Soon Philips Hue will ask you to create an account

There’s a lot going on around Philips Hue these days. Last month, Signify launched several new smart home products and debuted the company’s first security cameras. Soon after, they finally rolled out support for the Matter standard, which, among other things, simplifies unified control of connected home gadgets.

It’s also now clear that Philips Hue users will need to create an account on the service to access their smart home lighting. This was previously voluntary. Hue Blog was the first to break the news, which was later confirmed by Philips Hue i Posts on X.

“This change can only benefit users when it comes to security. “Soon it will be mandatory to have a Hue account to control the lighting,” the company’s official account responds to a user’s question.

The change is expected to happen sometime next year. Signing in should also be possible via third-party services like Sign in with Apple, The Verge writes. The site asked Signify more specifically why the change was being made and received a response that it would make it easier for the user to know which apps, ecosystems, and users have access to the Hue system.