Hi,
Just about to have a new kitchen and thinking about a Hue installation for the kitchen and rooms off it. Any experience that I should know about?
Would have searched but three letters etc 🙆
Thanks
Jon
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Hi,
Just about to have a new kitchen and thinking about a Hue installation for the kitchen and rooms off it. Any experience that I should know about?
Would have searched but three letters etc 🙆
Thanks
Jon
I've had Philips Hue for years (I'm guessing at about 6) and it's been rock solid and very good. I've never experienced a Bulb failure. To be honest though, now that they're set up with the colour and brightness, and most are on a schedule to come on and switch off automatically, I barely think about them.
We have a combination of strips and bulbs. Learned after the first load that we don't care about colours so did the rest of the house with colourless bulbs.
We value the smart assistant integration along with the dimming, grouping and routines/holiday mode. A strip bordering the inside of your TV all the way round acts as a nice lamp.
I cannot tell you how good the "Alexa/Google/Siri, goodnight" command is once you have them. No wandering around turning off all the lights downstairs before you go to bed.
Yes, I've just recently installed strip lights under the kitchen cupboards. I had to install a (3mtrs) extension to straddle the cooker hood. I bought the extension off Amazon from a company called Litcessory but extension doesn't work with the V4 Hue Striplight so be careful because Litcessory don't say it in their sales blurb.
I've had to use Cat 6 cable to do this and it's very fiddly to solder
Litcessory day they are working on a version 4 extension.
Other than that, it's excellent and you will need the Hue bridge.
I've bought the motion sensor to activate the lights.
I guess the very best a review can be is that you no longer think of them !
Looks like I have an expensive evening ahead of me.
Thanks for the note Rod about 3rd party... probably an area to really research before spending if required.
That sums up my experience as well. But beware - however many bulbs or strip lights you think you'll need, you won't be able to resist buying more!Quote:
Originally Posted by Skier
I shied away from hue as it's all very proprietary (although built on zigbee). Ended up with an echo plus (with built in zigbee hub) and use 'innr' zigbee lightbulbs all round the house as well as for sundry blinds and switches installation is a matter of switching the item on and then asking alexa to discover new devices. Another system to look at is the ikea lighting / blinds / hub but again it's very locked down aparently.
Like many things in the tech' world, you can achieve a similar end result for less. That's not why you buy Hue though.
As said above, once installed and setup to your liking, you pretty much forget about them in a technical sense, you just use them. They are as close to plug-and-play as any smart device will ever be. And their range is ever expanding and improving, so while not necessarily 'cheap' it does make it very easy to expand without complications.
Also, a big motivation for me, is they are one of the best cross-compatible smart home products. It doesn't matter if you use an Android or iPhone, an Echo or a Google / Nest smart speaker, it works equally as well anywhere.
I've installed them in a few places; lamps spread around various rooms; a lightstrip behind the headboard in the bedroom which is used as a lamp and as a wakeup light; behind the TV and my desk monitor to make it easier on the eye; in the kitchen as a night lamp... they do tend to breed. I've also got a few remote controls so you're not tied to use via a smartphone, and a motion sensor in the hallway. I've configured a few automations in the Hue app to get the most out of them, such as the bedroom wakeup lamp, one linked to the motion sensor to turn on a hallway and kitchen light if we're up in the night (really handy when dear daughter was a baby and nightfeeds were regular!), and one that turns a hallway lamp on and off around sunrise / sunset.
The thing I feel I've paid for, is setting all this up was really easy in the Hue app, and once configured I've not thought about them since.
We are in the ‘Hues multiply camp’, did the lounge lights originally & loved the way you can change the warmth / coolness feel of a room with light.
Next up was the kitchen under cupboard lighting with strips, along with one behind the tv (amazing the difference putting at 6500k and the blacks get darker).
We then had the conservatory changed to a solid roof & another 8 in the roof (overkill but you can always dim, can’t make them brighter!)
Each room has its own remote & leave the normal switch always on. Great for timers when travelling or setting up kitchen lights to come on to gently illuminate the stairs.
Looking at some outside strips now, but that really is excessive. Had not thought about one behind the head board. Really like that idea!
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My only concern is the bulbs are not very bright; if it's the only bulb in a room you may find it too dim. Other than that, I've been using them for years.
My favourite features:
1. I have the sensors in the hallway and landing. Enter the front door at night, the light comes on. Use the stairs at night, the light comes on. You get the idea... Set and forget.
2. I've linked mine to Amazon Echo/Alexa. I use Alexa a lot for timing cooking, making coffee. Very useful that the lights will flash when the timer on Alexa sounds. If you're upstairs or listening to music you still get the alarm.
3. The dimmer switch which you can pair to any room/bulb is detachable from the wall. It's nice to get into bed with switch in hand/on bed side table and turn the light off once in bed.
4. You can set the lights to wake you up. Not so useful in summer, unless you get up at 3am. The lights can fade into full brightness for up to 30 minutes, gently waking you up, in a more natural way.
5. if my living room camera (a Nest Cam) hears a noise between certain hours (at night really) it switches the light on to either deter or better record the image.
I'm sure many of these features can be found in cheaper alternatives, but it just works and it works well. I guess that's what the premium is for.
So I have spent a grand on a ceiling unit, two spots, a bunch of bulbs and 8m of kitchen strips.... this stuff does add up, but I found 16.5% casback on quidco.
Will see what it’s like on the bulbs solution while I wait for the new kitchen to be fitted.
Thanks for all the input.
Jon
We have three bulbs in the lounge, one in the hallway, one on the landing and one in a bedroom. All set up on routines with dimming set. Don’t really think about them now.
The coming home at night is useful as are the schedules when on holiday or away from the house. If it could draw the curtains automatically that would be perfect.
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I had them installed in my garden room and haven’t ‘used’ them since the initial few times after they were put in. They are actually a really good product but for me they were a total waste of money and wouldn’t buy any more. I didn’t think I would utilise them to their full potential and I haven’t.....
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This remote is much better value and classier looking than the Hue remote - https://www.samotech.co.uk/products/zigbee-remote/
You can control 4 different bulbs including dimming and you can also group bulbs and create two scenes.
These Zigbee switches are very easy to wire in and more cost effective for example in the kitchen were you might have 6 or more downlighters, just wire it in the run before the first light and by replacing your light switches with retractive switches you can use them as usual.
https://www.samotech.co.uk/products/...ue-compatible/
(On/off and dimmer models available).
If I want to carry the remote about, yes. For me I have one hue one in each room next to the main switch that we use as we enter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maris
Your solution does remote on/off/dimming, where are your colour choices here though?
True it’s no good for coloured lights but I don’t use them. It works for me though especially in my kitchen/diner with different lights. Try the motion sensors, they are very good and minimise needing to use the switch as you enter a room.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mj2k
Got hue lights through the whole house and I’m a big fan.
We have routines set for the majority so as mentioned below I don’t think about them other than to change the time they come on twice a year when the evenings come earlier.
I’ve also got young children and have sensors in the landing so they come on automatically at night which is great and also when the front door opens which is useful.
I’ve also toyed around with light strips and a hue sync for the games room and love it although the wife thinks it looks like a brothel up there
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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...6eb055c71b.jpg
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Why not use the sunset routine for your locality, you can add an offset in the settings if they come on too early or late.Quote:
Originally Posted by R0bertb00th
Thanks for the heads up but It’s no hardship to change it from 8pm in the summer to 630 at this time of the yearQuote:
Originally Posted by Maris
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To be fair, you must have been inspired by something...Quote:
Originally Posted by R0bertb00th
I just have the switches in every room and have covered over the physical switches to stop visitors turning off the lights the wrong way..
I had Hue Sunset for a couple of years, but it seems to have disappeared, and I can't download it from the App Store.
Can anybody recommend an alternative, as I found it very useful?
Just done that in my parents house as the calls saying hue lights weren’t working was becoming too frequent!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alansmithee
Annoyingly their bridge malfunctioned & has to be sent back to Denmark (form memory), and another was shipped back after testing. Was amazed given the unit cost they didn’t just replace it straight away.
Had to set up all 11 of their bulbs manually again. I’ve never had the app auto detect the bulbs successfully.
It’s in the Hue app, Routines/Other routinesQuote:
Originally Posted by Backward point
If your lights come on too late for your liking you can add an offset - Settings/Advanced/Sunset & Sunrise, also make sure your location is correct to get the right times.
Our whole house is running with Hue, give or take a few lamps that need small bulbs, which are using warm Philips LEDs and smart plugs, so they can also be added to scenes. I certainly wouldn’t go back, I’m constantly using Siri to change to different brightness settings for day, evening, dinner, TV watching, late night and so on. A motion sensor in the bedroom turns the lights on when you walk in, which never fails to make me smile. It’s a high initial outlay but then you’re set.
My advice, while the coloured bulbs can be fun for the occasional accent light, the white ambience ones are generally what you need, they’re cheaper and it’s easier to get a pleasant warm tone from them. The light strip is useful for some situations (I use it for the kitchen worktop lights), but it’s extremely hard to get a colour that matches the warmth of the white ambience bulbs. Don’t give up, you can achieve it, but the warm preset they provide out of the box isn’t great - 16 million colours, none of which are quite right! I also find the colour picker very fiddly, as the colour you’re looking for is somewhere in a range <1mm square. I wonder if there’s a better control app out there? Or if the V4 has improved it? But once you’ve finally got it set, you don’t need to touch it again - though I’d keep a backup scene to save the colour in case anything goes wrong.
My only other niggle is that Apple’s HomeKit could be better designed (which I’m using for convenience rather than the Hue app), it’s mostly ok but for some reason you can’t edit a scene by making changes live, and it can be fiddly getting it to remember brightness percentages and colour changes. Once you have it all set up though, it’s all very stable, and I’ve only once had to restart the bridge and the Apple TV that’s running HomeKit in 2 years. Now the idea of running round switching on and off or dimming all these lights seems unthinkable.