Here’s how Philips Hue could work AI into its lighting scenes

The Philips Hue app is gradually making it easier to get creative with lighting scenes, and now there are hints that AI could get in on the action, too. 

According to HueBlog, Philips Hue is tinkering with an unannounced feature that would allow you to make natural-language requests for new lighting effects—such as, “Create a scene for a cozy breakfast”–with those requests being handled by AI. 

Initially, the AI likely wouldn’t be able to generate new light scenes on its own, but would instead suggest existing scenes that might be a good fit, the HueBlog report says. 

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Such a feature could point the way toward AI playing a bigger role in the Hue app, capable of actually generating lighting scenes based on your prompts, or—and this is just my speculation—even controlling your lights from such natural-language requests as, “Make it brighter in here.” 

We’ve reached out to Philips Hue for comment. 

Philips Hue wouldn’t be the first out of the gate with AI-powered functionality for its smart lighting app.  

Govee, for example, has an AI-powered chatbot in its app that can create lighting scenes based on natural-language requests (“Make me a rainbow!”), while Nanoleaf has a “Magic Scene” feature that generates light effects from short phrases. 

Then there’s iConnectHue, a third-party app for Hue lights that rolled out its own “magic scenes”-style functionality last year, HueBlog notes. 

While Philips Hue has yet to announce any generative-AI lighting functionality, it has recently unveiled the ability to edit lighting effects, including the ability to tweak the colors as well as the speed and brightness of scene animations. 

Smart home brands have been understandably leery about allowing AI to directly control smart devices, given the unpredictability of the generative-AI responses and their tendency to hallucinate. 

For now, the closest you can get is the open-source Home Assistant, which offers integrations for ChatGPT and Google Gemini that allow you to ask the AI control smart lights and other smart gadgets.