HomeKit Adaptive Lighting Feature Appears for German Beta Testers

Tuesday October 6, 2020 5:59 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

HomeKit's new Adaptive Lighting feature has appeared for Philips Hue beta testers in Germany, according to iphone-ticker.

adapptive Lightning feature

At WWDC earlier this year, Apple announced a new HomeKit feature called Adaptive Lighting, which allows smart lighting to dynamically adapt according to the time of day, with warm hues fading in around sunset, and cooler hues fading in around midday.

At any given time of day, the color of smart lights with Adaptive Lighting would be slightly different and change as time passes, similar to Apple's Night Shift feature on iOS, iPad OS, and macOS. Although this behavior was theoretically possible before, albeit not as effectively, via complex automations, the Adaptive Lighting feature offers a single button to turn the feature on or off.

Adaptive Lighting was not present in any of the iOS 14 betas before its public release, and was instead promised to arrive later in the year as smart lighting manufacturers such as Philips Hue implement it. Adaptive Lighting will only be available where manufacturers actively support the feature via a firmware update, so its absence in the iOS 14 betas does not seem to be due to a delay at Apple's end.

Philips Hue has now reportedly rolled out a bridge firmware update to support Adaptive Lighting to its own beta testers in Germany. Only White and Color Ambiance bulbs support the feature at this time, according to Philips Hue.

Not much has been known about how Adaptive Lighting will work in practice until now, and it seems that users simply need to tap and hold on the specified light in the Home app, and in the color picker, one of the six saved colors has been replaced by an icon to activate Adaptive Lighting.

A number of other ‌HomeKit‌ features were announced alongside Adaptive Lighting, such as activity zones and face recognition for cameras, doorbell announcements, and camera feeds on Apple TV.

It is unclear when Adaptive Lighting will be publicly released for Philips Hue users, but the news of a firmware update for beta testers in Germany suggests that the company is on track to deliver the feature as planned.

Tags: HomeKit Guide, Philips Hue

Related Forum: iOS 14

Top Rated Comments

RoboCop001

79 months ago

I wish they'd implement fade automations. Like setting up lights to fade from one colour to another and/or brightness to another over a certain period of time. Seems like a no-brainer feature to have. I know some 3rd party apps do it but .... I want HomeKit to do it. I don't want to connect my lights to some 3rd party cloud just to do that, or use one of those bridge things.

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ignatius345

79 months ago

This is literally the first "smart home" thing that has sounded remotely worthwhile to me. And still, having Night Shift (or F.lux ('https://justgetflux.com'), to give proper credit) for my interior lighting would probably set me back quite a few bucks. Also, all the smart bulbs I've seen seem to max out at something like 800 lumens which is just sad and dim.

I'll probably just stick with my current setup, which is to use Philips 1800 lumen dimmable LEDs that skew warmer as you dim them and whiter when you crank them up. That so far is working quite nicely and provides ample light.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CarlJ

79 months ago

I find both Hue and LIFX have one major drawback, you can't use the bulb with *regular wall switches.

It should be intuitively obvious, though, that if you cut the power going to a bulb, it can’t do anything smart until power is restored. Using Hue lights involves rethinking the way you use lights. I have a few Hue Dimmer Switches, but most of the time, I just ask Siri to set various scenes. It’s so much nicer than walking around the room turning on 4 different lights.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CarlJ

79 months ago

Am i the only one too stupid for the Home App? That’s one App from Apple I do not understand how to set up at all. I still use the Hue App to control my lights. Every time I open the app it tells me the names have changed and if I want to update them and I am like NO leave it be (Alexa also uses the names) or I see my lightbulbs twice

I’m the other way around, I only use the Hue app to update the firmware or reprogram my Dimmer Switches (HomeKit can’t do the trick with multiple presses cycling scenes). I do everything else in Apple’s Home app. Yes, the first time you open Home after making changes in the Hue app, things get thrown around a bit, but that’s a one-time thing - for me it’s mostly some things getting put in the default room, that I have to move back to the right rooms. But the Home app is so much better, because you can build scenes that make use of lights in multiple rooms and make use of Hue and non-Hue devices, as well as building automations.

These days, though, I rarely open either app - I just tell Siri what scene to set, or what light to change.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CarlJ

79 months ago

HomeKit ('https://www.geekwebguides.com/guide/homekit/')'s new Adaptive Lighting feature has appeared for Philips Hue beta testers in Germany, according to iphone-ticker ('https://www.iphone-ticker.de/adaptive-beleuchtung-in-homekit-philips-hue-ist-bereit-164054/')
...
Adaptive Lighting was not present in any of the iOS 14 betas before its public release, and was instead promised to arrive later in the year as smart lighting manufacturers such as Philips Hue implement it. Adaptive Lighting will only be available where manufacturers actively support the feature via a firmware update, so its absence in the iOS 14 betas does not seem to be due to a delay at Apple's end.

Why is the name “Hue” not in the article title anywhere? The title makes it sound like Apple is beta testing this in Germany (since its a new feature of Apple’s recent OS release), while the article makes it pretty clear that Apple shipped the feature (well, the API) and Hue is beta testing this in Germany.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)