Hue Unveil Their Smart Plug and New Button

After a fair bit of rumour last week, Philips Hue has unveiled their first Smart Plug, along with the much talked about, but totally unseen ‘Button’, in addition to the filament bulbs and an updated Hue Go, with added Bluetooth.

Quite unexpectedly for some, there will be a North American variant, alongside the EU and UK versions. The plug, as expected, will use Zigbee to connect to the Hue Bridge, which will also expose it to HomeKit. The smart plug is due out in October, with a price tag of $39.99, which is rather steep, when you consider how cheap smart plugs have become in the last 12 months.

The new Philips Hue button is just that, a ‘Button’, with the whole top of the body of the device being pressable. The size and style of the new button aren’t too dissimilar to the Flic buttons that were being crowdfunded recently, which uses Bluetooth. It would appear that, just as with all other new or updated Hue devices, this will use both Bluetooth and Zigbee, so you can get some basic functionality out of these programmable switches with Bluetooth, but without the need for a hub, or, if you do have a hub, then additional functionality will be available via its Zigbee connection. The button also comes with a wall plate that allows it to be wall-mounted.

The Hue Smart button will go on sale in October for approximately $19.99.