The Aria is buzzing with activity At the bottom of a bank of elevators over a dozen individuals stand holding signs representing various companies exhibiting at CES 2019 Theres a lady with a PayPal sign a flurry of yellow-jacketed Snapchat reps and countless others all waiting to escort journalists up to the casinos Sky Suites to meet with company executives Me Im here to see some smart bulbs George Yianni Head of Technology for Philips Hue Whats new with Hue The escort waiting for me holds a sign for Philips Hue She swiftly guides me up the elevator and into the suite where Im welcomed by George Yianni the brands Head of Technology The suite has been made over for Hues purposes with a newly expanded collection of color-changing outdoor fixtures filling the room and green astroturf carpeting the ground We wanted to bring the outdoors inside Yianni tells me After a quick chat about the outdoor lights we step into another room thats filled with all sorts of light switches and fixtures all of them connected to the Hue app on Yiannis phone Most arent made by Signify the Philips Hue parent company formerly known as Philips Lighting Instead these high-end fixtures are made by manufacturers in the Friends of Hue partner program Theres an appetite for so many different light designs and we cant do them all ourselves Yianni says proudly showcasing the growing variety of smart lights Hue can automate in your home He goes on to show me a few that Signify does make for itself a set of Philips Hue Flourish fixtures that look like paper lanterns They currently sell in Europe only but Yianni tells me that Signify will be bringing them to the US later this year The Flourish fixtures each feature two sets of lights that you can control individually I ask for a demonstration and Yianni is happy to oblige -- unfortunately the app is filled with so many lights that he cant figure out which ones are which After fumbling with it for a minute or so he gives up and apologizes Its the first time in years that he didnt set up the suite himself he explains New from Philips Hue and the Google Assistant -- voice fades including 30-minute morning fades that sync with your alarms Tyler Lizenby CNET Following up on features Its hard to blame Yianni for not having time to personally set up the demos at the suite Hes a very busy guy these days responsible for driving the strategy of a top-tier lighting brand that wants to stay at the forefront of the connected home To do that Signify is always working on new products features and integrations as evidenced by a whirlwind 2018 that saw the addition of dozens of new products to the Philips Hue lineup Earlier in the morning along with the new outdoor lights the company announced new Google Assistant voice fades thatll let you ask your smart speaker to sleep the lights or wake the lights for a gradual 30-minute dim You can also set those fades to trigger automatically ahead of your Google Assistant voice alarms each morning For me its about getting this biological impact that light can have on your body to be easier and more natural to experience he tells me I ask if you can adjust the length of time on those fades -- you can he says -- and also if you can tweak the color scheme on your morning alarm fades which start as a dull orange and gradually shift to daylight as they grow brighter Yianni says that you cant Were going to be prescriptive about what makes sense physiologically he explains Bummer for folks who like purple or green Signify sees huge potential for Hue Entertainment which syncs the color of your bulbs with whats playing on your TV -- but the feature still needs more development Ry Crist CNET I go on to ask about another big initiative for Philips Hue called Hue Entertainment that syncs the color of your smart lights with the content on your TV in real time The brand showcased the feature in a suite just like this at CES 2018 and the demo was impressive but there havent been any notable new partners for it in the year since You cant sync it directly with any streaming services like Netflix or with a video game console for instance Ideally youd be able to run the Hue Sync software that powers Hue Entertainment directly on your TV perhaps as an app on your cable box or gaming console Hue isnt there yet -- you still have to connect a PC to your TV to make it work which is less than ideal There are things that are close but theyve been close for a while Yianni admits pointing to anti-piracy concerns and telling me that they create a lot of technical and contractual tape thats difficult to cut through We think its going to be as big as surround sound he adds but it needs to be as easy as surround sound For PC gaming Yianni thinks the feature is there pointing out that Hue Sync will now automatically begin the real-time lighting effects when you start playing a compatible game then automatically stop them once youve finished Beyond that Hue Entertainment still needs a lot of work That wraps things up After saying so long I head back down the elevator only to head right back up for my next meeting Not far from Hues setup Lifx has a Sky Suite of its own After that Ill zip across the Strip to the Venetian where Im scheduled to chat with the team at GE Lighting Both have new color-changing bulbs of their own coming out this year Philips Hue is well aware of the growing number of competitors including heavyweights like GE that havent sold color-changing bulbs until now And in 2019 as we saw in 2018 it looks like Hue is betting that the best defense will be a good offense CES 2019 Every story so far See all of CNETs coverage of the years biggest tech show