Philips Hue White Starter Kit review: Still the best
Our Verdict
Ease of employ, a comprehensive app, and an all-encompassing ecosystem brand the Philips Hue White Starter kit the best around.
For
- Comprehensive app
- Works with a ton of smart-dwelling house systems
- Dimmable
Against
- Requires hub
- Light color not tunable
Tom's Guide Verdict
Ease of apply, a comprehensive app, and an extensive ecosystem brand the Philips Hue White Starter kit the all-time around.
Pros
- +
Comprehensive app
- +
Works with a ton of smart-home systems
- +
Dimmable
Cons
- -
Requires hub
- -
Light color not tunable
Philips Lighting is no longer the only visitor making light bulb starter kits; several smart light brands sell kits that include bulbs and a hub to connect the bulbs to your home network. But, after three popular starter kits, it's articulate that the Philips Hue White Starter Kit ($69) is nonetheless one footstep ahead, which is why it's the all-time starter kit on our best smart lights page.
Philips Hue White Starter Kit review: Setup
Like the Sengled and Ikea, the Philips Hue lights included in the starter kit can't connect straight to your dwelling house network; they must commencement connect to the included span; all three crave you lot to plug their span into your router using the included Ethernet cable.
Philips' hub is a pocket-sized white box that'south larger than Sengled'south hub; both are near the size of a hockey puck. IKEA'due south hub is much larger — about the size of a smoke detector — simply that'due south because it'southward designed to hibernate excess cords. Regardless, their sizes aren't a huge deal, as you're probable to stuff these all away somewhere. 3 status lights on the pinnacle of the Philips hub indicate if it'southward powered on, connected to your router and to the cyberspace.
After plugging in everything (including the lights), yous and so pair everything together through the Philips Hue app. The hub, located on the offset floor of my house, had a picayune trouble locating a bulb in my cranium. Fortunately, Hue'south app lets you enter the serial number of the bulb; after doing then, the hub was able to find the light.
Past virtue of it being 1 of the beginning smart LED makers to market, Philips has had some time to refine its app, and information technology shows.
Philips now ships a starter kit (for $99) with iv bulbs; both the Sengled and Ikea kits come with only two bulbs. That's handy, peculiarly if you lot want to outfit an entire room (or two) without having to purchase boosted bulbs separately.
Each bulb that comes with the starter kit emits a warm light (2700K) at 840 lumens. By comparison, Sengled'south bulbs (also 2700K) are a slightly dimmer 800 lumens, though I didn't notice a deviation when testing them. Ikea'south bulbs are a brighter 900 lumens, and can be tuned; that is, yous can alter the color temperature from warm (2200K) to warm white (2700K) to cool white (4000K). (Philips also makes a color-tunable starter kit, the Philips Hue White Ambiance Kit, for $99.)
I like that at that place's a geofencing feature, which can automatically trigger either the Coming Home or Leaving Home routine based on your phone's location.
Philips Hue White Starter Kit review: Philips Hue App
By virtue of it being i of the offset smart-LED makers to market, Philips has had some time to refine its app, and it shows.
The Home screen of the app gives you a top-level view of the rooms in your business firm, and if Philips' lights are on or off in those rooms. You tin can either turn all the lights on or off in a given room, or diving deeper, control individual lights.
A Routines department lets you schedule times for lights to turn on or off in selected rooms. I specially like that there'due south an "simply afterwards sunset" option, which is helpful in summer months where it nevertheless might be as well bright outside to warrant turning on your lights. A vacation mode will also turn your lights on and off randomly, to make information technology seem similar you're actually habitation.
I also liked that at that place'south a geofencing characteristic, which tin can automatically trigger either the Coming Domicile or Leaving Dwelling routine based on your telephone's location. Unfortunately, there'south no way to specify how close you accept to be for the lights to plow on or off; fortunately, you can fine-tune this if you utilize an IFTTT applet.
One of the fun aspects of Philips Hue's app, especially if you take colored bulbs, is the ability to use and create Scenes, which are presets that adapt all the lights to a item color or brightness.
An Explore section of the app has, among other things, an "Apps We Like" section, which links to other apps that can control Philips Hue lights. For example, the Hue TV app ($2.99) uses your phone's photographic camera to take a picture of your TV, and then adjusts the lights to correspond to the colors of the show you're watching.
A Hue Labs section even lets you beta test dissimilar features Philips is thinking of releasing, and let the company know what you recall of information technology.
Philips Hue White Starter Kit review: Smart dwelling house compatibility
Of all the low-cal brands, Philips has the most extensive compatibility with other smart-home systems. Information technology's one of the best Google Home uniform devices, best Apple HomeKit products and best Alexa uniform devices. It works with Nest, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT, Comcast Xfinity Home and Logitech.
Philips sells all mode of smart LEDs, from lightstrips to whole fixtures, all of which tin can be controlled and linked in the Philips Hue app. Y'all can read all near them in our guide to Philips Hue lights.
The Hue White Starter Kit with 4 bulbs costs $99; You can buy additional Hue White A19 bulbs in packs of three for $39.99; that works out to nearly $xiii per seedling, which is more expensive than Sengled's $ix.99 per seedling. Yet, Philips is rolling out a four-pack of bulbs for $49.99.
Philips Hue White Starter Kit review: Verdict
Philips has not rested on its lead, continuing to develop not but its smart lights but the app and ecosystem supporting information technology. At $69 for the two-light starter kit (and $99 for the four-pack), it's $twenty more than than Sengled's kit, but what you lot're getting in return is a much greater feature prepare, plus the ability to connect a much wider range of lights.
In the near hereafter, Philips will face up a new challenge from smart light bulbs that can connect direct to your home Wi-Fi network, and do non need a hub. But until then, it remains the best option for smart lights.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/philips-hue-white-starter-kit,review-4656.html
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