Google OnHub turns one year old, celebrates with Philips Lighting partnership

It may be hard to believe, but Google's OnHub router is turning one year old today. To celebrate, Google has created a blog post where it runs down many of the important features that make OnHub "more than just a router." That isn't the only thing it's doing to celebrate OnHub's first successful trip around the Sun, as the company also announced a new partnership with Philips Lighting that opens up some pretty cool functionality for OnHub owners.

This partnership ultimately makes the Philips Hue the first connected device that can be controlled directly through OnHub. Should your home use both OnHub and Philips Hue bulbs, you need only type "On.Here" into a web browser running on your computer, tablet, or phone in order to use OnHub to control your lights. While that's some pretty nifty functionality from the standpoint of demonstrating what OnHub is capable of, it serves a practical purpose as well, as it means Philips Hue owners can control their bulbs without needing to download yet another app.

The rest of the blog post is spent listing off the features that make OnHub stand out from its competitors. Some of the more noteworthy features include the OnHub guest network, which allows users to designate which devices on their private network are shared with guests, and the ability to not only determine which Wi-Fi band is faster, but automatically switch your network between its 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands to make sure speeds stay snappy.

Google also points to the fact that OnHub is the first router to support IFTTT functionality, allowing users to designate simple, contextual tasks that are carried out automatically – a handy feature that was just recently added.

Google has definitely beefed up the feature list of OnHub over the first year of its existence, and this new partnership with Philips Lighting has some pretty exciting implications for the future of the device and its place within a smart home. Hopefully Google keeps the new features coming, because so far, it's done a pretty good job of making OnHub stand out in a sea of wireless routers.

SOURCE: Official Google Blog