Philips Hue is the global leader in connected lighting, announced today that it has launched Hue Motion Aware, a category-creating technology that turns smart light bulbs into smart motion sensors. The new product was introduced during IFA 2025 in Berlin, and takes advantage of previously-purchased Hue hardware to provide advanced motion awareness and automation for Hue users that will improve their home lighting experience with an entirely new operating paradigm of intelligent adaptive lighting.
Enabled by the Hue Bridge Pro
The launch of MotionAware is enabled by the company’s most advanced hub yet, the Hue Bridge Pro. The Hue Bridge Pro boasts the Chip’s Processing with superior usable processing power, expanded system capacity, built-in security assurance and secure communications that advance connectivity that Hue is implementing into its connected ecosystem.
MotionAware is designed to work with almost all mains-powered Hue bulbs and fixtures made since 2014 (constituting approximately 95% of Hue’s install base world-wide). With motion aware Hue bulbs, users now can use radio-frequency sensing over the Zigbee network, where the bulbs detect motion by reading differences in wireless signals.
Opt-In Intelligence with Broad Compatibility
Truly, the new innovation is entirely opt-in and a simple firmware update to protect existing Hue users. Once at least 3 Hue lights are installed in a room, then have created a motion sensing area. Users can choose how they want the bulbs to react when motion is triggered, such as turning on, fully dimming, or a user-created sequence involving the entire Hue ecosystem. MotionAware has been designed to support up to 4 motion sensing areas per Bridge Pro, with expectation to grow through updates. George Yianni, founder and Chief Technology Officer of Hue stated that MotionAware is a landmark development in smart-home intelligence. “What we have done is beyond anything else on the market,” Yianni stated. “Where we differ from other technology is we have the flexibility of motion sensing in addition to no extra hardware. The area we cover with motion is larger than PIR sensors and is integrated with the smart lighting and security devices that our users opted to embrace.”
Next Generation Hub Deployment
In order to provide this level of usability, the Hue Bridge Pro is offered at $99 and had the computing power typical of the speed expected in such a device like a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, 1 gig DDR4 apace and 8 gigs onboard for storage. The Bridge processed motion data locally fixing latency and privacy problems. Unlike cloud-reliant products, MotionAware through the Bridge operates and provides a speed of response it was not reliant on cloud service.
The Bridge Pro is a sizeable addition to the Hue ecosystem – it could accommodate more than 150 lights (which is three times what the last Bridge could) and it could also take 50 accessories. It can run up to 500 customer lighting scenes. It has a Wi-Fi deployment option and an ethernet deployment option that is more suited to operating stability. Migration tools will assist with moving the older Hue bridges, and a multi-bridge migration is also supported later in the year.
Greater Security Add-ons
MotionAware provides an enhancement to the smart-home surrounding security beyond lighting automation. With motion detection being integrated into Hue Secure, the DIY security platform, many actions could trigger from motion detection. Such as, flashing lights, alarms sounding and alerts sent to user’s smartphone. The subscriptions start low at $1/month for basic motion alerts and $40/month for video and full cloud-enabled security features. Some motion based lighting automations require no subscription and are free to use.
The company made announcements at IFA 2025, and it coincided with Philips Hue’s largest overall product launch ever. Along with MotionAware and Bridge Pro, Philips Hue also launched a new budget-level range called Hue Essentials with pricing starting at only $15/bulb in multi-pack sets. The Essentials range is Matter-over-Thread supported for a smoother user experience when adopting Hue products for new users and better interoperability with new major smart home platform launches (Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home).
Philips Hue also launched a new core bulb series that includes higher energy efficiency (40%), ultra-low dimming to only 0.2%, and colour accuracy because of said this ChromaSync technology. Along with all of that we also saw a lot of new products including ultra-bright OmniGlow light strips, a new value level offering called the Flux strips, and lots of outdoor products called Festavia.
The Hue Secure suite has also been enhanced with new cameras, new wired video doorbell, and Smart Chime accessory, that now works with all of MotionAware, which integrates into the Hue app and is directly built into that.
Hue gets the robot control – privacy, reliability and built-in.
Privacy and control for the user are the primary concerns in the Hue strategy. MotionAware is completely opt-in and the user must toggle on the motion triggering menu feature in the Hue app. The data measuring the motion will only ever be stored on the user’s local network, and NEVER sent out of the Hue network. The Hue Secure alerts will only ever be sent if the user toggles on security alerts in the Hue Secure application. Hue Secure is fully GDPR compliant and exists solely based on HDR privacy principles.
Technology Built for Real Homes
Most importantly, MotionAware uses RF sensing. That has taken many years to work through with the Wi-Fi devices. Importantly, Hue was the first company to deliver actual RF sensing via Zigbee, which ultimately promotes a far more stable sensing technology and fewer false detections. The technology works in this way is imperfect today but it have taken years to get to this point. The two key aspects to MotionAware were built and made using our Ivani technology developed for Sensify firmware and the years of working and deploying this drove our technology into many real-world homes, developed reduced latency, and allowed for reliability to be established.
Yianni emphasized how difficult achieving perfection is, stating “It is easy to put together a cool demo. What is hard is to create a working system that performs consistently, quickly, and reliably through the complexity of a real-time home. Our team of engineers have spent years ensuring motionaware works and can deliver that.”
Setting a New Standard
With MotionAware and Hue Bridge Pro, Philips Hue is breaking the limits in a new smart lighting paradigm. They are stitching together intelligent sensing, great hardware design, and a value chain of products that enhance and shape the convenience for consumers while setting new standards for security, reliability, and trust.
MotionAware will be delivered to all compatible Hue devices via firmware with the labour(s) of the Bridge pro release. With the current release of the Bridge pro, Philips Hue will lead and dominate the smart-home space, it will make the new normal is that lighting itself is intelligent, adaptable and a dynamic object that has a direct connection to a person’s everyday life.
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