- Philips Hue will receive a new Sports Live feature for the World Cup
- Will sync Hue smart lights with the action during games
- You don’t need any additional hardware, just the lights and the Hue app
As a long-time Philips Hue user and big fan of this brand of smart lights, I’m hoping to try out a recently announced Sports Live feature during the World Cup, as long as it doesn’t indicate goals before they’ve actually happened.
Philips Hue lights can change color and brightness based on what’s happening on your TV screen for a long time, but you need a compatible TV or HDMI Sync Box to get this feature. With Sports Live, the lights change in real time based on “live game data”, without the need for additional hardware.
This is according to the announcement from Philips Hue’s parent company, Signify. Apparently the lights will change for “key moments” such as goals, yellow cards and red cards, during the 2026 World Cup.
“Easy to set up and in time for the world’s biggest football event of the year, football at home has never felt so real,” says Signify, although it appears the feature will only be available for this upcoming tournament, which begins on Thursday, June 11. That’s a disappointment.
No spoilers please
It will also be interesting to see how this works. The live match data comes directly from the web to the Hue app, so you’ll presumably have to tell the app when you’ve started watching it and alert your smart lights if you decide to pause or rewind the action at any time.
I don’t want to be in a situation where my smart lights are flashing to tell me that England have scored (or conceded, which is perhaps more likely), while the action on my TV screen is still several seconds behind.
“The system allows users to adjust timings to account for minor transmission delays,” according to Signify. “If users choose to pause the action, the lighting effects are also paused and, when resumed, are synchronized with current live match events for a consistent and accurate real-time experience.”
Sports Live will apparently support an unlimited number of smart lights, and a certain level of customization will be offered: you’ll be able to select your favorite team and the color of its main strip will be used as part of the suite of smart lighting effects.
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