What is Philips HUE
Philips Hue is a simple to install, simple to use lighting control system ! No need of an electrician or an Installer, it’s so easy to set up that anyone can get it up and running within minutes.
Enjoy different shades of white, warm white for a relaxing environment or cool white to keep you alert while working… Add colour to your home according to your mood and create the right ambience .. all from the Philips Hue app or the Philips Hue dimmer switch.
CONTROL
The Philips Hue system can make it seem like you’re at home when you’re not, using the schedule function in the Philips Hue app. You can set the lights to come on at a pre-set time, so the lights are on when you arrive home.
You can even set rooms to light up at different times. Of course, you can also let the lights turn off gradually in the night, without worrying whether you’ve left any lights on. It also allows you to check if you have forgotten to switch your lights off before leaving the house or to switch them on in your absence. Philips HUE puts you in control of your lights, wherever you are.
With Geofencing technology, your home lights can even welcome you home or switch off automatically when you leave the house.
Ambilight + Hue
We all love Philips AMBILIGHT. Once you try Philips Ambilight at home, chances are that you just cannot imagine your TV without it. Philips TVs can expand the Ambilight experience to your Philips HUE lights. Expand Ambilight further from your wall, to all the room using products such as Hue GO, Light strip, Bloom, Iris or the Hue play bar .. all these exciting products offer the possibility to further immerse yourself in the movie experience.
Voice Control
Speech recognition has improved drastically in the past few years. Thanks to services such as Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, you may just speak to your compatible device control your Philips HUE lights by voice. Casually say “hey google, switch on living room” or “Hey Siri, set romantic lighting in dining room” and let the magic happen…
The HUE Bridge
The Hue Bridge is the brains of your whole lighting system. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to experience the above mentioned features. You can add up to 50 bulbs & 10 accessories with just one bridge, that’s usually enough to fill your house with Philips Hue lighting. Installation of the bridge is also easy, just give it power and connect the included patch lead cable from the bridge to your modem.
HUE Starter Kits
If you intend to start your HUE system with the HUE bulbs, the very first purchase should be one of the Hue starter kits. The kits would include 2-3 bulbs, a bridge and a dimmer switch. You even have the option to choose between White, White Ambience and White & Colour ambience. All starter kits have different amounts of bulbs in the box depending on which type of ambience you choose.
Choose your Ambience
When choosing your starting kit, you can choose which kind of ambience you want to control to start off with. The choice is one of three :
- White : Allowing you to control the warm white light intensity, on or off.
- White Ambience : Allows you to be in control with warm or cool white, light intensity, on or off.
- White & Colour : Giving you full control on warm white, cool light or setting the mood through any of the 16 million possible colours, setting the light intensity, on or off.
Once you enjoy any of the above Starter Kits, you may add any of the HUE lamps, Bulbs or Accessories, regardless of the initial ambience chosen.
Hue Bluetooth App
If you would like to have basic control over just a few Hue products (up to 10 bulbs), Philips Hue offers their free Bluetooth app which is available on Android and IOS. The Bluetooth app does not need the HUE Bridge, however, control is limited. With the Hue Bluetooth App, you can change light colour, intensity, switch on or off, however, you cannot take advantage of all the other features explained above. For the full suite, the Hue Bridge is required.
This would be ideal for those who would want to create wireless smart lighting in a single room or a contained area of the house. The bulbs which you purchase need to have a Bluetooth module built in so they can communicate with the application. A list of the Bluetooth bulbs can be found here.