Customer Ratings & Reviews

We began our journey with Phillips Hue lighting almost three years ago when we remodeled our kitchen and decided to go with Philips Hue lighting for the entire project. The Hue lighting has been rock-solid. We use Amazon Echo devices to control the lighting and love how well Phillips Hue has built their Amazon Alexa integration. For our under-counter lighting we used four of the the Ambience gradient Lightstrips and have loved the results, though there are some things to be aware of that I’ll touch on in a moment. As we’ve continued to expand Hue lighting to the rest of the house we are currently running 62 Hue lights with 11 accessories split across two Hue bridges. While most of our Hue lighting are the 5/6 color recessed lighting, our latest project is building a home theater and our riser platform for the second row of seats needed two 12-foot light strips. This latest 5M Solo Lightstrip offering from Hue came at the perfect time for our project. There are a few frustrations working with Hue Lightstrips so lets get those out of the way first. The biggest one is that the power bricks are HUGE both in depth and in height. Flush mounting furniture or hiding the power bricks can be a challenge. In our kitchen our cabinet maker had to cut larger holes near the power outlets under the counters so that the bricks could plug in. For the theater riser, by pure luck alone we were able to hid the two bricks under the theater seats, with barely enough clearance. We have a third project to install the Lightstrips in a wine bar and we are already having to get creative with how we are going to work with hiding the brick in that scenario. Phillips Hue needs to put some more effort into shrinking the power bricks. The second frustration comes with cutting or extending the strips. Cutting the strips is simple. Extending the strips is simple with the extension kit available. It’s the inability to connect the cut strips to power that is frustrating. Phillips-Hue needs to release an adapter that lets you reconnect cut strips to a new power source. At the moment the only thing you can do with cut strips from the Solo line is to throw them away. The Gradient line can take the cut strips and use the Hue extension kit to lengthen the overall run, but even the Gradients can not be connected to a new power source. On the positive side, this 5M length eliminates the need to purchase two shorter strips and connect them with the extension kit to get to this length. Phillips Hue light strips are wider and thicker than almost every other LED strip on the market so if your installation will require installation in a track or other type of enclosure you’ll need to make sure to buy extra-wide channel lengths. We’ve lost hours of time online trying to find extra wide channel lengths that fit the Hue strips without success. They are supposed to attach to the surface using a tape-based backing that ships with the product. If the lights are being attached facing upward gravity and the included tape backing will work fine, but as soon as you invert the strips gravity gets in the way and the included tape is terrible. After a few weeks the adhesive began falling off the wood cabinets in our kitchen. We resolved this by using a heavy duty double-sided tape and have not had any issues since. For the theater riser, we are mounting them under the lip of the stairs, but since the stairs are carpeted, our solution here is to use plastic brackets that will be screwed into the carpet. The light strips snap into the plastic brackets to hold them in place. Despite these challenges, we love the results provided by the Hue light strips and the color changing ability introduces a level of whimsical fun that always brings out smiles at our house parties.

The Hue Solo Lightstrip comes to the extensive Hue lineup as a 30+ foot option for those looking to spice up the lighting in their space of choice. The usual positives apply her as with all Hue products; you get scene integration, settings flexibility, and industry leading reliability. However, given the options on the market for lightstrips right now, the Solo feels lacking for one huge reason, which I'll get to in a minute... Again, being a Hue product, you know what you're going to get in terms of setup and subsequent functionality. It's a plug and play affair here, literally, for those with existing Hue setups and bridges. This is how I've utilized my Solo, though it also supports bluetooth only operation, allowing you to connect directly to the lightstrip and subvert the bridge. In my experience, the bridge helps reliability in a tangible way that makes it worthwhile, but if you're not feeling it, you don't need them. Beyond that, I was easily able to integrate the Solo into my existing rooms and scenes. This could not have been easier, which is a huge bonus when compared to some other options on the market. However, a few of those options provide something that this does not... The main downfall of this lightstrip is that it doesn't support simultaneous multiple colors. For instance, in a perfect world, the Solo would allow you to utilize all 33 feet of it to create an array of color options; for instance, where the first 10 feet could be blue, with a transition into red for the next 10 feet, with a transition back into blue. What you get instead is a lightstrip that has to be a singular uniform color. This is unfortunate, again, given the fact that this is a feature of many other options on the market, and overall limits flexibility in my opinion. In summation, if you're looking for a single color lightstrip and want the most reliable lighting ecosystem on the market, the Solo is a great option. It brings along with it the plethora of benefits that come with all Hue products, and makes for a great product. I just can't look past the inability of this strip to show multiple colors simultaneously.

This extended version of the Hue light strip offers a longer length, which is a great improvement for lighting larger areas without needing extensions or multiple strips. It’s also convenient that the strip can be permanently trimmed to fit your space. Bluetooth functionality means you don’t need a bridge, but you’ll need one to access all features. However, the main downside is that this strip still only supports a single color at a time, with no multi-zone functionality. Other brands offer light strips with multiple colors, so it’s disappointing that Hue hasn’t added this feature to this light strip, especially considering the premium price. The build quality is excellent, but the limited functionality makes the strip feel lacking in comparison to competitors. Overall, the extended length allowed me to light my room’s perimeter seamlessly, which I appreciated. Still, I wish Hue had included more advanced features, as the product would be far more compelling with multi-zone capabilities.