Quake 4.
A multi player amBX mod has been already demoed at QuakeCon convention in August, and Philips says it was its success that helped inspire this new mod.

Even though some games are already amBX enabled (such as Supreme Commander, DEFCON, TOCA Race Driver 3, among others) Philips is constantly negotiating with other companies to expand the amBX game portfolio.

As for Quake, for instance, whenever someone uses a scoped weapon, lighting changes with a gradual dimming from the back lights; damage indication is provided by a multi directional red light and rumble, and long jumps are rewarded with wind blowing in your face.
Similarly, power ups cause different ambient lighting scenarios, such as a blue aura for Quad Damage, green ambient for Health, and pulsing yellow for Haste.

Definitely worth a try. :)