Philips Hue Firmware: Zigbee and Matter Concurrency on Thread Bulbs

If you bought a recent Matter-over-Thread Hue bulb and hated choosing one radio forever, the update is finally on the release notes. On October 5, 2026, Philips Hue’s official lamp changelog listed software 1.164.2 for hardware platform 100b-129 with four bullets that matter to smart-home nerds.

What 1.164.2 adds

• Bug fixes and stability improvements
• Support for Matter 1.4.1
• Support for Matter Apple adaptive lighting
• Support for Zigbee and Matter concurrency in bridgeless mode

Hueblog notes that platform 100b-129 covers 2026 Hue products plus the fall-2025 E27 and GU10 Thread bulbs — the lights that already ship with Matter-over-Thread silicon.

Why concurrency matters

In a June 2026 Verge interview, Hue CTO George Yianni explained the old rule: Zigbee and Thread could not run at once, so commissioning forced a choice (and a reset to switch). Silicon Labs concurrent multiprotocol (CMP) on MG26 / SiMG301 SoCs was meant to let a bulb stay on the Hue Bridge (or a Hue remote) and join a Matter Thread network as a first-class device — listening to both.

Practical upsides called out by Hueblog and local-home writers: Thread-first bulbs become easier to add to a Hue Bridge later without a painful re-pair, and always-powered lamps can help extend a Thread mesh.

Rocks take

For Home Assistant + Hue Bridge + Apple/Google Matter households, dual-stack bulbs cut the “pick a team” tax. Flip on automatic updates in the Hue app, then verify which of your SKUs sit on platform 100b-129 before expecting the new line item.