The Philips Hue is part of a new generation of smart home lighting products. These systems are a big leap forwards from filament light bulbs or simple LEDs. They are capable of offering a range of colours (or “hues”), with different brightness levels – creating some incredible effects. Even better, they are designed to work with smartphone apps, allowing you to control them remotely anywhere in the home.
This Philips Hue guide will take you through everything you need to know about Philips' smart lighting, taking you through its features and what Philips Hue products you can buy, like the Philips Hue Starter Kit. And, of course, we will point out where to find the best Philips Hue deals.
Since 2012, the world of smart lighting hasn’t stood still. Unsurprisingly, Hue isn’t alone among smart lighting products, but is it still the best in class?
The alternatives are sometimes pretty impressive as well.
Xiaomi offers with their Yeelights a range of smart lights that are a serious competitor to the Philips Hue when it comes to price and the controlling over the Amazon Echo.
IKEA has also started to offer smartlights. Their smart bulbs are wirelessly connected to a central system, called TRADFRI, that acts as a gateway between the bulbs and the internet. IKEA's smartbulbs are efficient and cost-effective, lasting over 25,000 hours.
So, it’s always worth looking around and assessing the competition. However, the Philips Hue is still at the top of the tree, if you can afford it.
So, who should choose Hue? If you are comfortable with smart technology, have a little extra cash and would genuinely benefit from the wide range of features Hue offers, Philips’ flagship lighting system is definitely for you. It’s the most reliable, functional and intuitive system of its kind, has great support and is constantly adding new features, so you may well get value for money from your purchase.
Is it that complex to set up the Philips Hue? You might think so, given that they are an advanced form of smart technology. And there’s no denying that they take a little longer to set up (at first) than just screwing in a lightbulb. However, it’s really not that hard to hit the ground running with smart lights.
If you have purchased one of the Hue Starter Kits, you’ll have three bulbs, a bridge, an Ethernet cable and a power cable.
The light bulbs should be instantly familiar. They have traditional screw in fixtures and can be installed wherever you find a standard lightbulb socket – so there’s no need to rip out your sockets and install anything new.
Install the bulbs and turn on the power via your ordinary switch, just to check that they are working properly.
Now, it’s time to set up the Bridge. Plug it into a standard power socket using the power adapter. It’s probably a good idea to find a plug near your wireless router, as the next step is to use the Ethernet cable to attach the Bridge to your Wi-Fi router.
When that’s done, check the lights on the Bridge. Four lights should turn on. That’s a sign that you’re ready to configure the Hue system.
To do so, download the latest official Hue app onto your smartphone. Nowadays, it can be downloaded for iOS or Android, so nobody needs to be left out.
Load up the Hue App and it will begin searching for your Bridge. You’ll see a message saying “1 new Bridge found”. When you see the message, press the “Set Up” button.
Now, go back to the Bridge and press the round button at the centre. The App should soon tell you that the Bridge has been accepted. When that happens, press the “accept” button.
Now, you’ll need to detect the bulbs on your network. To do so, press the “+” button at the bottom right-hand corner of the App panel. Then press the “Search” button.
After a few seconds, all of the lights you’ve installed should be included. You’ll be free to group them into different rooms if you like. When that’s all done, just press the “Let’s Go” button.
That’s basically it. You’ll now be ready to start using the App to create whatever lighting arrangement you desire. When you add additional bulbs or lamps, they should appear straight away on the app.
