Philips - Hue White Ambiance A19 LED Starter Kit - Adjustable White

It's a great kit if you would like to automate some lights in your house, but not exactly sure yet, so not ready to make a big investment or do any wiring (one note - if you have a dimmer - you will need to take it out). Bulbs are just a standard E26 socket bulbs, A19 shape (pear shape) that would go into almost any light fixture, they are a bit taller than Philips Hue Color bulbs. Maximum light output is 800 lumens which is equivalent to 60W incandescent bulb. Once bulbs are installed and powered on - you can control them using an app on the phone/tablet or web site. Whole kit is compatible with Apple HomeKit as well, so once setup is complete - all bulbs will be present in the Home app and controllable by Siri. Bulbs could be controlled individually or as a group. Philips app is trying to align groups with Rooms in your HomeKit which may not be always practical for bigger spaces (you rarely need to control all lights in the same room at once), so I would recommend breaking groups down, for example Kitchen ceiling lights and Kitchen island vs just a "Kitchen". These are not color changing bulbs, but they can change their white color temperature from 2000K (close to a candle flame) to 6500K (bright daylight). You can easily pre-define color temperatures you like as scenes. Automation consists of pre-defined easy to setup routines such as: Wake up - turns lights on at a specific time Good night - turns lights off at a specific time Custom timer - with predefined sunset/sunrise values or just manually entered time There are a few accessories available as well such as motion sensor which would allow you to turn lights on automatically when someone enters the room and a remote control dimmer switch - if you would like to have a physical controller in your hand or on the wall. Philips Hue ecosystem is easy to integrate into almost any other home automation system too - it would work with Nest, Alexa, Smartthings and almost any other home control system in the world. In short: Pros: - Super easy to install for anyone, no wiring, no electrician, system if fully portable if you need to move. - Apple HomeKit full integration - Same bridge will controll all other Hue devices you might get in the future - color bulbs, LED strips, etc - Motion sensor and remote control accessories are available - Philips Hue ecosystem can be tightly integrated into almost any other home automation system. Cons: - Light output is just 800lm (60W incandescent) may not be enough for all applications or you might need to install more light fixtures. - If power to the bulb is switched off and then on - bulb will not keep it's previous state, but will go into the full brightness mode instead. - Groups of bulbs are tied into HomeKit rooms which is not always practical if you would like sub-groups of lights in the same room (for example: ceiling light, island, etc) - Automation rules are very basic, for example it's not possible to turn light on from sunset to a specific time.

The Philips Hue Starter Kit is easy to install and has some neat functionality.  Getting setup is simple.  First, download the Philips Hue app.  Next, install the bulbs in appropriate lamps or light sockets. Then, you connect the hub to your router with an ethernet cable.  I thought there surely must be a way to connect via Wi-Fi, but no; it's cable-only.  Once the hub has powered up, use the app to connect your phone or tablet to the hub. The hub will likely want to update, which can take a long time. You can still use the system, though, right off the bat.  Once you have it up and running, you can name the bulbs. I'd suggest doing this by location. You can also assign them to specific rooms. You can adjust the type of light, from bright white to soft yellow.  There are four presets or you can just set a custom level on the color spectrum.  Using the app, you can turn of individual lights or all lights.  If you have a smart home assistant, like Alexa or Google Home, you can control the lights by voice. This includes dimming them, and turning individual lights or groups of lights on and off.  We use Google Home, and I can report the lights work very well with Home, but I had to rename the lights in the Home app, too.  Regardless, it's still pretty magical to use your voice to dim lights and turn them off and on.  The Hue system works perfectly well.  Just know the bulbs are not the brightest in the world (only 10 watts at 800 lumens), but I have no complaints. Within the Hue app, you can set routines, which allows you to have recurring patterns. You can even set the lights to come on when you get home (basically, your phone's GPS knows when you get home and alerts the system).  There are lots of fun ways to use the smart bulbs once they are up and running.

My wife thinks I'm crazy. As a Trekkie, there's nothing better than being able to remotely turn on all the lights in a room either with my voice or my devices (or a motion sensor). There's a bit of a learning curve because you have to coach yourself into not using the switches. My wife hates that she can't use any of the switches anymore, but has generally gotten used to the convenience of being able to light the house wherever she's going before she gets there. "I broke the lights" was a common refrain the first week. As smart bulbs go, Phillips makes the best ones, hands-down, and here's why: - Apple HomeKit integration (that means onboard encryption on the hub for your wifi password and traffic, which is insanely important). - Amazon Echo integration, Google Home integration, Native Apps on all platforms (these lights work with almost everything) - the AMBIANCE lights have a huge variety of colors and white temperatures and are within a few watts of other LEDs (even when you consider they must be "always on" to receive instructions, I have not noticed a difference in our power expenditure). - huge variety of lightbulb styles so you can have matching hardware and color temperatures across your house - regular firmware and app updates - Phillips is keeping on top of security holes and bugs, they release new firmware at least every 2-3 weeks. So let's talk positives and learning curve: - "Echo, turn on the Kitchen Lights" is the command for a room with multiple bulbs. Or "Echo, turn on the Lamp" is the command for JUST ONE LIGHT. You can name both rooms and bulbs individually, then sync to Amazon, Google, and Siri. - you set your switches ON. If you turn them off, you can't turn your lights on and off remotely. - if you turn your switches OFF then ON, your lights are on in the ON mode (and will sometimes lose whatever color setting you had) but can be shut off remotely. - the "White Ambiance" lights have a crazy amount of white "temperatures" (shades of white) ranging from warm/yellowish/orangish white to wake-your-butt-up blue-white. To match existing bulbs if you don't care about colors, buy this version. - Amazon and Google are NOT AMAZING at setting "mood lighting". You can, however, say, "Echo, set the Living Room Lamp to 50% brightness". You can also use either Apple HomeKit or the built-in app to set timers, auto-on, auto-off, and "Scenes" (pre-set combinations of rooms/lights on/off/shades of white/color/etc). - you can dim to exactly whatever brightness you want. - the Apple HomeKit timers let you automate certain things: when you arrive, the lamp can turn on. When sunset hits, certain lights can turn on or off. - you can also integrate with IFTTT so that when your doorbell is rung, your lights flash... if your favorite stock crashes, you get a tweet, the lights can change color or whatever... not super useful, but the fact that you CAN do this is cool and potentially useful if you had the right recipes and needs. So, aside from "wow, that's really cool that I never have to worry about going into a dark room and stubbing my toe with my hands full again" factor, what are some negatives? - you must use your voice (via Amazon, Siri, or Google) and if you have to be quiet and don't wanna whip out the app, you run the risk of accidentally turning on the wrong light or whatever else. Not recommended for parents of young kiddos who wake easily. You have to also remember what you called the lights and memorize that because no voice assistant is smart enough yet to just turn on or off the lights in the room you're in without context. The key word there is "yet" as the ubiquity and price point of these devices almost begs the question: why couldn't the individual Dots/Home Minis be tethered to a "room" with a context-senitive "Echo, Lights On!"-type command?... TBD - the integrations are OK, they work well, but sometimes the hub and/or assistants seem to lose connection to bulbs and they cannot be turned on or off with your assistants but instead have to be turned on/off within the app (which seems to have an override for the Z-wave method the lights use to communicate to the hub). - you will want to outfit your entire freaking house and it's really expensive to do so About that: to outfit your entire house is crazy expensive, and you will want to because once you are able to turn on the lights with your voice, you will want to do it everywhere. The Colors is kitschy and cool, but outside of a party trick or a kid's room, it's hard to justify the (as of the time of this writing) $50-per-bulb pricetag. And if you try to buy in bulk (beyond the like, packages Phillips offers) you'll be routed to a local distributor who'll laugh at you. True story, this actually happened when I suggested a bulk purchase program. Let's also talk about the difference in bulbs, too - the AMBIANCE series is what you want. I'm not kidding, the other A19 (ROUND, NOT AMBIANCE) bulbs are crazy yellow. I mean '70's yellow, yellow, barely white yellow. I had these originally, but returned them for the Ambiance series. So: worth it? Absolutely (especially if you're a Trekkie or Techie and want the light to be on automagically when you get home). If you're making the jump from CFLs to LEDs, consider leaping even further to these smartbulbs.

The Phillips Hue White Ambiance starter kit includes all you need to get started with smart lighting in your home. You get a hub (zig bee compatible), 4 A19 lightbulbs (standard socket), and some basic instructions. Everything is neatly packaged. Setup in theory is simple. The truth of setup is a bit more complicated. The Hub setup involves downloading an application. Once installed you can pair your hub to your phone, and then it should work. I had some initial trouble pairing, and I couldn’t put a finger on the problem. After a few minutes, however, whatever was the problem worked out and I was connected. The bulbs come pre-paired out of the box, so that’s one less step than many other smart products starter kits do. Once the bulbs are plugged in and your light switched on, they will connect. One of the first things you’ll see is a firmware update. Once the bulbs are up to date (they’ll turn off first) you can start creating rooms. Rooms let you group one or more bulbs together. Originally I had been used to naming and setting up devices manually with other products, so there was a bit of a learning curve. You can of course rename the lights, but rooms do a good job and set you up for expansion. They’re also visible to any integration. Speaking of integration, this is where Phillips has a great story. They support not only Alexa, but Google Home and Apple Home Kit. Home kit was an odd experience setting up, as it did a funky dance both on my device and pairing using a code. This was my first experience with Home Kit, so it felt quite a bit more kludgy than Alexa Skills or Google’s device setup. The app itself keeps Home Kit in sync, which seems odd to me, but it’s probably simply the software architecture. Alexa and Google both seamlessly pair using skills after signing into the account you create during setup. You can address rooms, or bulbs directly. In my testing with Alexa, I was surprised the amount of functionality available, including specifying what color temperature setting (cool white, reading, warm etc). Speaking of color temperature - the Hue bulbs in this pack are not fully RGB colors, but rather provide a range of color temperatures from a very warm, near red temperature to a cool white approaching blue light. The range is quite helpful, as it can provide various lighting for various needs and time of days. Being able to switch between the ‘concentration’ recipe and ‘relaxing’ setting can actually make an appreciable difference in your mood. It also has been shown to help you sleep better. Speaking of sleeping - there is a pre-made routine in the app to help you wake up. You can set the lights to gradually fade on for a period of 30 minutes helping you gently wake up. While this seems to work pretty well, I believe I started talking in my sleep to Alexa. I’ve simulated this fade on with other products, but the Hue bulbs do it very well, and have a proper morning color temperature, which is a nice touch. Being able to adjust these setting via voice assistant is pretty amazing as well. Coming back around to the app, it’s actually quite nice. If you want explicit controls, or setup custom scenes, it’s quite easy to work with. You can start with a recipe (pre defined temperature) or customize your settings to your heart's desire. You can then program these scenes to turn on or off at specific times. The ‘routines’ section can take some of the manual work out of the process, guiding you through more common activities, such as waking up, leaving, coming home, etc. Even details like adjusting the brightness are smooth and fun in the app. Truthfully the starter kit brings some great bulbs to the table with the inclusion of a zig bee hub that controls the lights quite well. Unfortunately I didn’t have any other zigbee devices to try out, but the hub definitely supports adding more devices. All in all this is a pretty amazing starter kit.

This is our first purchase of smart light bulbs and we couldn’t be happier. It did take a bit to get everything connected and working through the app and for Alexa to recognize them, but they are fantastic. They were a gift for my husband who has vision problems and he has been experimenting with settings and has it down.

Phillips hue white ambience bulbs are second to none. My wife and I have not used any other smart light brands in recent years, due to the overall value these products offer. They work well with HomeKit, Google Home and Alexa. Their app is user friendly, making it easy to set automated schedules with the right amount of blue light throughout your day, helping you to wake up and wind down more easily.

I have these bulbs in almost all of my lamps. I love being able to adjust the light depending on need. It literally goes from a soft nightlight to bright white to a soothing evening color and everything in between. The Hue bridge app is very easy to use and has pre-set lighting options.

As a person who appreciates Tech for Tech's sake, I can understand the enthusiasm for substituting walking over to a light switch/dimmer and just flipping or sliding a switch, with opening a phone App to get basically the same result. If Tech is your thing, then these are your lights. When compared to incandescent lamps plugged into a dimmer and timer, here are the Pros and Cons. PROS: - Quick and accurate response - After a Kit like this one with both the "Bridge" controller and 4 bulbs is purchased, you can buy up to a total of 50 bulbs without needing to buy another controller. - At 10 watts power consumtion each, the bullbs are about the eqivelent to old tech 60 watt incandecent bulbs in lumen brightness. - You can program each individual bulb to change both its white color temperature and it brightness on a repeating schedule. - The bulbs will save you money on both your electrical lighting bill and your A/C bill since they run much cooler than incandescent bulbs. -These lights can be controlled by voice commands using Google Home, Amazon Alexa, etc. -You can impress your friends with a demo of your "Connected Home". CONS: -These bulbs are relatively pricy when compared to some brands. However, "Cheap" LED bulbs are notorious for failure and I assume that a name brand like Philips is likely to build more quality and endurance into their products than no-name companies that are competing only on price. - Setting mood lighting with an App is fine, but if someone flips the wall switch off and on again, they will default to full brightness until the App is run again. Not everyone will have access to the App and this could spoil the "mood".