January 8, 2014
Feedback submitted!Unable to submit feedback! These are the Lamborghini of light bulbs: No body needs them but if you can afford them they are pretty cool. The starter set comes with a base station and three standard bulbs. A new starter kit is also available that includes three of the new BR30 downlight version of the bulbs. Setup is a snap. Install the bulbs and power them on (they default to a nice soft-white when powered on). Then plug in the bridge to power and Ethernet (fair warning: it does not connect to your network via WiFi). The bridge comes pre-paired with the kit lights. Additional single purchase lights can be added easily via the software. Once up, run the app. Anytime you connect a new app (even from the same phone) to the system, you just need to press the button on the bridge to authorize it. Super simple. Even the web based app at meethue.com works this way (I assume the device pings home and the web app looks for it coming in from the same IP as your browser at the time. It's quite clever). So no typing in serial numbers or anything like that. And that's it! You are up and running. The stock Philips app gives you plenty of options, including:* Scenes - These are individual settings for each bulb's color, saturation, and brightness that you can save and set. Think of them like desktop themes in Windows. There are a number of defaults you can use and even more community themes available on meethue.com. You can, of course, create your own as well as modify the stock and community scenes. Each scene allows you to set which bulbs are part of the scene and what color and how bright each should be.* Light Recipes - These are special themes that are essentially different variations of white light. Four are included out of the box: Relax, Reading, Energize, and Concentrate * Alarms - Alarms allow you to set a scene (or light recipe) to come on or go off at a set time. You can even set it to automatically adjust the alarm time by a random interval inside of +/- 30 minutes. Great for when you are away and don't want it to look like the house is unoccupied. Alarms also allow you to set a ramp-up/ramp-down time for the brightness when they come on (immediately, or over 3 or 9 minutes). Good for simulated sunrise in the morning, although the initial base brightness is still a bit bright for this type of use, in my opinion. Finally, you can also set the days of the week the alarms apply to (this will probably require a firmware update to the base before it will allow you to use this or the +/- 30 minute feature)* GeoFence - You can set a lighting scene to turn on or off depending on your location (or more precisely the location of your smartphone). For example you can set your favorite scene to come on when you get home or to turn off the lights when you leave. There is also an option you can check so that it will only run after sunset and not during the daytime. * Timer - You can set a scene to turn on or off after a preset time (hours and minutes). Think of this like a sleep timer on your TV or clock radio. When you activate the scene, the timer begins and after it expires, it either turns the lights on or off (depending on how you set it). So you could have one that turns the lights in the kids room off 30 minute after they go to bed. This option also gives you the ability to set a fade in/out time of immediately, 3, or 9 minutes.You can edit scenes from either the smart phone app or the meethue website. Linking the phone app to your web account allows it to sync between the two. The stock app is very useful but the real fun (and power) comes from the API. There are a number of third party apps available that allow for syncing to music, strobe effects, dynamic scenes (where colors change over time), syncing with video (there is a XBMC plugin), and most important there is a Philips Hue IFTTT channel which opens up all sorts of possibilities. There are also some hardware products like the Revolv Smart Home Automation system that can work with the Hue products.With all that said there are a couple of faults with the product. First, if you need to move lightbulbs to a new bridge it's a bit of a pain in the butt to do. There are a few ways to do it but the most common is to use a java app called LampStealer. If you buy two starter packs and want to use the bulbs on one bridge, you will have to do this as the starter packs come pre-paired to the bridge they come with. Second, they are not as bight as most 60 watt replacements. They are only 600 lumens, well below the 800 lumens of the regular 60 watt replacement lamps. This means you will need more bulbs to light a given room, and that's not an inexpensive concession. Third Philips does not provide a wall switch to easily control the lamps in a room. You CAN use your normal switch, but the bulbs will revert back to their default soft-white when they come back on. The only real way to control them is via the smartphone app. Now the system uses zigbee, so there may be a way to do it with a compatible 3rd party product, I haven't looked into that yet. Finally, the bulbs are EXPENSIVE. When the system was first introduced the bulb price wasn't that bad, normal soft-white LEDs where $30-40. That has changed drastically since the product was introduced and now the $60 MSRP for the bulbs is starting to look a bit pricey. Looking around my own dwelling, I'm looking at $240 in bulbs for one ceiling fan! The Philips white LED bulbs with the same form factor as the Hue cost around $16. It's time Philips knocked $10-20 off the price. Overall I'm happy with my purchase and I will be adding a few more bulbs around the house as time goes on. I bought it mainly to use as a wake-up light, especially in winter. I'm also quickly finding that I truly enjoy being able to control the color temp through out the day as well. It's surprising how much that affects your mode at different times of day. Philips has shown that they are still actively pursuing this market with the recent addition of LED strip lights (SMD 5050 weatherproof style strip with a controller and power), the BR30 downlights, and the Friends of Hue Living Color Bloom light. The new lights are currently exclusive to Apple stores. The regular bulbs and starter packs are available from Apple Stores and (in generic packaging) from Amazon. In conclusion, if you have the $200 and don't mind spending it on light bulbs this is a great product. I would encourage you to visit everyhue.com if you have questions about the product. They maintain a fantastic knowledge base and user community. Also take a look at some of the available recipes on IFTTT for the hue to see some of the really cool things that you can do with them and IFTTT. For more information on the API visit developers.meethue.com.