When we set out to create Philips Hue, it was with the firm belief that lighting could offer more to our homes than simply being on or off. With the announcement of Hue Entertainment, our first partner in Razer, and first product, Hue Sync, we are starting an exciting journey to transform how we consume content in our homes.

Hue Entertainment began its life in our labs before we even unveiled Philips Hue in 2012. Our enterprising engineering team built the first prototype by scripting a well know Belgian cartoon and even in this rudimentary state the effect was special and we knew this was the start of something magical. What followed despite the whirlwind of activity following our initial launch and upscale was a small but constant parallel track of user research, engineering feasibility and pilots. The goal was to explore how we could enhance the experience of music, video and game consumption in your home by immersing you in the content.

Our first public pilot was with the Syfy channel and the Sharknado series of movies. Scripted light effects were rendered on people’s homes as storm clouds rolled in and blood was spattered from the mouths of hungry (and often flying) sharks. The Syfy team was great and we learned a lot from them in terms of what effects consumers enjoyed through this and the subsequent TV series pilots. We also had the pleasure of collaborating with Frima, who created the first immersive lighting effects for the video game, Chariot, and many other music synchronization examples from our passionate developer community.

The effects were awesome and our consumers loved them but we wanted more. We knew that if we wanted people to truly feel as if they were immersed in the action, then the Hue system had to evolve to the next level.

Philips Hue has always been primarily designed to offer reliable control of user created presets (or scenes as we call them) which adapt the ambiance or function of a space. What we found is that while talented and creative people could create amazing light effects with such an interface, it didn’t have the freedom or ease that we knew could be achieved. What these light script authors wanted was the ability to push frames of content into the 3D space around their viewer (or listener) in near perfect sync with the frame of content. This is not easy with the command rate and reliability enhancing retries baked into our scene setting focussed interfaces.

It took a series of pilots, determined prototyping and the investigations of a few of our key engineers but in the end, we embarked on building a new entertainment optimized system in parallel with our scene setting system. This involved new extensions towards the wireless ZigBee network our lights use, new APIs exposed from our bridge and of course the suite of new application integrations which we are still building out. We have been rolling out this parallel system towards all existing Philips Hue V2 bridges and color capable lights as Hue Entertainment since last December. Now with the Razer partnership live, we couldn’t be more excited to see what everyone thinks. If PC gaming is not your thing don’t worry, this is just the beginning of our journey to immerse you in your content like never before. We are busy with Hue Sync, a rich pipeline of further integrations and can’t wait to see what comes from the creativity of our developer community. Enjoy!