Reviews for Philips Hue Connected Bulb - Starter Pack

Replaced 3 halogen bulbs with the 3 Hue bulbs in the starter kit and I'm very impressed. Aside from the 30 minutes childish fun I had of using the pre-defined colour patterns, the ability to tune the colour was fantastic, especially in areas where a brighter more blue light is required, like when reading. I would replace alll of the bulbs in my house, but the cost of the bulbs is prohibitive.

Setup timer to turn on two lights, but often only one will turn on. Also setup geo-location "My location" to turn on lights when approaching the house, but it doesn't work, and worse, while in the house, it thinks I have just arrived and randomly turns on the lights. I only needed two of the three bulbs in the startup pack, so not sure if only installing two of them is reason for my problems. I am using Hue V1.1.1.

My app keeps coming up with the message saying there is NO BRIDGE FOUND. It can not locate my bridge. I have everything connected the way it should be but nothing works. All of the lights on the bridge are lit and the globe looking one is now blinking. There is no number to call, I have submitted an email and no response.

I will add that when this device did work, I had a blast with it and multiple friends have bought it since. It seems as though that the NEW APP UPDATE had something to do with this problem. Well I guess it is now time to sit and wait and pray that a new update comes out soon or I have just wasted $200. I hope this helps you and hope yours works if you purchase it and hope mine gets fixed because its cool when it works!

Now Hue owners can use IFTTT to control lighting in innovative new ways. Mine are set to turn blue as a notification of rain, strobe for rent day reminder, turn on and off upon arrival or departure from home. You can set many other alerts like changing to your fav sports team colors when ever they are about to play a game. Blink or change color when you get an email from selected email address. They can also respond to communications and photos posted on your Social media sites.
IFTTT gives you a phone number upon free registration for SMS interaction with the hue bridge.
My fave has got to be using the ifttt phone number to voice control the lights. " Siri to Tell "Edison #off, #on, #dim.
Get this, love it run out and get more bulbs!!

Make all your friends jealous and your neighbors curious.They are easy to install. Just install in the bulbs, plug in the bridge and hardwire it to your router, download the app and watch in awe as your whole room changes!The app is fairly easy to use (could be better). My husband and I are going to have light battles and scare the babysitter.

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.

Purchased starter pack, plus two single bulbs.

Cons:
Turning off the light bulbs with a light switch, and then turning them on will default to bright white light. Prefer you could select the default or have the base station set the last setting when the bulbs connect.

The app does not allow you to directly set a color. You must have a photo with the color you want to select. This was disapointing when you are trying to get a specific HUE. I had to use Photoshop on my Mac to save a photo to my phone with the color palette I wanted.

Pros:
Cool emerging technology that will only get better.

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.

Right, firstly the App could do with some work. Mostly intuitive but some basics like setting the timers are very unclear. Tip - you just need to double tap to reset the alarm.

Other than that the product is awesome.

Aside from the geekery of the thing I was most amazed is that almost no perceptible heat comes from the bulb. After an hour or so they are just slightly warm to the touch. They must be incredibly efficient.

But above all this is totally cool. It may be a stretch to pay for them at $60 a bulb but I am sure costs will be recovered over time. But these are LED bulbs with wireless built in, how cool it that???!!!

I find my self laughing every time I turn on and off the lights.