Home LivingSmart Home5 things I wish I’d known before buying Philips Hue smart lightingWhat Hue can and cannot do, and why buying your first Hue is like getting your first tattooWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingSmart Home5 things I wish I’d known before buying Philips Hue smart lightingWhat Hue can and cannot do, and why buying your first Hue is like getting your first tattooWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
What Hue can and cannot do, and why buying your first Hue is like getting your first tattoo
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Signify)
(Image credit: Signify)
I’ve been usingPhilips Huelighting for many years now, and it’s one of my very favourite bits of tech: I rent my home so Hue enables me to redecorate with light instead of incurring the wrath of my landlord. And as our"Hue mistakes everyone makes"article points out, there’s lots of stuff going on that you might not know about and lots of features you might really benefit from.
If I were starting from scratch today, I’d still go with Hue. I think it’s the bestsmart lightingecosystem you can have. But there are five things I’d want to know before I bought a single Hue smart bulb.
1. You don’t need to use the official app
The Hue app is very good – one of the best smart lighting apps I’ve ever used - but you’re not limited to it. There are some fun third party apps as well as some more geeky ones; I used the latter to get some early IKEA Tradfri bulbs to connect to my Hue Bridge. Speaking of which…
2. You don’t need to buy the Hue Bridge
3. You can use other firms' smart bulbs
Hue uses the Zigbee Light Link protocol and that means you can connect non-Hue bulbs to a Hue system; I’ve got some IKEA bulbs in mine, because they’re so much cheaper than Hue’s white bulbs. However you can’t use most third party bulbs with the Hue entertainment features such as music syncing or TV sync via the Play box, and they can be a little fiddly to set up.
4. You can’t put Hue bulbs in everything
Hue has the biggest bulb selection of any smart lighting ecosystem, but there are still some omissions: if your home has halogen downlighters that predate the GU10 fittings, such as MR16 bulbs, there isn’t a direct Hue replacement. And for bathrooms, the only safe Hue lights are the ones with IP44 ratings.
5. Buying Hue is like getting a tattoo
Once you start, you won’t stop. I started with two Hue spotlights in my living room. Today I have three Hues in the hallway (it’s a long hallway), two Hues over my dining table, four Hues, a Hue Play Sync Box and a gradient lightstrip in the living room and a Hue in the bedroom. I had to stop myself from putting Hues in the kitchen, and if I weren’t renting I just know I’d have Hues outdoors too. Like tattoos, once you get Hue you don’t see where the Hue lights are; you see where they aren’t, and where you could put some more.
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