Smart lighting maker Philips Hue has officially announced the support for Siri Shortcuts, the latest Siri automation feature which lets users customize their command phrase.
Users can bundle a purple and a blue light for “gaming” or “relax” context. Users can name the light setting as they want for voice commands.
Users can also further link the lighting to other connected devices or features, such as lighting and music, lighting and smart TV or lighting and thermostat. They just need to check which third-party devices also support the Siri Shortcuts and add them to customized commands.
Every time users interact with Philips Hue devices via Siri Shortcuts, the voice assistant learns what time they like to change the lights, the color they prefer, among other conditions.
After becoming familiar with user’s daily routines, the improved assistant will start to offer action suggestions. For instance, the assistant can turn on the “yoga” light setting and play meditation music after breakfast.
First announced in the past June, Siri Shortcuts is similar to routines in the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant system, triggering a series of actions via one command. After certain words are named for a series of actions and multiple shortcuts are for one command, Siri will be able to execute multiple actions when it hears the keywords.
Along with the iOS 12 release last month, Siri Shortcuts, as a standalone app, has been rolled out to iPhone users globally. It could take some time for users to get used to the new Siri feature and truly take advantage of it.
Philips Hue released support for Siri Shortcuts to show the company’s intention to embrace new technologies and to integrate with other smart platforms.
Philips Hue smart lighting users are required to have the Philips Hue Bridge installed to have their devices work with Apple HomeKit and Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.