Reviews for Philips Hue Connected Bulb - Starter Pack

I bought two starter packs thinking that the two packs would give me six lights to control and if my bridge ever went out, an extra bridge. I was wrong. The starter packs control ONLY the lights in the starter pack and the additional individual hue lights. I must now wait for stock to be available at Apple Store to return the extra starter pack and get the three individual lights. I love the functionality of the application. I tried connecting my bridge to the online account and it failed over 15 times to connect; I gave up. I guess I won't be waking up to a simulated sunrise in my future. I called Philips and was told that some of the features don't work yet and it wasn't tested very thoroughly before being released as well as the training to handle issues wasn't administered. I will limp along using two bridges in one app while I wait on stock to arrive, but I would have loved to have known about this BEFORE I spent the time and money to buy a product that wasn't compatible. That I blame on Philips.

86 of 93 people found this useful

Really easy to set up and it works really well.
You can share scenes with other people and turn off/on, change the lights through their website at no extra cost.
It would be good to have different size bulbs so I can use them in more places.

35 of 36 people found this useful

Hue arrives beautifully packaged in a truly Apple-worthy box and setup. Setup was easy and fast, and the control software runs smoothly.

It's loads of fun playing with the free app, and producing lights based on your photos and art. The app is beautifully designed and appears free of bugs or crashes. It would be nice if you could program scene sequences and automatic switching over time. This may be possible to some extent, but it looks inflexible and limited. Fortunately, a public iOS API is planned and that should let us switch and shift to our heart's content.

I knew this going in, but the bulbs are definitely not as bright as we might like. The full rating of 600 lumens is roughly the brightness of a 50 watt halogen bulb. I can believe this, for the white only. Alas, white is a combination of all colors, so individual colors are much dimmer. Logically, a red light can only be 1/3 as bright as the total red, green and blue. This is unavoidable, of course, but definitely disappointing for anyone wanting anything like the intensity of a 50 watt halogen.

A related problem is that some colors are far, far superior to others. Hue seems to specialize in red, orange and purple. Even when sampling from bright green photos, I've had a hard time getting any form of deep, rich green. Instead, the green colors look nearly white. Blue seems somewhat better but still flaky in my testing. I hope this is a software problem which can be fixed, since mixed colors incorporating green or blue seem just fine.

So if you want to create a Christmas display with red and green lights, as I did, you will find wonderful red and washed-out green – not what you're looking for!

The bulbs are not meant for use in recessed fixtures, but in my testing they work just fine. However, the lack of reflector bulbs makes them even dimmer than you would expect from reading the above.

Conclusion: Hue is a lot of fun and very well designed and thought out. But with Christmas coming, anyone looking for red and green decor will love the red but not the green. Hopefully a software update can fix this!

16 of 17 people found this useful

I bought a Starter Kit and 1 additional bulb.

Pros:
- solid, quality, dimmable LED bulbs.
- very easy setup — bulbs which are included to the Starter Kit are already "paired" with bridge.
- easy addition of new bulbs.
- lamps will go to defaults (color, brightness) after turning off with wall switch — a safety feature!
- local control through Wi-Fi using iPhone / iPad is fast and reliable.
- you can control which scenes to sync to which devices from meethue.com website

Cons:
- There is no Candelabra bulbs, only standard E26 bulbs.
- Philips cloud is a joke! I've got an enormous number of errors from Google App Engine while interacting with meethue.com website. Bulb status (on/off) is often different on website and in my room.
- Each time when you register a new iPad/iPhone it will get a default scenes from Philips. When app will be (re)started next time on that device, it will ask you if you want to sync your scenes to other devices. If you answer "yes" then you'll get a default recipes on your other devices again. Very inconsistent user's experience.
- Bulbs emit high-frequency noise in soft-off mode. My wife can't hear that noise but I can hear it. It shouldn't be a problem if you plan to place your bulbs to a floor lamp heading them to ceiling but I do not recommend using those bulbs in lamps on your desk. If you turn off your bulbs with a wall switch than that noise goes away.
- There is no off button for scene, only off button for all bulbs. If you want to turn off particular set of bulbs off without touching other bulbs than you need to select any scene which include those bulbs and select "O" in submenu.
- Non-existing support for now. All what you get is meethue.com with FAQ list.
- On/off timers are buggy. I initially created a timer for turning my bulbs off and on and reached a limit very fast. After that I deleted default scenes including those ones with existing timers. Next morning when I tried create a turn-off timer, a first one for existing scenes, app complained that "You have reached the maximum number of active alarms, please deactivate another alarm and try again.". But I have no other alarm defined in my active scenes! Also there is no way to tell application "turn off that scene in 10 minutes from now" or "wake me up tomorrow at 6:30am using that scene" — you need to edit a scene and those changes will be permanent.
- There is no alarm management or bulbs management within a scene through portal — it must be done using an app.
- Delay while controlling scene through Internet is >10 seconds.
- There is no way to determine an offline bulbs — those which were turned off using wall switch.

14 of 14 people found this useful

this product is great i absolutely recommend for anyone thinking of buying.
the only reason i don not git if 5 stars if because of the price and the app.
the app needs work and more features, and 150 sounds more reasonable price.
the bulb could also have a better price at 40dllrs

11 of 11 people found this useful

This is a truly amazing product. It is very simple to install, and set up. It takes some trial and error to understand how to group lights into separate rooms so that you can control them room by room. The Phillips App is rudimentary, but improvements are clearly around the corner. Given the open architecture position that Phillips has taken, I found another APP call Hue Disco which is killer. Turns a group of lights into a multicolor disco lighting effect based on the music that your iPhone/iPad is listening to (not playing...you need a second source device). Even has a strobe light feature. This is beginning of a new era of home control.

10 of 10 people found this useful

I recently bought this starter pack and was quite amazed. The Phillips Hue definately introduces a number of new options to light a room.

The setup was a breeze - much easier than I expected. I had the whole thing up and running in a few minutes. The experience of creating your online account and tieing it to your home system could be made a bit more intuitive, but it is do-able.

Really love the light options available, including the programming of the times and which lights.

My only frustration with the system is it is very photo based. What I mean is that to create a scene (which is basically choosing which lights are used and what colours) you have to select a photo. I can understand why because they want to help you re-create a scene; however, if you are wanting to do something like have lights a certain group of colours for a party, etc., you first have to find a photo that has those colours in it. If you could simply choose, if you wanted, to see a RYG colour wheel and choose the colours that would make it easier to program too.

10 of 11 people found this useful

I'm impressed. Build quality looks superb. The bulbs are attractive, and importantly to me, the color rendering index (CRI) is > 90, far better than CFLs. That’s even better than most other LED bulbs. Tomatoes look red, not dull. I was delighted that these bulbs gracefully ramp up to full brightness when power is applied, and no warm up time like CFL. Brightness is indeed comparable to 50W incandescent in my testing, just right for my living room lamps. Color is stable through the entire dimming range.

The iOS software works OK to get started, but leaves me wanting more. I expect it to improve along with 3rd party offerings. Already, I have enjoyed having the lights dim down to a cozy candlelight as my evening winds down, then to wake me up in the early morning with dawn simulation. Tuning the white balance of the lamps for study, reading, or relaxing is great. Other colors are fun, too, perhaps for accents or parties.

Pricing? The main cost of these bulbs is the premium pure color high-efficiency LED chips and individual drivers. Philips did not skimp here. To bring the cost down and brightness up, they'd have to switch to white phosphor LEDs, which would defeat the purpose and reduce light quality. Remember, with each bulb, you are also getting a wireless network dimmer, on-board flash memory, and tunable color. Compare to other home automation kits paired with dimmable LEDs/CFLs.

I hope Philips releases additional bulb formats, i.e. for track lighting and recessed cans. I'd also like to see ZigBee compatible accessories for control, such as wireless wall switches to flesh the system out. It’s great that Philips is using open standards for these bulbs and inviting developers to create new ideas.

12 of 17 people found this useful

Pleased with the brightness...50w is a reasonable estimate. .I did have to use the IP address, auto find did not work for me. One bulb turns on slower than others and seems to have a slightly different color (could be led color bin or a defect, I will replace under warranty...note: have four bulbs,,,the one that is different was in the starter pack, not the single purchase). Software issue with the fade on and off...just does not work, sure they will get it figured out. I did try many different ways...was looking for a work around or cause. I have not tried the Internet interface for the fade, only iPad app.

5 of 5 people found this useful

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.

4 of 4 people found this useful