Reviews for Philips Hue Connected Bulb - Starter Pack

I highly recommend Hue to anyone who wants to control their lights from an iPhone, iPad or the WEB. Colors, brightness and auto on/off times by day of the week are awesome. The power savings from LED lighting is also phenomenal, these bulbs give off the light of a 60 watt bulb yet only consume 7.5 watts at max brightness, less if dimmed. I will be adding many more bulbs in the next few weeks.

We started with the starter kit 1 month ago and are now up to 7 bulbs. It was supposed to be a "toy" for us but wound up being very practical because:

* Wonderful to control lighting color for various activities like TV, cooking, reading, etc.
* Great to control lights remotely, turning them on (for our pets) or off when we forgot.
* The new geofencing turned on the lights as we drove into the driveway, even with the Hue app closed! (You do have to start it at least once on your iPhone and logon to meet hue)
* We can now go to bed and turn all the lights off, no more "who's getting up to do that".
* Since they are so low in power, we can leave some dim as night lights. They max at 8.5 watts, a normal nitelight is 3-7 watts!
* We replaced our high end dimmers ($45-60) and simplified wiring.
* If you have multiple bulbs on a dimmer you can now dim each light in a room (or patio) independently!
* We use timers to turn on Living Room at 8:30, kitchen night lights at 08:30, bedroom night lights at 11:00.
* My wife finally got her "disco" ball she always wanted in the kitchen, she plays music loud while cooking and the hue has strobe effect with an additional app.

You get the idea, I don't normally take the time to write reviews but this product far exceeded our expectations. And as for cost... well worth it, saves energy and no need to install dimmers. This is the future of lighting. For now it's hard to replace all lighting because there are no hardware controls for them, some rooms are impractical to run from IOS like a closet, bathroom, etc. However, when turned off/on they default to white. We use IOS to control on/off of all inside Hues, but patio switch controls on/off and IOS control color, etc. We were initially concerned about being only equivalent to a 50 watt bulb, they were plenty bright and if made white, they looked brighter than 60 watt bulbs. We purchased ours are Apple stores.

There are a lot of smart early adopters writing reviews for the HUE. I had the system running with three bulbs within about 15 minutes. The App can be improved but it is functional, very easy (for me) to program, and can be supplemented with the free QuickHue native OS X, Colors for Hue OS X, Magma Hue iOS 6, and others. I don't want to negate fellow reviewer's problems with HUE, but except for the interference issue that may affect connection stability, I believe that HUE is not ready for the general consumer market just yet, but the more technically involved of us appear to have little or no issues other than $60 per bulb. I installed multiple Apps on our iPhone 5 and 4S, and two MacBook Pros in a few minutes.

Wait a couple of months and the App issues will be largely resolved. HOWEVER, many of us that do not work with electronic life expectancy forget that there are 8,760 hours in a year, and a high duty cycle will have the AVERAGE unit failing in a few years (do the math), making them VERY expensive. I'm guessing that this will really be a heat issue. I'm an old analog electronics engineer and without any testing I can tell that I have difficulty holding the base when it runs 'wide open,' which means it is about 160 degrees F (71 degrees C,) not as cool as our intuition might guess. Future fixtures will eventually target the cooling issue, as most are now designed for incandescent bulbs, which have an entirely different set of challenges. HUE CAN be repaired (search for disassembled HUE bulbs) but it is not economically worthwhile at this time. There is also an issue with colorimetry but this will improve in the future.

Fantastic! Put the first three bulbs into recessed lighting and fell in love. Easy set up, yea, the app could do more, but so relaxing! immediately bought ten more bulbs, I own an A-Frame home and this was a true delight. Read the reviews and was seriously concerned about brightness, not a problem at all! i actually had to dim some of the pre-sets. i cant wait until the rest arrive!

I love these things ... not really sure what all of the complaints are about?! But that's okay, as I've had great luck with my order (starter kit and three extra bulbs)! The colors, the intensity, the mood setting, the movement, the illumination, and the app: all are TOP of the line for me! NO complaints here! Just follow the little wheel on the inside packaging for simple instructions to get 'em fired up!

I heard Leo Laportte (The Tech Guy) talking about the Apple/Phillips Hue. Without delay, I read about it and the many tech reviews. In short, I purchased one from the Apple Store; drove to my local Apple Store in Madison, MS; installed it in less than 10 minutes; and the family loves it. My only minor problem was I did not have a spare LAN slot on my router (all four already in use. That was easy to solve. My home is "greener" than ever now.

I never write reviews but after reading the reviews here I was iffy about buying these but went ahead and did so anyways. They are Great. Yes they are pricey, but what from apple isn't? You buying something that is basically one-of-a-kind and that no one else sells. Stop whining. As for the app it is a touch non-user friendly, but for the complaints that I am seeing on here they are lies. There is a color selector (Not just picture matching), its not slow (its your wifi), and people talking about ONLY Apple compatible... Look at your URL. Your on the APPLE STORE. Sorry about the rant to everyone else.

I can't imagine ever living without these beauty's, they have brought our electricity bill down they have already payed for themselves along with "Nest Thermostat" and their so fun! Dim, control, timers, etc.. You will not regret this purchase.

I cannot say enough good things about these light bulbs. What at first seems like a steep price for light is actually a great investment when you consider all that these lights do. I use them in my home office, and they provide more than enough light (with only 2 bulbs in the room, mind you) to do work at night. I particularly like the ability to set the color of the bulbs to match your mood. For working, the "Concentration" mode is especially helpful.

One additional feature that's useful is as security lights. You can set these lights to turn on and off at a specified time, or you can turn them on or off remotely using the Hue portal. Great for when you're traveling and want to leave a light on; or, if you're coming home late at night.

Works as advertised right out of the box! Easy to learn & use in 2 minutes.