Since launch in 2012, Philips Hue has supported open interoperability using the Zigbee Light Link standard. This ensures that devices created by third parties can work alongside the official Philips Hue lights within the Hue ecosystem.
We would like to share our plans for extending this interoperability towards the next generation of Zigbee, Zigbee 3.0. Zigbee 3.0 has been the result of a number of years hard work inside the Zigbee alliance to unify the different Zigbee profiles under a single umbrella to allow even more kinds of devices to interoperate.
Philips is committed to adopt Zigbee 3.0 for the Philips Hue portfolio of products and our Philips Hue bridge 2.0 will start interoperating with Zigbee 3.0 certified lights starting with a software update planned for the first quarter of 2018. Certification of our own new products to the new Zigbee 3.0 standard will follow after that.
What will a consumer notice in the change to Zigbee 3.0?
Zigbee 3.0 is designed to be backwards compatible to Zigbee Light Link. As such a consumer will not notice any difference in behaviour between Zigbee 3.0 and Zigbee Light Link devices.
Will Zigbee 3.0 lights work with the current Philips Hue bridge?
At present the Philips Hue bridge only supports Zigbee Light Link compliant products and devices. We will release an update to both the v1 (round) and v2 (square) Philips Hue bridges during the first quarter of 2018 to additionally add support for Zigbee 3.0 lights.
Does that mean Zigbee 3.0 third party bulbs will not work with the Philips Hue bridge?
At present Philips Hue bridges only support Zigbee Light Link (ZLL) compliant products and devices. Third party lights which are compliant with ZLL will continue to work as before. Third party lights which support Zigbee 3.0 cannot be added to a Philips Hue bridge at present but we are committed to add support for this in Q1 2018.
Does this mean that Ikea bulbs will start working with the Philips Hue bridge?
We have recently observed a software update to IKEA’s Tradfri lighting products.
Updated IKEA Tradfri lights now work with the Philips Hue bridge.
Tradfri bulbs with older software versions cannot be added to the Philips Hue bridge since their implementation of Zigbee Light Link is not consistent with the Zigbee Light Link specification. If IKEA launches new Zigbee 3.0 compatible Tradfri bulbs, they would become compatible when we add support for Zigbee 3.0 lights.
We recommend customers to use the Philips Hue system with Philips Hue products or Friends of Hue products and systems to ensure seamless interoperability, creating an optimal user experience.
When will Philips Hue start certifying its products with Zigbee 3.0 instead of Zigbee Light Link?
Philips Hue is committed to certify new products launched in 2018 using Zigbee 3.0 instead of Zigbee Light Link. Since Zigbee 3.0 is backwards compatible to Zigbee Light Link this change will not have an impact on the performance of the products.
Will Philips Hue upgrade the existing products to be certified with Zigbee 3.0?
No, Philips Hue does not plan to software update our existing Philips Hue lights to be certifiable with Zigbee 3.0. Since, Zigbee 3.0 is backwards compatible this does not cause any compatibility issues. Philips Hue does plan to software update the Philips Hue bridge 2.0 to be certifiable with Zigbee 3.0 during 2018.
Will third party bulbs work with the Philips Hue bridge after this change?
Third party products which implement the Zigbee Light Link specification remain compatible with the Philips Hue hub. In addition, once we have added support for Zigbee 3.0 products to the system, third party lights which implement the Zigbee 3.0 product will be compatible. Some features which require software capabilities or certifications on top of the Zigbee standards are only available for Philips Hue and Friends of Hue products.