The Philips Hue app can now customize light scenes to match the decor of your rooms

• Your Philips Hue lights get a new function called Hue SpatialAware
• It applies scenes differently depending on the placement of lights in a room
• There will also be a long-awaited update for the Philips Hue Bridge Pro

Your Philips Hue lamps are getting an upgrade that will make your rooms look much more cohesive. Called Hue SpatialAware, it will apply light scenes differently depending on the placement of smart lights in your room, resulting in a more natural-looking effect.

Light scenes are palettes of themed colors that you can apply to all the lights in a particular room or area. They are great for creating a mood, but until now every color in the scene could be applied to any light bulb or fixture, regardless of its location. The result could be somewhat messy, as you can see on the left side of the images above and below.

That’s about to change, though, because now you can use your phone’s camera to scan your room and log the location of every light. Hue SpatialAware will then apply the colors of your selected scene in a way that makes sense. For example, the lights on one side of the room may have a bright, warm glow to represent a sunset, while the lights on the other are darker. You may also find that the lights towards the top of your room are brighter than those lower down, simulating a sunny sky.

Hue SpatialAware is currently available for about half of the remastered scenes in the Hue app’s scene gallery, and is most effective with nature-inspired palettes. It requires the Philips Hue Bridge Pro, which went on sale last September, and SpatialAware will be available early this year.

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