[vimeo] http://vimeo.com/53788941 [/ vimeo]
Phillips HUE is a product developed by the company of the same name and we are basically talking about light bulbs that can be controlled by an iDevice, and here we include the possibility of controlling the color of the light emitted by them. Those from Phillips have made available to developers, including an SDK through which new functions can be developed for the control of light bulbs, and in the video clip above you have demonstrated the way Crab can control these bulbs. Basically, Siri can only control the level of light emitted by the bulbs and can turn them on/off, but probably soon she will be able to control the color as well.
The Philips Hue hardware was first intriguing to me because they explicitly mention that it's a ZigBee certified product on the packaging and labels. ZigBee is a wireless technology that is different from WiFi in a few important ways: Low power, equivalent range and intended for light data mesh networks. It's popular with DIY hardware makers (think Arduinos) for this reason, as well as that it's much cheaper than WiFi modules. It seems like it may be the wireless standards of choice for consumer home automation systems that are coming to market. As an example, the Nest thermostat was also found to have ZigBee hardware inside, although it isn't supported in software yet. Because of all this I wanted to see exactly what hardware Philips was using, and if it would be possible to replicate the Hue system.
For this experiment, a Siri Proxy was used because the assistant cannot interpret the commands based on which Phillips HUE are controlled, and it is unlikely that Apple will implement support for them.
