Philips - Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 LED Starter Kit - Multicolor

I bought these on sale a little over a year ago wanting something to replace the old 3 way incandescent bulbs in a couple of rooms in my house that would last longer and work via my phone vs the old plug into the wall timers. I was on the fence about white vs colored but went for the colored as the cost difference with the sale was minimal. I don't think I have used the colored option other then to play around with them every once and a while. Unless you have multiple lights in a room and have them connected to your TV or music to change colors with the entertainment, the color feature is pretty useless for just two standard table lamps. Speaking of connecting to entertainment, good luck! It seems to require a rabbit hole of 3rd party apps to set anything up. The color hue of the white is insanely hard to find a middle ground of natural light with at any sort of brightness that is useful at nighttime. My old 3 way bulbs would more then light up my entire living room. I have to put these on the very blue "concentrate" setting to be able to see anything of detail and even then it's debatable with my creeping toward 40 year old eyes that don't require glasses or contacts to see. And while I thought controlling the lights via my app was great before I got them, I failed to realize this means you need to carry your phone with you everywhere in the house to turn lights on (unless you have Alexa in every room to do this by voice command). If you walk upstairs to grab something quickly and leave your phone downstairs, you will be doing so in the dark unless you remember to turn them on before heading up. Same goes for middle of the night emergencies. You need to fumble with unlocking your phone, finding the app, hitting the on button and waiting for the lights to slowly respond. The only good thing they have going is the ability to set up various routines such as fade from off to on in the morning or fade from on to off at night or the ability to set them on timers in various rooms so you don't come home to a dark house or it looks like you are home when you are away on vacation. I could have easily solved this with the cheaper white bulbs though!

Phillips Hue Color kit/lights (I bought 2 kits on sale, and four additional lights) are fun, interesting, and useful. I now have a complete smart home! The set-up of the lights was no too difficult, except some of my bulbs had to be set-up manually (not difficult.) The app that controls them from Hue was limited. I ended up spending about 20 dollars more on approved apps I downloaded so I could use them to create a home theatre, use them to coordinate with music, and get better animated effects. Hue should have all of these in the app they supply, Using the additional apps for home theatre is what made me buy all the bulbs I did. I operate the lights from my cell phone app, Amazon Alexa, and I did buy a hue wall switch/dimmer/remote for those lights that made sense.. I set it up so my bedroom light gradually turns on to wake me up with sunrise colored lights. I like that the lights can be programed to come on when anyone in my family gets close to the house, With the app I added the dining room candles that play an animated program that makes them look like candles/fire. I had to remove the frequently used lights from the kitchen because my wife kept switching the old light switch off. She is light sensitive and the lights start flashing like a strobe when you do that. I did add the available light switch to the theatre lights to prevent that. The light switch that hue sells was not the same size as standard lights. The wall switch/remote dimmer switch was easy to install, but taking out the existing light three way wires, was more of a project then I wanted it to be. Hue should have more guidance and adaptive cover to make this easier. I have been using the kit for two weeks, and we have gotten used to turning them on and off from apps/Alexa. It took me some time to figure out how to best use them. I have one light that is in my dining room group, but somehow changes when I use my theatre lights? My wife was not happy about the lights at first. But I assured her that I was learning how to use them, and over time she enjoying many of the ways they add to your life. I have added other Smart home items now. There are real benefits to having these, and I am glad I bought them. When companies charge you to create a smart home they set up the same thing, for far more money. The bulbs are expensive, but last for two years.

I tried this out after sitting on the fence for a while. Though I was fortunate to snag it up at a reduced price, my home was not ready for this just yet. I initially wanted to go the full Monty and change most of the everyday lights but I realized it would be a challenge keeping all the light fixture switches "on". These bulbs discard the color settings when the wall switch is turned off (or power cut to them). This implies that I would have required some mechanism to prevent other family members using the wall switches after the install (remember, once the switch is set off you cannot see the bulb on the app). Should your home automation be at the point where an Alexa, for example, is being used for room illumination I would assume this hurdle would have already been overcome. There are several workarounds to this (with some cost and some visual displeasure) if you really want to make it work. The setup was a breeze (connect the switch to router, download app and add bulbs). I didn't find the default app intuitive (too many steps for a desired result) but I believe there are some third party apps some online reviews swore by. I played with a few color schemes and experienced a few lags on some occasions. Resetting the switch is also easy. Eventually, when these become mainstream and cheaper, I have no doubt they will catch on especially when houses get built with them in mind. For now, retrofitting in my opinion, is an uphill battle I wasn't ready for at the current price point and functionality.

Before purchasing this item, I had bought the google home and thought I would like to home automate other parts of my home. The guys were great with showing me several products and I had finally chose the Phillips Hue "starter" kit. It came with a hub and 4 smart lights. The setup was easy and integrated with the google home within minutes ( I do not know about Alexa or Apple integration). The instructions for setup were a little lackluster but did not impair the setup to prevent it from being effective and quick. It was as simple as downloading the Hue app, removing the old light bulbs, putting the Hue bulbs in and clicking on the hub. Having it connect through google home appeared seamless and easy. The longest part for me was deciding what to name each light. The one challenge I did have was creating “voice shortcuts” in google home to work with the Hue system but that is not Phillip’s Hue fault. I would have like to see a little more instruction/detail of what types of color names that the hue system bulbs could be set at so I would not have to research all the varieties of color. However, that was not enough to change my rating from an excellent product and I would buy it again.

I was in need of some replacement bulbs, and I figured I would get the best most flexible option available - Philips Hue to replace the blown bulb versus a standard LED or UFL option. I was also excited about the possibilities especially with the approaching Halloween holiday. My intention was to have lighting to reflect the decorations and change colors automatically during parties. While the bulbs are cool with the color options that you can choose with the movement of your finger or verbal command with a personal assistant. I found out that the lights do not change automatically to simulate disco or strobe lighting in a club. The Philips app has an entertainment option which is suppose to match the sound in the room, but I found out that it does not work unless the television is connected to a PC or you need to acquire a separate smart device app, hence my disappointment. Maybe Philip Hue labs will develop some better options. Another thing is I found out that the bulbs do not simulate black (i.e. black light) which is a duh on my part because black is the absence of light. The bulbs can be changed to purple, which is the closest to the black light effect; it just would not cause whites and bright colors to glow like a traditional black light. As a last notation, to have the lights flash to sounds like thunder, I hooked up the lamp to a lightening fx device; but, what the device ultimately does is turn the lamp off and on based on the sound. Every time the light bulb goes off, it reverts back to white (the default color), so I loose the purple setting every time. For now, I will still recommend for the potential options that may come, but I unfortunately I had high expectations.

I would have rated the product 5 stars but my only issue doing that is Google. The product was purchased for the benefit of working with my Google home. But when I tried to connect and the connection kept failing and I called Philips for help. Philips' tech support was great, they were very patient and knowledgeable with trying to troubleshoot the issue with the failed connection. But in the end it was determined to be a well known problem on Google's end and Philips was unfortunately unable to resolve the issue. I eventually found on Google's end a work around to finally get my Hue bridge to work with Google Home after hours of troubleshooting. It was frustrating to say the least for a person like me who's pretty tech savvy. Just be aware that it's highly possible you may run into the same issues and that Google since last year knows it's an issue and they are still working on it. If you do run into same issues try this: you will need to unlink and re-link the Philips Hue service: Open your Google Home app and tap the “+” Add button in the Home page. Tap “Set up device” then “Have something already set up”. Tap on Philips Hue / Unlink and repeat the steps from above.

I like the Phillips Hue Products and I had already installed about 10 Phillips Hue lights in my home using the first Gen Starter Pack & Hub. and had been wanting more lights for a long time but as everyone knows, the bulbs are pricey. When I saw the deal I decided to purchase the starter pack because Best Buy offered the two Amazon Echo speakers. For some reason, the new lights were never recognizable on my hub! I thought I would literally be able to screw them in and discover them in the app as I had done without fail before. After two hours of trying different things, I was prompted to install the new app, connect the new hub and sync my devices. I did that and was beside myself angry when the app essentially deleted all my saved "scenes" and was forcing me to use the newer version of the Hue App that I like A LOT LESS! And, to add further frustration, the lights could still not be found until I manually typed in each serial number!!! Now I have to use both apps to achieve the desired result that I was looking for because the first app doesn't even recognize my Phillips Hue motion sensor and the second App doesn't allow me to create and customize scenes nearly as well as the old version. Why do updates ALWAYS make things worse!! If it works well the first time, don't change it. Consistency is a beautiful thing sometimes. Figure it out. As for the Amazon echo dots, they were ultimately given to friends as birthday gifts.

I have been using Hue for the past 2 or so years now. This system is one of the best purchases I've made in my entire life. They may be a bit pricey ($200 for the starter kit, $50 per additional bulb, $80 for the strip, more accessories, more accessories, etc.) but they're worth every penny. I justify the prices with the amount of use I get out of these.. they do light my home after all. With 16m colors which last you 25k hours, you'll definitely get your moneys worth. The initial setup should take you no more that 10 min and every accessory you add on should be less than 1 minute. Everyone I've ever gotten this for or recommended it to has not only adapted to using the system but have added on to it. My 60 year old father and 62 year old step mother love changing the lights with Siri. He ended up spending an additional $700 to fit his entire condo with Hue after I got him the starter kit for Christmas last year. The system easily pairs with Apple's HomeKit/Siri (I use it on my iPhone and iPad), my GoogleHome and my friends, who I recommended Hue to, Amazon Alexa. Its awesome to walk into a dark room and say "hey google, lights orange" and have that happen. Its also nice to have left the house, remember that you left lights on and be able to say "hey Siri, lights off" and you're not wasting electricity or burning out your $50 bulb. I can literally go on for hours on how impressed I am with these products. Ask questions