We’ll price them at sales prices of $38/average, $20/average and $10/average for color, white ambiance and white bulbs, meaning our total smart light conversion cost is: So this comes to around 25% cheaper than Linus’ prediction, which isn’t bad considering that it contains 20% more bulbs. Meaning the Play Gradient doesn’t supply any main benefits over an ordinary Hue lightstrip when not synced to your TV. The Hue tap in its usual home. Firstly, you’ll notice that in the section above I perform a ‘like for like’ comparison – comparing a smart bulb to a standard ‘dumb’ bulb. In a way that can be controlled with a phone app and via your voice. Does not buying a Hue Bridge/Hub save money? This also allows Hue bulbs to operate in the CIE color space, offering greater flexibility in the colors of light that are delivered – and ultimately making the light seem more natural and vibrant. You must have a Philips Hue Sync Field to get full worth of the Play Gradient, which suggests if you happen to’re ranging from scratch, you’re taking a look at a minimal entry price of round $430. The Philips Hue is therefore a lighting system that you would want to invest in. Once you know what you want to buy (when the price is right, that is), use a price monitoring site such as Slickdeals or CamelCamelCamel. On the other hand, Google Home does not support scenes but allows you to individually change light color. Through the systems, you can also be able to set the dim level. So what exactly does that mean? Just leave it and get the Philips Hue Lux for your voltage. Electricity Bill. This video is unavailable. Downsides to having a bridge is that it is another device you need to keep plugged in, and it also needs to be wired into your router using a ethernet cable, the bridge cannot connect over wifi as it doesn’t;t have this option. They contain the Hue bridge/hub – which you’ll need if you want to control more than 10 lights… plus it unlocks a lot more features than just using Bluetooth. The smart home is a big, big investment, and one of its biggest stars is the Philips Hue. Please read my disclosure if you’d like more info on this. The Philips Hue Gradient Light Strip is an absolute home run. My Top 13 Recommended Smart Home Products. These can alert you to good deals, and also give you the historical prices for products – allowing you to only buy when the price has dropped so that it’s a genuinely good deal. I’ve used and tested many smart products over the years, and these top 13 are quality products that are definitely worth checking out. I have close to 50 Philips Hue devices in my condominium, with this in-depth knowledge I will be discussing the pros and cons of the Philips Hue setup. Worth it right there. This can sometimes make the color of simple RGB bulbs look a little… flat and dull. $60 at Amazon Set a timer. Here are some of the reasons why you might consider other bulb options: For those that want to install these bulbs, the primary thing you require is a Starter Pack. I have Hue lightstrips and Bloom lamps in most areas, as I prefer ambient light. To establish whether the Philips Hue light bulbs are worth it, we’ll have to look at the pros and cons of these bulbs: Just like with plenty of smart lighting systems, as a company, Philips Hue has built the intelligence and dimming capability into its range of bulbs. Yeah that's what the Hue white ambience bulbs do. A brighter light isn’t always the best fit for every situation, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus creates significantly stronger illumination and has a more attractive, natural glow. If it's worth it depends on how much you're willing to spend on a hobby, The lights are expensive, you need the Hue Lights network Hub thingy and if you want to use your television with the lights it needs the Hue Sync Box which is also very expensive. The Hue bridge is pretty small (the footprint of the Hue bridge is 88mm x 88mm and just 24mm high) and it needs to be plugged in to the mains to operate. You must be logged in to post a comment. Just kidding. If you've been curious about smart lights, but don't know where to start, it's worth taking note of the deals on Philips Hue Starter Kits this Black Friday week, with up to 40 per cent off on Amazon. Smart homes are the new thing. Amazon’s Apple HomeKit enables you to activate scenes and change light color. You don’t always have to wait until Black Friday to get a good deal – there’ll be frequent offers on Philips Hue bulbs throughout the year, sometimes at a better price than you’ll get during the Black Friday sales. Overall the Hue is pricey, no arguments there, however when it comes to smart bulbs and set ups the Hue system has a lot to offer and as smart bulbs become more and more popular the price will drop. Why? This is your most basic Philips Hue bulb out there, and if you're happy with dimmable lighting as the only feature, then these are worth a look. While it makes the bulbs relatively heavier compared to dumb LED models, it’s possible to fit Hue bulbs to regular light fittings. One of the other reasons that Hue’s color bulbs are more expensive than the cheaper smart color bulbs is that Hue’s color bulbs are RGB-CCT, not just RGB. Go for the gold with newer models. Are Philips Hue Starter Kits worth it? on Hue bulbs and at 8:17 in the video below, he said that it’d cost $1,600 to switch to smart Hue bulbs in a typical house: Is Linus correct here? The box itself is $229 and to get the most out of it you're really going to want a couple of those Hue Play light bars that are designed to be set up around your TV screen, which will set you back $129. It unlocks the full potential of your Philips Hue home. Its Tap Switch is an intelligent device, powered by kinetic energy by pressing four buttons. The box itself is $229 and to get the most out of it you're really going to want a couple of those Hue Play light bars that are designed to be set up around your TV screen, which will set you back $129. But if you value these features, it could well be paying some extra cash for. Your email address will not be published. The Hue ecosystem offers lots of different bulb types, making it one of the most verstaile and powerful smart lighting platforms. The latest generation of Philips Hue bulbs contain both ZigBee and Bluetooth chips, whilst the ‘requires the Bridge’ bulbs contain just a ZigBee chip. Each light bar comes with a six-foot cable that plugs into a single power adapter. RGB-CCT improves on this flaw by having two more LEDs: a cool white and also a warm white LED (making five in total). With a brand new system, the first thing you need to do is to set up the Hue Bridge. On top of that, what also gives Philips Hue this “premium” image is how it is mostly available in Apple-affiliated stores, even Apple’s own website. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. But they're totally worth it. All these models mean that it's possible to completely overhaul your entire lighting system to … This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. You can mount on the wall or remove it from its housing and utilize it as a remote. No question about it. No question about it. The app enables you to turn lights off or on or utilize the slider to set the lights to dim level. That means you can tell Siri to set the room to movie scene, or turn off your lights. Philips Hue bulbs contain a Zigbee chip, allowing them to be controlled in a wide-ranging way via the Hue Bridge and other similar devices. If you’re using th… The smart home is a big, big investment, and one of its biggest stars is the Philips Hue. It's time we stopped paying Philips Hue's extortionate prices. Philips Hue really is the best RGB lighting I’ve encountered. Whilst these can naturally be mixed to deliver any sort of color, the light that’s delivered ultimately consists of just three spikes within the light spectrum. Much of this can be attributed to its popularity. This compares to around £18 ($22.50) in total for dumb GU10 spotlights which I can get for £1.50/$1.88 each. 16,995, is even something that should be taken seriously. The Philips Hue White Ambiance is a smart bulb that shifts color temperatures across the white spectrum, but you can get the same basic features for half the price with the Hue White. You can order added lights into rooms, which also acts as groups. Whilst this is admittedly a ‘first world problem’, it’s become frustrating to spend 2-3 minutes each evening doing this, especially when I know that there’s a simple solution which can automate this completely. I priced this up and since I had 12 spotlights, I’d be looking at £480/$600 (at £40/$50 per Hue GU10 spotlight). The color bulbs provided by Hue use something called RGB-CCT, which is noticeably better than cheaper RGB color bulbs . As you can probably guess, my general answer is: it depends! Well, there are a few flaws with not using the hub, with the two biggest being: The summary here is that the new style bulbs (with Bluetooth support) can be worth getting if you get a good deal on them and you just want to quickly test out smart lighting, especially since the bulbs also have Zigbee support (meaning you can control them with the Hub if you get one later on). 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