Philips Hue is considered by many to be the gold standard of smart home lighting. The company’s portfolio of lights ranges from basic bulbs to fancy light strips that work in tandem with your TV to add another dimension to your favorite movies.
With so many different products and options in the Hue portfolio, it can be difficult to decide where to begin. So, for the last few weeks, we’ve been testing the $119 Philips Hue White Ambiance Starter Kit and the $199 White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit. Both include everything you need to get started automating the lights around your home, and can be an entry point into the rest of the Hue ecosystem.
Here’s what we think after a couple of weeks using both bundles.
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The $119 White Ambiance Starter Kit is best for a more basic experience, as it will give you a taste for the smart lighting platform with varying shades of white and yellow light.
$119.99 $59.99 at Philips Hue
Who’s it for: Both Philips Hue starter kits are for anyone looking to get started with a set of smart lights. Both provide a simple entry point into the Philips Hue ecosystem, with four lightbulbs and a Hue Bridge to provide better connectivity and more control.
What you need to know: Both of these starter kits include the Hue Bridge and four bulbs, but all Hue Bulbs are not created equal. The four included in the $119 White Ambiance Starter Kit produce varying shades of white light, but they don’t support Bluetooth — meaning they need the Hue Bridge to work. The four Bluetooth-enabled bulbs in the $199 White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit can be tuned to one of 16 million different colors and can be used without the Bridge as long as you’re in range. Using the included Bridge, however, not only allows you to create groups of lights within your home but lets you control them all from anywhere.
How it compares: Philips Hue is one of the most expensive smart lighting options. For color bulbs, you’ll pay $199 for four of them, plus a Hue Bridge. Comparatively, you can get a Lifx Proud Parents Bundle for $62.95 (originally $89.95) that includes a total of five bulbs — four white and one color-changing — no bridge or hub required. If you really want to save cash, Wyze lightbulbs are $22.98 for a two-pack. But it’s Hue’s vast product lineup, along with tight integration with smart home platforms and the reliability gained by adding a dedicated Bridge, that make it a compelling pick for any smart home enthusiast.
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One. It takes only one person to install a Hue lightbulb. That’s because the bulbs look like a typical LED bulb with some Hue branding. Once you’ve placed your bulbs in your preferred location, make sure the light switch is turned on, then connect the Hue Bridge to your home’s network.
Included in the starter kit is the power adapter and an Ethernet cable for the Bridge. After installing the Android or iPhone version of the app, you’re walked through the setup process. You’ll need to connect the Bridge to your Wi-Fi modem (if you’re out of Ethernet ports, we’re big fans of these TP-Link switches).
Once the Bridge is connected to power and your home’s network, the app will look for the Bridge on your network and instruct you to press the button on top of the Bridge. The next step took the most time during our installation — the Bridge will need a software update to bring it current, a process that lasted about 30 minutes despite the app claiming it’d take only 10 minutes. You have to leave the app open for the first few minutes of the update, but after that, it will give you the OK to leave it and do other things on your phone.
Once the update is complete, you can start adding lights to your Hue setup. We suggest doing one bulb at a time — that way you can specifically identify which one you’re giving a name and install location to (like Home, Office, Bedroom, etc). Overall, the process is typical for most smart bulbs and was easy enough to follow, thanks to the in-app instructions.
Jason Cipriani/CNN
Jason Cipriani/CNN
Whether you pick the standard white ambient bulbs or the color bulbs, you’ll find they provide plenty of light. Both types performed well in our testing and have enough light to fill the corner of a large room. Or, if you install one over your kitchen sink as we did, you’ll have no problem seeing both the sink and the surrounding area.
Here’s how it breaks down based on the starter kit:
The four bulbs included in the Whiite Ambiance Starter Kit have a color temperature range of 2200K to 6500K, a max of 10W power for a 60W equivalent and a 25,000-hour lifetime.
The four bulbs included in the Color and White Ambiance Kit have a color temperature range of 2200K to 6500K, along with the ability to switch between 16 million total colors. Again, you’ll get 25,000 hours of use out of each bulb, with a power draw of 10.5W, equivalent to a 75W bulb.
In simpler terms, those temperature ranges go from a yellow candle-like color to a bright, white color, matching the color temperatures we naturally experience throughout the day during the sun’s natural movement. Another benefit to having an adjustable bulb is that you can tune it to match it to the traditional (read: dumb) bulbs you have in your home.
As for the reason these bulbs have a lower wattage than their equivalents, that’s the beauty of LED lights. They’re far more efficient than traditional lightbulbs and don’t require nearly as much energy to put out the same level of brightness. Plus, they last longer.
Jason Cipriani/CNN
Well, your imagination is the limit of what you can do once you have a Hue Bridge and lights installed in your home. The basics are there, of course: Turning the lights on and off, adjusting colors and even messing with the brightness level are all easy enough to accomplish via the app (available for Android or iOS).
Hue works with all major smart home platforms, including Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit and Samsung SmartThings, so you’ll be able to control your lights using your voice regardless of which platform you currently use in your home. For instance, you can tell Alexa to turn the lights off when you go to bed or ask Siri to set the mood for movie night.
Connecting a smart assistant to your Hue account is done in the Settings portion of the app and takes just a few seconds. Just select Voice Assistant, pick which one you want to enable and then follow the prompts. If you’re activating HomeKit, make sure to have the original box nearby; it has the pairing code sticker inside the box.
To make controls easier, you can create different groups of lights. For instance, if you put two bulbs in the same lighting fixture, you’ll likely want those bulbs to behave the same way. Instead of controlling them independently, you can create a group in the Hue app and they’ll be treated as a single device. You can also group bulbs or other Hue lights based on the room they’re in, making it easy to quickly turn off all the lights in, say, the living room with a single command.
Jason Cipriani/CNN
The Hue app also has an Explore section where you can find ideas and other interesting ways to use your lights as well as guides for using the controls in the Hue app to fully customize your lights. We’ve seen a similar offering of suggestions for color ideas in the Nanoleaf app, though Nanoleaf offers more options. The various lighting themes are fun and interactive but difficult to view on a single lightbulb. If you’re going to experiment with various themes, we suggest either getting a Hue light strip or placing multiple bulbs in the same room.
One thing to remember is that you must leave your light switch on at all times in order to continuously control your bulbs via the Hue app or through any smart home assistants.
This was the biggest adjustment for us. It’s hard to break the habit of walking into a room and turning on the switch, then moving it back to the off position once we leave. However, after a few instances of not being able to control our bulbs, we started to become more aware of leaving them on so we could use the app or an assistant to control them instead.
The Philips Hue starter kits, while pricey, are worth the entry cost for those who want a good place to start upgrading their home lighting. With so many lighting options, along with tight integrations with the various smart home platforms and an easy-to-use app, a Hue starter kit is worth the investment.
Not sure which kit to choose? The $119 White Ambiance Starter Kit is best for a more basic experience, as it will give you a taste for the smart lighting platform with varying shades of white and yellow light. Those looking to get more creative and set the scene with color should opt for the White and Color Ambiance Kit at $199.
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