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Why your Philips Hue bulb is randomly setting itself to 100 percent brightness

Why your Philips Hue bulb is randomly setting itself to 100 percent brightness

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It’s a Matter-related bug, and there’s a temporary workaround.

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Philips Hue smart LED light bulb gear.
Philips Hue smart LED light bulb gear.
Image: Philips

Are your Philips Hue smart light bulbs seemingly going rogue, randomly turning themselves up to full brightness even if you’ve set them dimmer? Philips Hue parent company Signify is aware of the issue, has figured out the root cause, and tells The Verge that a fix is coming as soon as next week.

“After extensive analysis, we have identified an interoperability issue with the Matter smarthome standard, in which random temporary radio traffic disruptions are incorrectly recognized as legacy switch power toggles, turning low brightness lights to full brightness,” reads a statement from Signify CTO George Yianni to The Verge.

Matter is supposed to be the one smart home standard to rule them all, but it’s been dicier in practice — we had considerable trouble with Philips Hue and Matter in particular late last year.

But this one’s not Matter’s fault. Signify and the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the group behind Matter, both confirm it’s not a bug in the Matter code. “This behavior is related to the implementation of the code by this particular manufacturer,” CSA spokesperson Ted Miller tells The Verge.

That also means the issue is limited to Hue lights and shouldn’t affect any other smart lights that work with Matter.

The good news is you won’t have to wait long for a solution. “A permanent fix for the issue is in progress and will be rolled out within the next week,” Signify says.

If you can’t wait, the company says you can just disconnect the Hue Bridge from Matter in the meantime. “Please note you may need to do this in your phone settings as well as the Matter controller app you are using,” Signify writes.

According to Signify, the issue only affects “a small percentage of users.”

BTW, my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy just recently updated her guide to every smart home device that works with Matter.

Update, July 9th: Added confirmation from Signify and the CSA that it’s not a bug with Matter, and shouldn’t affect lights from other brands.