Philips Hue leak hints at a Matter mystery

There’s nothing new about Philips Hue lights working with Matter, the budding standard that aims to unify the big smart home ecosystems. But a recent leak suggests that Hue bulbs may soon have a new way to connect to Matter. 

As discovered by HueBlog.com, recently filed FCC documents reveal Matter logos on the labels of a pair of unreleased Hue White A19 bulbs, suggesting that the bulbs themselves will work directly with the Matter standard. 

Now, all current Hue bulbs can already connect with Matter, but only thanks to the Hue Bridge, which was Matter-certified back in 2022. (A software update that enabled Matter connectivity didn’t arrive until roughly a year later.) As it stands, Hue lights connect to the bridge via Zigbee, and then the bridge makes the Matter connection over Wi-Fi. 

Hue lights getting direct Matter connectivity might seem like a natural progression, but there’s a wrinkle. As HueBlog.com points out, the Hue White bulbs described in the FCC documents only have—per usual—Bluetooth and Zigbee radios, neither of which are part of the Matter standard. Matter does work with Wi-Fi or, ideally, Thread, the low-power, high-resiliency wireless protocol that forms a pillar of the Matter standard. 

So, does that mean the new Hue blubs have Thread radios? Not according to the FCC documents, which note that the lights “only” support Bluetooth and Zigbee.  

But wait, there’s more. The regulatory documents go on to say that “other functions, bands and modes [were] disabled” by the manufacturer, and the “end user has no capability to activate [them].” Could these “other functions, bands and modes” include Thread?  

We’ve reached out to Philips Hue for more details. 

Smart products that work directly with Matter via Thread offer a number of advantages, including the ability to form self-healing mesh networks with other nearby Matter devices. While Zigbee devices also form self-healing mesh networks, non-Zigbee devices can’t join them.

Direct Matter connectivity could also make Hue lights less reliant on the Hue Bridge for advanced functionality. Current Hue bulbs can be controlled without the Hue Bridge via Bluetooth, but doing so means sacrificing several key features, including out-of-home control, the ability to manage more than 10 bulbs, grouping, and custom automations.  

It’s unlikely a Thread-enabled Hue bulb could match all the functionality offered by the Hue Bridge, but perhaps it could offer some middle ground. 

And if a new Thread-equipped Hue bulb is on the way, might that also mean a Thread-enabled Hue Bridge is on the horizon? We’re getting ahead of ourselves here, but still, food for thought.