![]() Also, there’s a scene for reading mode and relaxing mode, which work rather well. Pretty neat if you are a light sleeper (no pun intended). It comes with a timer which can trigger a pre-set scene to wake you up by gradually increasing the light in the room. Of course, you can manually choose the colors and set the brightness to your liking to create a “mood”.Īnother feature which impressed me the most was the alarm functionality. The true fun starts when you choose a photograph of your own and the app attempts to extract suitable coloring from it to set to each of the bulbs. As you’d expect, the scenes include Sunset, Beach, Relax and dozen other preset ones. Each scene contains one or more bulbs set to a specific color and brightness to mimic a particular environment. The core experience revolves around interacting with the full range of supported colors via the “Scenes” feature. Moreover, each 8.5W Hue bulb gives around 600 lumens output, roughly the same as a 40W incandescent bulb, so you probably need a couple of Hue bulbs to brightly light up a medium room. Having said that, they’re not meant to work across different floors. In our usage, all the three bulbs had no issues talking to the Bridge placed around 10m away. ZigBee has a 10-100m line-of-sight range depending on the environment and power output, but also forms a mesh network, such that intermediate devices can pass the message along until it reaches the intended recipient. ![]() Each Bridge can control up to 50 devices (if you ever plan to have that many Hue bulbs). Fire up the Hue app and when it starts looking to pair each bulb, just press the button, the only button right in the middle of the circular Bridge. Just connect the Bridge to the ethernet port of your router and attach the bulbs in your bulb sockets. It’s pretty easy to set up the whole system. If this sounds too complex for you, fret not. This Bridge then communicates with your Hue bulbs, and using an app on your phone, talks to the bridge through your Wi-Fi network. Hue is a hybrid solution that relies on ZigBee communication protocol, and it comes with a special hub (or the Bridge as it’s known), the brain of the whole system, that connects to your Wi-Fi router via an ethernet cable. Instead, let’s see what Hue can do for you and how good is it in doing that, and then take a call on its usefulness. There are many other cost effective solutions like buying smart plugs or dimmer switches, but they aren’t remotely as flexible and fun as Hue. At Rs 16,995 in India ( $200 in US and €179 in Europe) for the starter kit with 3 LED bulbs, and Rs 3,500 for every extra Hue bulb, it’s hard to justify the price if you’re looking it to replace your home lighting. Philips Hue is pricey, and there are no two words about it. We went hands on with the Philips Hue Starter Kit which finally made its way to India, and here’s our detailed review.īefore we even get into the review, we need to get the devil off our backs. Philips has been a pioneer when it comes to wireless lighting systems, and the Philips Hue has set a benchmark for not just wireless lighting, but everything IoT (Internet of Things). Many companies have offered varied solutions, but the connected space itself is still in its infancy. The idea of having a connected smart home with control on our fingertips has engulfed many of us over the past couple of years, but with little success.
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