It was a promise made at the beginning of the year: the new version of the Hue application (5.31.0) finally supports the possibility of having several bridges in the same installation. This is not trivial for those who appreciate the Philips ecosystem: a standard bridge officially only manages 50 devices and it is therefore possible to reach this limit in large homes.
If it was possible to install a second bridge (€53), the implementation in the Hue application was not practical: it was automatically placed in another home, which required several manipulations to move from one to the other. The novelty spotted by HueBlog — we have not yet tested — therefore makes it possible to link a second bridge to the same home, which partially unifies the devices or in any case allows them to be displayed all in the same place quickly.
Currently, he still notes a defect which requires a little preparation: a switch or a sensor can only control bulbs which are connected to the same bridge. In a large house, you will therefore have to think carefully about grouping accessories. Our colleagues indicate, on the other hand, that the Hue security system (particularly linked to cameras) is capable of operating with several bridges, without all the accessories being present on the same one.
To exceed the limit of 50 devices, Hue will allow more bridges
Note that if you only use HomeKit, this change will have little importance for you: Apple's system has accepted several separate bridges for a long time. Finally, we hope that Philips will one day offer a more powerful bridge – the limit comes from the performance of the hardware – and more complete. The current model is in fact dated, and version 2.1, equipped with a Wi-Fi chip, has always been restricted from taking advantage of this technology.
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