Philips Hue owners are getting a hassle-saving upgrade to help them control their lights

I love my Philips Hue lights: they can set the right mood for a dinner party or make my flat resemble something from Neo-Tokyo, and because I rent my home they enable me to transform it without a lick of paint or an angry landlord.

The best Philips Hue bulbs, the most recent ones, don't need the Hue Bridge I had to buy in order to begin my Hue smart home adventures; they work via Bluetooth too. And that's great, but it's a bit of a pain because you can't use the standard Hue app to set them up: you need to use the separate Hue Bluetooth app instead. But not for long.

According to Hue Blog, the next update to the main Hue app will bring the Bluetooth features into it – so you'll be able to use one app instead of two, and be confident that you'll get your app updates at the same time as everyone else.

A useful update for any room with a Hue smart light

There are more changes to come. Hue Blog reckons that the separate Hue sync app is next for the chop: it hasn't been updated for eight months and the same Spotify syncing is already baked into the main Hue app, so there's not really any reason to keep it going. I'm all in favour of that: fewer apps make for an easier experience.

Having one app to rule them all is clearly a great upgrade for Philips Hue users. Now if someone could find a way to make all of my Hue bulbs work consistently with Apple's HomeKit so I don't need to switch to the Hue app at all...