Reviews for Philips Hue Connected Bulb - Starter Pack

Simple to setup and does amazing things for the money.

The app itself is a bit kludgy and mine for some reason does not operate the. scheduling features.

I'm up to 10 lights already and we're using it for our Christmas decorations.

Would be nice if they posted clear information about if it's outdoor rated or not.

If not I hope they come out with an outdoor rated one soon

I had my eye on these bulbs for about two months and finally bit the bullet to purchase them after seeing an article/video clip in the Wall Street Journal about Phillips redoing the lighting for the Empire State Building in LEDs (its pretty amazing).

Now I have an empire state of mind for lighting in my apartment. I love this product. Right out of the box I was like, "I don't know about these.." But once you play with them a bit and figure out how to set the mood for different situations, you'll never go back. I've always been picky about lighting and for the past two months I had been wishing I could turn all my lights off at night without leaving my warm, comfy bed. Phillips took care of my pickiness and my laziness. The concentrate setting works great for studying, the relax setting is amazing for chilling out and, well, relaxing. And those are just two Phillips recipes. If you buy these, check out blue rain at night with your girl -maybe after throwing a party with your friends in the Deep Sea setting over some Clapton and Zeppelin, eh? The possibilities are endless.

My only complaint is that the app is a little shaky sometimes. I'll be reviewing the app in the app store so the developers can get to it.

4/5 because Phillips shouldn't have partnered with novice app developers.

From a person whose eyes are very sensitive to light, just the fine control of white light is awesome. Initial installation is simple. The Web Portal (www.meethue.com) registration for remote operation was not as obvious as it should be in the instructions. The bulbs have a little problem with the transitional spectrum color of green especially darker and deeper green, purple and orange are very good. I am very happy but I am also in IT and did have to work a little harder than I thought I would have to. But once it is all set up it is great.

The bulbs are fantastic. Every color you could dream of. And the multi light settings are super cool. Overall system has great great potential. But the app is quite poorly designed. In the future this can only get better and better.

Simply put, this is a must-have for every technophile/geek out there. Setup is ridiculously easy and fast. The app is pretty intuitive and works well. The only thing it lacks is the ability to set different timers for weekdays vs weekends, but that is a very minor concern. I've only had this a day and I can't imagine ever going back to regular light bulbs again.

The only "bad" thing about it is the lack of availability. I finally managed to get my hands on a kit by calling Apple Stores repeatedly until I finally found one that had it in stock. But trust me, this is completely worth the effort of tracking it down. It's a fantastic product that simply does what is expected of it and does it well.

I bought these bulbs. As soon as I got home I loved it so much I went and bought 3 more bulbs. I through a party and had the lights going crazy, it was a blast.

These things are great! Much brighter than expected and you can turn them off over wifi too! Product of the year for sure. So happy I was able to pick one up in store as they are on backorder online...

I bought a 3 bulb starter pack a few days ago and it worked great.
However, I since went back to the Apple store to buy three additional light bulbs and none of these bulbs are recognized by the system. I tried resetting the hue brigade/remote and even when putting one of the new bulb in a socket that previsouly worked the new bulb is not recognized. I tried placing the new bulb very close to the bridge. Tried re-installing the iphone app (one never knows...). All of this to no avail. I now have three very expensive ($50 each) light bulbs that are useless. This system is NOT ready for primetime and is buggy. I recommend that everyone stay away from this and do not get tempted in spending the considerable amount of money.
The Hue system is just not working!

At its heart, the Hue lighting system is both a fundamentally good idea and has a lot of future potential. That said, in its current form, it feels mostly like a gimmick or party trick at best with some features that allow it some marginal usefulness in specific situations.

First, in high use areas in your home, turning on/off the lights will become a bit of a pain. In order for the Hue lights to work remotely, the physical light 'switch' will need to be left on. Thus, when you leave the room, if you use the switch to turn the lights off, you will not be able to turn them on again using the app. Instead, you'll need to turn the lights off using the app, which is frankly a bit cumbersome and awkward for everyday use (leave room, pause, pull iPhone out, input password, open app, turn lights off, leave room... sheesh).

The light switches will still work for everyday use, but if you happen to have physical dimmers on your light switches, they won't work at all. Dimming the bulbs has to be done via the app itself. Again, cumbersome for quick, everyday use.

As far as changing colors goes, it's pretty cool in theory (we used them for an orange glow during Halloween), but not really useful in practice. Sitting around in blue or purple light is just a bit... weird. Sure, the various 'white' colors are nifty, but again - not a huge deal in practice.

The biggest use I could find in its current iteration is the remote capabilities. Turning on/off my lights while my family is on vacation is nice, but not really a frequent usage model for me. Geo-fencing isn't implemented yet that I could tell and the timers didn't function as I had wanted either.

All-in-all, this is a GREAT idea that just feels too early in its evolution to recommend to the average consumer. Further development, perhaps third party apps, etc. could all evolve the system into something special. For now, I'd recommend saving your money for something that you'll actually use. I bought the starter pack and 3 extra bulbs, played with it for a week, and returned everything without hesitation. I'll be willing to re-purchase it again as it matures with better features, functions, integration, and usability.