Philips - Hue White A19 Starter Kit - White

You'll want this if you Own an Amazon Echo Device but not required . I Used this with My Amazon Echo Speaker . For those who Use Echo . It has a 2nd generation hub that works with Apple Home Kit . It is easy to use via the Amazon App and Hue Hub App along with Apple Home Kit . You Must Make a Group Called for Example " Bedroom " in order to work with Echo . Echo Recognizes " Bedroom " and will Turn the Lights on / off for example Say " Alexa turn on my " Bedroom Lights " or " Alexa Bedroom Lights 50 % " It worked great for me and I am working on making new groups to work with more lights . It can work with up to 50 Lights . Or can be used just setting up with the App alone . It Works with All Phillips Hue Generation 2 Compatible lights . Color and White . Included are 2 White Led Lights that have serial numbers and can be setup separately . This Version comes in Plain Box with full instructions and a Great Price . You can Push the Big button and say " Alexa Find my Devices " and it will find your " Hue Hub " And " Lights " Requires you to download the Hue App and Amazon App to your Device I used an iPad and an iPhone Although it can be confusing to setup Amazon Echo . If you don't setup Groups Properly . Trick is to use Groups and say " Alexa turn on " (Group name) " and Lights for example . Fun to use with Amazon Echo . Not sure how far total range is . But As long as you have In Line of sight of the bridge it seems to work best . Easy to Use once Setup .

Okay, maybe it's not life-changing, but this Philips - Hue White A19 Starter Kit is great for Amazon Echo users. Setup wasn't as obvious as I thought it would be, but all it took was a little patience in reading the instructions, and it was set up in minutes. Setup (5/5) I bought this as a gift for my brother, but I was there when he set it up. All you do is set up the bridge/hub to your Wi-Fi. Once that is done, you just download the Philips app and then just link your Echo to the lights through the Alexa App settings. You can customize what you want to call your light. For instance, my brother's are set up in living room, so he calls it living room (i.e. "Alexa, turn on/off Living Room"). That's it; you're set up! If you don't have an Echo, the Philips App will be sufficient as it allows you to dim and turn on/off the lights through there. Obviously, you just won't get the voice control! Light Quality (5/5) So packaging says that bulb will last 20+ yrs if used 3 hours a day. Will get back to you a couple decades later (joke). The dimmable feature is great; if you're light-sensitive like me, you could dim it to comfortable levels. You could buy an individual bulb just about anywhere (i.e. Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc.) for $14.99 if you decide to install more throughout your home. Not sure if there is a limit to how many bulbs a hub could manage, but just check before you go nuts and buy a dozen of them. Overall, this set works great. No problems have occurred thus far (2 months) in terms of connectivity or durability. I recommend this product to lazy people (me) and normal people alike who want to turn on lights without having to walk 5 feet across the room.

I'd never given any thought to a product like this before - up to now, I'd always used traditional dimmers. The problem with these was either having to replace a wall switch, or using an external dimmer and running additional cords, both of which could be a pain. Then I received an Amazon Echo for Christmas and learned that I could control Hue lights with my voice - what could be easier or cooler than that? So I decided to play and picked up this starter kit. Setup was reasonably easy; I had problems at first because ironically Amazon's Hue app doesn't work at all on my Fire tablet - it won't locate the hub no matter what I do. I switched to the app on my phone, and it located and set up the hub easily. From that point I labeled my two bulbs and created a room, then enabled the skill in Alexa. Now I can tell Alexa to brighten or dim the lights just by asking! It's really very cool and useful, and I'm considering some of the other Hue products to enhance lighting in other areas. The only real problem I've seen so far is that it looks like 5% is the lowest dimmer setting, which isn't quite as low as I can get with an external dimmer. It's pretty close, though, so I'm not too concerned. Otherwise it's a great product.

First of all, I got this as a Deal of the Day for $25 off, so score! This particular version of the Hue White A19 Starter Kit is the brown box (i.e. "frustration free packaging") version. There is no difference between this and the "regular," full price version other than the packaging. But just FYI - in case you're wondering. I have this working with my Smartthings hub (Yes, the Hue bridge is needed in this situation.), and it's pretty smooth sailing. All of the bulbs are automated, but I've also created widget buttons on my family members' phones via the Hue mobile app so that they can easily turn on/off and dim the bulbs as they please. In terms of color, these bulbs are a little on the warmer side (2700K), but most "indoor" bulbs are, so not a problem there. I would like to expand and purchase some of the color changing bulbs within the Hue family, but they're not cheap. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that there are other companies now that are producing more reasonably priced smart lighting options that work just as well as the Hue. Something to consider for those of us who are a bit more budget-minded.

I love walking into my house and saying "Alexa, turn on _____ lights" Do you fall asleep reading in bed only to wake up and find the lights on? Now I don't have to get up when this happens to me - all I say is "Alexa turn off lights" I love it! I do recommend that you have tight internet security and a good firewall. You don't want your neighbor messing around with you just to prove a point about internet security. Set-up took about 10 minutes. To set up the HUE it was fairly quick. Make sure you DON'T download the app before installing the HUE bridge. Don't ask me why, but it does make it difficult if you download the app first. If you are gong to connect the HUE to your Amazon Echo, make sure you open the Alexa app, enable the HUE skill, open the menu and select Smart Home. Here you will need to name your rooms. Once you do this, you can use the Echo to command your lights. All in all, if you follow this sequence, it shouldn't take you more than 10-15 minutes to get up and running. This kit also works with Google Home but since I do not have that device, I am unable to give you any suggestions on how to set this up.

I purchased this primarily for the hub but the bulbs were a bonus. The hub was easy to set up and connect with Echo. The app for the hub is also very straight forward and relatively easy to use. The bulbs are fine but the biggest draw back is they are only equivalent to 60 watts. While this is plenty bright for my eat in kitchen table light, it would be difficult to read by one bulb or even two. While I absolutely have some very specific uses for these two bulbs, in the future I will spend the extra money on color bulbs that tend to appear, at least, to be a bit brighter when utilizing the whitest setting. Overall, a good product for my needs and connection to Echo permits voice control of lighting off and on, and that's just fun if nothing else.

I use my Phillips Hue system everyday. It's awesome. I have it integrated with my Echo Dots (Alexa)... so I can tell it to turn off/on a particular room's light... or to dim it 50%...etc. I can program the light to slowly brighten up the room 30 minutes before it's time to wake up, and to automatically turn off or on at certain times of day. There is another set up where it can slowly dim the light 10 minutes (or what ever duration) before bedtime. I have a tendency to oversleep or hit the snooze button multiple times during the winter months because when I'm scheduled to wake up, it's still dark. Ever since I purchased this hue system and set it up to slowly brighten the room 30 minutes before wakeup time...I am wide awake when the alarm goes off. This system can also integrate with the Samsung SmartThings system.

The price of this starter kit was too good to pass up. I followed the setup instructions, downloaded the app for my Galaxy 5S and after a little experimenting, figured out how to control the smart bulbs. Occasionally, I cannot get the bulbs to work independently with the phone's app but eventually it will start to work (might be a wireless issue, not sure). However, when I do have control, they really work and look great. Am now also hooked up to Google Home and need to play around with it more so I can control individual bulbs. But so far so good. I just wish the instructions were a bit more detailed and contained some real examples (such as how to use them with Google Home rather than have me have to jump on the internet for instructions).