The Philips Hue line of lights is gaining several new additions this summer, including a bright white bulb, a Bluetooth version of the Lightstrip Plus, and a revamped Hue Bloom.
Priced at $20, the new Philips Hue White A21 bulb is the brightest bulb in the Hue lineup with 1,600 lumen output that's equivalent to a 100W bulb. That's much brighter than the standard Hue White and Color Ambiance bulbs, which are 60W equivalent. The Hue White A21 bulb can fully illuminate a kitchen, garage, or other room, plus it offers wireless dimming. It will launch in late July.
Also new is the Bluetooth-enabled Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus, a Bluetooth version of the popular Hue Lightstrip Plus that connects to WiFi. This new Bluetooth model does not require a hub to work, though it is compatible with the Hue hub. Up to eight extensions can be added.
A two-meter Bluetooth Lightstrip will be available from Target for $79.99 starting this week, and it will come to other retailers later in the summer. A one-meter extension will also be available for purchase for $24.99.
Along with the new A21 bulb and the Lightstrip, the Hue line is also gaining a redesigned Bluetooth-compatible Hue Bloom table lamp, which features richer colors and an improved white light with brightness up to 500 lumens compared to the prior version. It has also been updated with a more consistent experience with the rest of the Hue range, and the color temperature can now be tuned from 2000K to 6500K.
The Philips Hue Bloom will be available in late July and it will cost $69.99. More information on all of the new announcements can be found on the Philips Hue website.
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important.
Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped.
The new ...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year.
Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out.
Processor and Performance
Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device.
The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
The whole smart lighting idea is nice. Too bad the lights themselves suck so badly. All the Philips Hue lights are rated CRI80 at 4000K. When dimmed and set to a warmer 2700K the CRI drops way below 75. Even fluorescent produce richer colours than this! Whenever I visit friends that have these Philips Hue lamps it looks like everyone ate some bad mussels or something.
The Philips master line have much cheaper GU10 lamps that are rated CRI97 at 2700K. Osram has a Clear retro look E27 lamp that is rated CRI90 at 2700K. Both of these are just a few bucks and produce much nicer light. Even when dimmed heavily. Why on earth would you want to mess around with these Philips Hue crap?
because the average person like me didn’t understand a single thing you just wrote. I am happy with my Hue lights and it was easy enough to set up. Love it
a Bluetooth version of the popular Hue Lightstrip Plus that connects to WiFi.
Just to clarify, no Hue products connect to Wi-Fi. The Bridge/Hub is a wired LAN device, and the wireless protocol between the devices and the Bridge (and each other) is Zigbee, not Wi-Fi (though, of course, you can control them with a Wi-Fi device if it's on the same network, e.g., using the Hue app or a third-party integration).
Further, the article didn't mention one of the best parts of the new Lightstrip: you could always cut it, but then officially you lost the part of the strip that you cut. Now they're including official connectors (there have always been third-party connectors and unlit "extension cables" of varying quality with or without soldering required--I'm curious what theirs will look like) so you can re-use these pieces.
Hue looks cool but they seem too overpriced. Many cheaper options on Amazon, probably not as easy to use or the quality a bit inferior but when it comes to value, I think they are hard to beat.
It seems overpriced at first, but the bulbs last practically forever, so in the long run it doesn't matter.
I bought all my Hue kit about for years ago and have spent $0 since then. Everything is still working great.
The whole smart lighting idea is nice. Too bad the lights themselves suck so badly. All the Philips Hue lights are rated CRI80 at 4000K. When dimmed and set to a warmer 2700K the CRI drops way below 75. Even fluorescent produce richer colours than this! Whenever I visit friends that have these Philips Hue lamps it looks like everyone ate some bad mussels or something.
The Philips master line have much cheaper GU10 lamps that are rated CRI97 at 2700K. Osram has a Clear retro look E27 lamp that is rated CRI90 at 2700K. Both of these are just a few bucks and produce much nicer light. Even when dimmed heavily. Why on earth would you want to mess around with these Philips Hue crap?
nobody can tell the difference between my hue bulbs and a incandescent bulb. I have to tell everyone they are led bulbs. All of my kitchen spotlights are also hue. Hues can match color from 2500-3500 pretty well compared to a normal bulb color. The led strips can do the same unlike Lifx that do horrible whites. Not too sure what you're talking about that colors are bad on these. They might not get as bright. I sometimes have two bulbs in one light but I think the colors are pretty accurate looking at an incandescent and hue side by side.
The whole smart lighting idea is nice. Too bad the lights themselves suck so badly. All the Philips Hue lights are rated CRI80 at 4000K. When dimmed and set to a warmer 2700K the CRI drops way below 75. Even fluorescent produce richer colours than this! Whenever I visit friends that have these Philips Hue lamps it looks like everyone ate some bad mussels or something.
The Philips master line have much cheaper GU10 lamps that are rated CRI97 at 2700K. Osram has a Clear retro look E27 lamp that is rated CRI90 at 2700K. Both of these are just a few bucks and produce much nicer light. Even when dimmed heavily. Why on earth would you want to mess around with these Philips Hue crap?
LED manufacturers can game CRI ratings without actually performing correctly. If you're picky about color rendition be sure to look for the TM30 ('https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/tm-30-frequently-asked-questions') metrics of your lamps. It's similar to the color gamut charts you can get on good computer monitors and any manufacturer that's serious about color rendition will publish theirs.
In any case, Hue lights are not bad at all, certainly fine for residential use. Sure, you probably won't find them in an art museum. Frankly I find I'm more annoyed with the lighting design/fixture placements in friend's homes than I am with the light source itself.
