Philips Hue is testing HomeKit Adaptive Lighting in Germany

Philips Hue Lighting in a household setting (Image credit: Philips Hue)

What you need to know

Philips Hue is testing HomeKit Adaptive Lighting with some users in Germany.
The feature will allow HomeKit to automatically set the color temperature of lights depending on the time of day.
We've heard nothing about the feature since June.

Apple announced HomeKit Adaptive Lighting during its WWDC event in June, but it's been very quiet since. The feature will allow HomeKit to change the color temperature of lights based on the time of day – warm colors at night, cool colors during the day – but it does need third-party support. Now, Philips Hue appears to be working on exactly that.

As spotted by iphone-ticker, some German users are noticing that the feature is enabled for them following the installation of a new Philips Bridge beta. Only White and Color Ambiance bulbs are supported so far, but that could well be expanded in the future.

Homekit Adaptive Lighting Hue Beta (Image credit: iphone-ticker)

Little is known about how HomeKit Adaptive Lighting will actually work and we'll have to wait and see how this beta progresses to really find out more information. It does seem that the button for enabling the feature will be found in the normal color picker, but that's as much as we have.

There's no indication when this feature will come to other beta regions or when we should expect it to be rolled out to everyone, everywhere. The fact we've heard nothing about the feature at all since June is a concern, but that's part for the course with HomeKit anyway.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.