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Title: Philips Hue Plans To Make All Your Lights Motion Sensors

Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/09/04/...

Philips Hue is rolling out MotionAware, a new feature that turns its smart
bulbs into motion sensors using radio-frequency (RF) Zigbee signals. The
upgrade works with most Hue bulbs made since 2014, but requires the new $99
Bridge Pro hub to enable. The Verge reports: To create a MotionAware motion-
sensing zone, you need Hue's new Bridge Pro and at least three Hue devices in
a room. It works with all new and most existing mains-powered Hue products
via a firmware update. That includes smart bulbs, light strips, and fixtures.
Portable devices, such as the Hue Go or Table Lamp, and battery-powered
accessories, such as Hue switches, aren't compatible. Neither is Hue's
current smart plug. [...] "All of the functionality you get with our physical
motion sensors -- including turning on when motion is detected or off when
there's been no movement for a certain amount of time -- can be configured on
motion-aware motion events," says George Yianni, Hue CTO and founder, in an
interview with The Verge. "We've done something that's quite a lot better
than what else is out there." MotionAware is occupancy sensing, not presence
sensing; it requires movement. Yianni says it's comparable to the passive
infrared sensing (PIR) Hue's physical sensors use. This means it can be
triggered by pets or other motion. A sensitivity slider in the app helps fine-
tune detection. According to Yianni, a key benefit over PIR is that a
MotionAware zone can cover a larger area than a single PIR sensor, and it's
also not limited to line of sight. MotionAware can't sense light levels,
which Hue Motion Sensors can, but you can pair a light sensor to a motion
zone to feed it that data. The positioning of the lights will also play a
role in determining the effectiveness of the motion sensing. "We recommend
that the lights surround an area which will roughly define the detection area
in which motion will be detected," says Yianni. "It will sense around the
lights and in the broader room thanks to reflections, but detection
reliability will depend on lots of factors." Beyond lighting automation,
MotionAware can also integrate with Hue Secure, Hue's DIY security platform
that includes cameras, contact sensors, and a new video doorbell. Motion
detection can trigger lights to flash red, activate Hue's new plug-in
chime/siren, and send an alert to your phone with a button to call emergency
services. [...] MotionAware is built on RF sensing -- a technology that uses
wireless signals to "see" a space and detect disruptions within it. The data
is then sent to the Bridge Pro, where AI algorithms are applied to figure out
what is causing those disruptions, so the system can act accordingly. This is
why it's limited to the Bridge Pro, the V2 bridge isn't powerful enough to
run those algorithms, says Yianni.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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