Philips Hue used IFA Berlin 2026 (running 4–8 September at Messe Berlin) to announce its biggest single lineup update in years, headlined by a camera-based alternative to its long-running HDMI sync boxes. The Play Screen Sync is a clip-on, fisheye-lens camera that sits above a TV or monitor and reads on-screen colour in real time, syncing it to Hue lights without any cable running to the display — it launches at £109.99/$119.99, alongside a slimmer Play HDMI Sync Box 4K at £134.99/$149.99. Both can now pair directly with a single Hue light strip over Bluetooth, skipping the Hue Bridge entirely for a one-light setup. Philips Hue also expanded its decorative lighting with the Liane 360° rope light, new Signe and Festavia variants, and cuttable Play gradient strips, plus a Wall Light Module that brings compatible Nanoleaf Shapes panels into the Hue app — a rare bit of cross-brand cooperation between two normally separate ecosystems. The caveat: camera-based sync trades some accuracy and privacy for convenience, so it won't suit every setup.
How does the Play Screen Sync camera compare to an HDMI sync box?
The core trade-off is convenience versus precision. The Play Screen Sync's fisheye camera captures whatever is actually displayed on screen, so it works with any source — a smart TV's native streaming apps, a games console, or live broadcast — without routing HDMI through a separate box first (Android Authority). That solves a real limitation of the existing HDMI sync boxes, which can only react to whatever passes through their HDMI ports, missing built-in smart TV apps entirely unless every source is looped through the box. The trade-off is that a camera reading a screen from a distance is inherently less precise than a box reading the raw video signal directly, and 9to5google's coverage of the launch confirms setup is plug-and-play with automatic calibration rather than a manual colour-matching step (9to5Google). Worth flagging for privacy-conscious buyers: this is a camera pointed at your TV and, depending on placement, potentially the room around it, which is a meaningfully different privacy posture to a box that only ever sees an HDMI signal. Neither source we checked addresses what (if anything) the camera stream sends to Signify's cloud versus processing locally, so treat that as an open question rather than a confirmed local-only feature.
Do you still need a Hue Bridge to use the new sync devices?
Not for a single light strip. Both the Play Screen Sync and the Play HDMI Sync Box 4K can pair over Bluetooth directly to one Play gradient lightstrip, cutting the Hue Bridge out of the setup entirely for that scenario (9to5Google). That's a genuine change from Hue's usual pitch, where a Bridge has been effectively mandatory for entertainment sync since the feature launched. The catch is scale: a Hue Bridge or Bridge Pro is still required as soon as you want to sync more than one light — the Bridge supports up to ten lights in an entertainment area, and Bluetooth-only setups are capped at the single strip. For anyone weighing up whether to buy a Bridge at all, our Zigbee hub comparison and Hue Entertainment Areas setup guide cover what a Bridge unlocks beyond sync.
What's new in Hue's decorative lighting range?
Alongside the sync hardware, Philips Hue expanded several existing product lines. The Liane is a new 360° rope light using what Hue calls OmniGlow technology for even light output around its full circumference, available in 3m and 5m lengths from €399.99, designed to wrap around furniture and architectural features rather than run in a straight line (Hueblog). The Signe family gains pendant, pendulum and pole variants from €299.99, and Festavia — Hue's outdoor string-light range — adds a light curtain, a light net for hedges, and an icicle variant, all at €229.99 (Hueblog). The Play gradient lightstrip range is now cuttable to fit any screen up to 100 inches, starting at €99.99, with a higher-spec Pro version using RGBWW LEDs from €159.99 (Hueblog). None of these four product lines has confirmed UK pricing yet; the figures above are Hue's European list prices at launch.
How does the Nanoleaf integration actually work?
Nanoleaf and Hue are normally separate, competing ecosystems, which makes this integration notable rather than routine. It's enabled by a small $40 Hue x Nanoleaf Wall Light Module — a connector that clips onto the edge of a compatible Nanoleaf panel the same way the panels clip to each other — that bridges compatible Nanoleaf Shapes panels (Hexagons, Triangles and Mini Triangles) into the Hue app (Android Authority). Once connected, the Nanoleaf panels can join Hue scenes and automations and be controlled from Hue switches, rather than needing the separate Nanoleaf app. It's a hardware bridge rather than a native software integration, so it only covers the specific Shapes panels the module supports — existing Nanoleaf strip lights, bulbs or the Canvas/Lines ranges aren't part of this integration. Anyone already invested in Nanoleaf's panel lineup can compare the two brands directly in our Nanoleaf review.
