Philips Hue reportedly delays its Matter update

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Philips Hue will reportedly miss an early 2023 launch window for its eagerly awaited Matter update, with the smart lighting brand saying it needs “a little more time” to finish the software patch.

In a statement published by Hueblog.com, a Philips Hue spokesperson said that it is “working together with many partners in the smart home industry” for its Matter integration, and that “we always focus on convincing quality to meet our customers’ expectations.”

For that reason, ”we will take a little more time than originally planned for the Philips Hue Bridge software update before making it available to all consumers,” the statement continues.

The Hue Bridge was certified for Matter last November, but it still needs a software update to enable Matter support.

That update was slated to arrive in the first quarter of 2023, which ends on March 31. A beta version of Hue’s Matter update is already available for developers.

Hue said it will announce a “concrete date” for the arrival of the Matter update “as soon as possible,” according to the statement published on Hueblog.com.

We’ve reached out to Philips Hue for comment.

Once the update does arrive and your Hue Bridge gets updated, the vast majority of your Hue lights and accessories will be compatible with the standard, meaning they’ll work with Matter-enabled controllers and apps.

The two Hue products that won’t be Matter-compatible following the update are the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box, the device that syncs your Hue lights with your TV screen, and the Hue Tap Dial Switch. Those types of products aren’t supported in the initial Matter spec.

News of Philips Hue’s Matter delay comes less than two weeks after Belkin announced that its smart home brand, Wemo, was pausing development of its own Matter products.

But while Hue’s Matter pause sounds like a short delay, Belkin says it is taking a “big step back” from the Matter standard, and will only move forward once the Wemo brand can “find a way to differentiate” its smart products from the coming wave of Matter devices.

Meanwhile, other smart home makers are all-in with Matter. Nanoleaf, for example, made its first Matter-enabled smart lights available for pre-order last week.

The Matter standard launched last fall after a couple of delays and has been slow getting out of the gate.

While the most popular smart hubs (including Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple speakers and displays) have been updated to work with Matter, only a handful of actual Matter devices have made it to market, including smart plugs from Meross and TP-Link’s Tapo brand.