Philips Hue has been a best hue compatible bulbs. reliable lighting system in my home for years now, but there are some products in their lineup. You probably want to avoid. Welcome to my Website! In this article, I want to help you understand the Philips Hue lighting system and go through some of the products that I love as well as some that are probably not worth your time and money.
So, Philips Hue is a complete lighting system. This means that they offer a huge array of light and a lot of integration between hardware and software to get everything working now. This system is also compatible with Apple HomeKit, which is what I tend to talk about and use in my home, but also with a lot of the other big smart home ecosystems like those from Amazon and Google, as well as support for Matter, which we’ll talk about in a minute.
Now you get the smarts from Philips Hue by replacing your light bulbs with smart light bulbs that can communicate with the Philips Hue system and the rest of your smart home, and because of that, it doesn’t require any wires in the wall, which can mean it’s a great option If you’re renting in the current place you live, the downside is that because it’s this sort of integrated system, there’s a lot of lock-in, and the products can get pretty expensive pretty quickly.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Bulb details Why it’s worth it?
But at the same time you’re paying for quality products that will last you for years to come. I still have Philips Hue bulbs and controllers and other items in my home today that I bought five years ago when we were renting an apartment, and I even used to use some of their generic Philips Hue bulbs outside of my home, and those bulbs were not designed to work outside, but I still tried it, and they survived some frigid Illinois winters without missing a beat.
Now, Phillips Lighting, which is actually Signify, now we’ll talk more about that in a minute, but it’s actually a much broader lighting company than just the Philips Hue brand, so you might go to your local hardware store and see some lights that are branded by Philips that don’t have anything Hue on the packaging, and those lights are not To work with the Philips Hue system, you need to find ones that are specifically labeled to work with Philips Hue. Now, another advantage of Philips Hue over a lot of other smart light bulbs is that they make a lot of more niche light bulb sizes, like BR30 for canned lighting and GU10 for some track lights and other things, as well as the more standard A19 and E26 bulbs.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Bulb details
Now, a lot of Philips Hue bulbs don’t output a lot of lumens, which means they’re not very bright. The initial batch of Philips Hue bulbs output around 800 lumens, and in 2021 Phillips addressed this by coming out with some brighter versions of their standard size bulbs, so you can get those in a 75-watt equivalent, or 1100 lumens, or also a 100-watt equivalent, or 1600 lumens, and their standard bulbs, of course, are 60-watt equivalents, or 800 lumens, so keep an eye out for the watt equivalency on some of these standard of these standard bulbs. I’ve been using plenty of the 800-lumen bulbs, and they’re plenty bright enough for most use cases, but in certain rooms, maybe like a kitchen, where you would really value the extra brightness I upgraded to some of the brighter Philips Hue bulbs, so, well, these brighter bulbs might be a little bit harder to find. They’re definitely worth looking for when you need that extra brightness.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Using a Bridge
Now, one of the things you’ll see on a lot of Philips Hue bulb packaging is that you can use the bulbs over Bluetooth, and just no, do not use the bulbs with Bluetooth. Now maybe that would be a good way to just test some of the bulbs and see if there’s something you like to have in your home that you really want. to do is get a Philips Hue Bridge so the bridge hardwires into the back of your internet router and then allows you to control your Philips two bulbs when you’re away from your home as well as make them work with other systems like Apple HomeKit and Hugh has pledged it. That’s how matter will work. Now there’s actually a first generation of this bridge, which was shaped like a circle, but for the longest time they’ve been selling the second generation, which is shaped like a rounded rectangular square. so keep an eye out for that version; it should be the only one you see in stores, but just a heads up: if you happen to run across an old circular version of the bridge, now once you install this in your home, it does actually have a limit of up to 50 bulbs that can be connected to one bridge at any given time and 12 controllers. We’ll talk more about what controllers are in a minute, but if you do have a really large home or you just collect lamps or something, then you can get multiple bridges and pair them to the same Hue account.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Dimmer Switch
Now that you have a bridge and smart bulbs installed in your home, you might realize that other people you live with, mistakenly, of course, turn off the light switch, and that will cut the power to the smart bulbs, which means they go offline, which means they’re no longer very smart because you can’t control them, and that’s where controllers come in so that when you or other people you live with don’t want to pull out their phone or speak to a voice assistant to control the lights, there’s something physical on the wall that can do that for them, so a great option that Philips Hue has in this case is the Philips Hue dimmer switches. Now, this is a little remote control that comes with a magnetic mount, so you can put it on the wall, and then from there you can connect that specific switch to a particular room or set of lights in a room inside of the Philips 2 app. Now, if you’re an Apple HomeKit user like myself, you can actually configure this switch in HomeKit instead and pair any of the buttons on the remote to any given scene in Apple HomeKit, so this means that if you have Philips Hue all set up with HomeKit, this dimmer switch can control not only Philips Hue light bulbs but any number of other smart home accessories you have connected to Apple’s HomeKit. And so I actually have a number of Philips Hue dimmer switches I got years ago when we were in an apartment to control Philips Hue lights that now that we own our home and have a lot more smart home accessories, I can still use those Philips Hue dimmer switches to control all kinds of stuff in my home.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Lutron Aurora Dimmer
Now Philips Hue also has a Friends of Hue program where they partner with other brands to make controllers and other accessories for the Philips Hue system, and the highlight there that I really think is worth paying attention to is the Lutron Aurora dimmer. You might have heard me on this channel or other creators talk about the Lutron Caseta Wireless lighting system, which is great if you actually want to replace the light switches in your wall, but the Aurora dimmer actually works with the Philips Hue system, and if you have Toggle style switches on your wall; you can just put this circle over the top of that, so then it’s impossible to flip off the physical switch, and then you just press the center of this dimmer circle to turn the lights on and off, and then you can turn the outside of it to adjust the brightness. It works just like if you had a physical old-fashioned Aurora dimmer on your wall. Now this one can’t be controlled in HomeKit and only talks to Philips Hue Lights, but if you have a room where you are using Philips Hue Lights can be a great way to control them.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Motion Sensor
Philips Hue also makes a really great motion sensor. I have one of these in my living room right now, and, well, it does a great job detecting motion. It also has a light sensor and a temperature sensor in it. Now, the temperature sensor is not the most accurate in the world, and I wouldn’t heat and cool my house on it, but it is just another data point to have, and the light level sensor is really nice because then you can do automations like in Apple’s HomeKit and really only worry about the motion turning on lights if the sun’s not shining through the windows and making the room really bright as it is. I just find the Philips Hue motion sensor to also be really well built and has an option to screw mount on your wall. A lot of cheaper motion sensors out there, well, they can be convenient; they often secure to your wall with sticky pads, and that means that removing them sometimes, if you’re not careful, could damage the drywall, but then you also have the annoyance of having to find a new sticky pad every time you want to move the motion sensor to a new place in your home or a new home that you move to, and, well, of course, you can stick the Hue motion sensor to the wall with sticky pads. It also has that screw option,
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue products to avoid
So, what products in Philips Hue’s ecosystem are probably best avoided? One of the biggest ones in my mind is the switch module, so this is where you actually take the switch out of the wall and then connect it to this module and then close off the circuit to your lights. This is a cool idea Maybe if you have some older wiring that wouldn’t support a smart switch, you could maybe use something like this.
But one of the problems is then you’re sealing in your wall a requirement that that particular room has to use all Philips Hue products because these modules only control Philips Hue lights, so it may be in some specific use cases you might find a module useful, but I just think in general it’s probably worth moving on to either using Philips Hue bulbs with some of the controllers I mentioned or going full on with smart switches and then keeping your bulbs just normal light bulbs.
Another one is Hue to Sync. Now this is a little bit of a hot take, a controversial comment, because I know there’s some big fans of Hue Sync out there, and Hue Sync is this system where you can attach a box to your TV, basically where all the video signals to your TV route through this box, and you can also do a similar thing with software on a Mac or PC, and then that color information is relayed to compatible Philips Hue Lights.
which then add complementary colors to the lighting in your room, particularly lighting surrounding the screen you’re looking at, and it can make the content feel a little more immersive. It adds some bias lighting, which in a dark room is supposed to make it easier for your eyes to look at the screen, but, well, it’s kind of a cool party trick. At first, I tried this on my Mac and had this hooked up to my monitor, and it was fun, but I just ended up removing it pretty soon after just because I didn’t find it all that useful, and I think that the whole sync system can be really expensive, so my advice would be just to steer clear of that and save your money for other stuff in your smart home, but I’m sure we’ll hear from some Die Hard huesync fans in the comments. another two products that I kind of lump into the same reason to avoid are the Hue smart plug and the Hue button.
Now I don’t think these are bad products per se, but there are just a lot of other great options I love for working with Apple’s home kit the TP Link smart plugs as well as Eve energy, and so I think that the Hue smart plug is fine. I haven’t used it, and I just don’t really see a lot of benefit in sticking with Hue, specifically for a smart plug, as well as with the Hue button. There are a lot of other great options for buttons, and if you’re looking specifically for buttons that work with Apple’s HomeKit, one of the things I don’t like about the Hue button is that it only has a single press option.
You don’t have something like a double press or a long press like you do with Acara’s button, and I think if you’re just looking for a tiny little button, there are other options, maybe like Flick, that have a whole system and really a thought-through product line around putting these buttons in your home, and this one is just a little rubber button from Hue. Now another product that I’m not as into from Philips Hue is their holiday lighting that they just introduced. I just think there’s probably a lot less expensive options for holiday lights like to put around your tree, but I tend to prefer the old-fashioned lights and just using a smart plug with them.
Best hue compatible bulbs: Philips Hue Signify
Now maybe you’ve heard of Philips Hue and also heard the name Signify thrown around and kind of wondered what’s going on. Did Philips sell Hue to somebody else or what?
So Philips, the global brand conglomerate that you’ve probably heard of, they actually spun out their lighting division into Philips Lighting in 2016, and then in 2018 that company rebranded to Signify, so that’s why you hear about Philips Hue being from signifies because that’s their sort of parent company, so as best I can tell, it’s all still based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and you know a lot of the same people more or less, and unlike a lot of other brands, Philips Hue actually has a huge collection of die-hard fans out there who have their whole house done in Philips Hue.
frequently asked question:
What is the Philips Hue Switch Module, and why is it best to avoid it?
Answer: The Philips Hue Switch Module is a device that allows you to convert a regular light switch into a smart switch for Hue lights. However, it’s best to avoid it because it only works with Philips Hue lights, so you are limiting yourself to using only Philips Hue products in that room. Additionally, it can be expensive and may not provide as much flexibility as other smart switch options.
What is Hue Sync, and why is it best to avoid it?
Answer: Hue Sync is a system from Philips Hue that syncs your lights with your TV or computer screen to create a more immersive viewing experience. However, it can be expensive, and some users may not find it necessary or useful enough to justify the cost. Additionally, there are other, less expensive ways to achieve bias lighting, which can help reduce eye strain while watching TV or working on a computer.
What is the Philips Hue Smart Plug, and why is it best to avoid it?
Answer: The Philips Hue Smart Plug is a device that allows you to convert any lamp or light fixture into a smart light. However, it is best to avoid it because it may not offer as many features or compatibility options as other smart plugs on the market. Additionally, there may be less expensive options available that work just as well, if not better.
What is the Philips Hue Button, and why is it best to avoid it?
Answer: The Philips Hue Button is a small, wireless button that can be used to control your Philips Hue lights. However, it is best to avoid it because it only offers a single press option, and there are other, more versatile options available on the market. Additionally, it may not work as seamlessly with other smart home systems as other third-party options.
What is Philips Hue holiday lighting, and why is it best to avoid it?
Answer: Philips Hue holiday lighting is a line of smart lights designed for decorating your home for the holidays. However, it may be best to avoid it because it can be expensive, and there are likely less expensive options available that can achieve the same effect. Additionally, traditional holiday lights may offer a more classic, retro look that some users prefer.
What is the Philips Hue switch module and why might it be problematic?
Ans: The Philips Hue switch module allows you to replace a traditional wall switch with a smart control for Philips Hue lights. However, it can limit your options as it only works with Philips Hue products, potentially restricting future upgrades or changes in lighting.
Are there specific scenarios where the Philips Hue switch module could be beneficial?
Ans: Yes, the switch module may be useful in cases where older wiring does not support smart switches, allowing you to integrate Philips Hue lights without rewiring.
What alternatives exist to the Philips Hue switch module?
Ans: Alternatives include using Philips Hue bulbs with compatible controllers or opting for full smart switches while retaining standard light bulbs for flexibility.
What is Hue Sync and how does it function?
Ans: Hue Sync is a system that connects to your TV or computer, routing video signals through a box that communicates color information to compatible Philips Hue lights, enhancing your viewing experience.
Why might some users have mixed feelings about Hue Sync?
Ans: While many users appreciate the immersive experience provided by Hue Sync, others may find it unnecessary or feel that it complicates their setup without significant benefits.
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Consultation: Best hue compatible bulbs
But now if you’re more into running your home with Apple’s ecosystem of products and things that are compatible with Apple HomeKit, which is Philips Hue and many other products. That’s what this channel is all about: creating an effective Apple smart home, so I got more article here for you to read.