I am a dabbler in home automation and thinking about starting to get into lighting. I have heard mostly good things about the Philip Hue line and wanted to see what peoples thoughts are about it.
Our main current automation are a large number of Google Smart Speaker and Arlo video doorbells. Everything is working now on the Google ecosystem which I think Philip Hue will connect with. Our house is 100 years old which means that our possibilities to automate are lower than a new home since we have very few overhead lights, power outlets are at a premium (we have lots of power strips running through the house).
We are thinking about doing smart bulbs in some lamps which we can leave on and a chandalier. I think the biggest issue will leaving things always powered on.
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I used them mainly for 5+ years, they work pretty well, they definitely don’t last forever like most LED bulbs claim.
The biggest problem I ran into was other people, even my wife would still flip switches off which made them kind of pointless.
They work good in lamps but as far as places with obvious switches go, I would get smart switches instead.
I am a little concerned about flipping the physical switches that make them useless. I will have to figure out what to do with smart switches for our chandelier
I had a couple TP-link wifi switches at my old house and never really ran into problems.
My plan is to implement ZigBee at our new house, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
If you need a bulb or two, Matter/Thread hue is good, just expensive. Otherwise I’d try to wait until January when Ikea is supposed to release all their Matter/Thread stuff.
They’re the closest light quality to old incandescent bulbs that I’ve found, but I don’t have any of their smart bulbs so can’t comment on that part.
I have some connected with ZigBee to my Home Assistant. Their new “Essential” line is price competitive with most other smart bulbs you can find and they’re working great so far.
Hue is excellent from a build quality standpoint but if you value privacy or respect for consumers know that Philips is forcing consumers into a cloud model and changing the terms of service after the fact, for some people well over a decade after purchase.
In general your IOT shit should be isolated to a virtual lan that does not have internet access. As of right now if you buy hue hardware it will do this but eventually this will not work as it will require you to sign in to “Philips security” to activate and utilize lighting (you will need to maintain an active cloud connection.
The bulbs do have zigbee so you can always bypass their bridge of course but this is more complicated to setup and in my experience leads to performance that as not as solid as using the bridge. Also, the ethics of financially supporting a company that will change the TOS after sale to fuck you so they can worsen the product solely to harvest data for sale. Yuck
All good reasons to stay away from the Hue/Wyse branded WiFi bulbs(nvm that their colors suck). Also why those are less than half the price of the ones that require a hub. When the internet goes out, I can still control my hub-connected Hue bulbs, and some(but not all) of the various Bluetooth bulbs I own.
Original Hue bulbs are good shit, the best softwhite, yellows, and/or orange color-tones you can get on the market, but everything else is hit-and-miss IME.
If you like to read/study, its original Hue or Dumb bulbs. The rest is usually party/mood lighting at best, and the best deals for that are on the standalone stuff that comes with crappy remotes.
Just fyi the Philips security thing does apply to the hub as well. If you care about local only access ensure your hub is on a vlan now with no internet access so it cannot capture the eventual update that will push a forced cloud connection. Philips has explicitly stated this is coming to all hue devices and that you must sign in with a “hue account”.
If you must buy them ideally buy them used so you do not directly financially support a company that is hostile to its customers
I’ve had the same Hue bulbs for over 7 years now with no issues. The brand itself is very good. As other have said, you can interact with them via Google or Home Assistant directly, and when you’re ready you can directly switch them over to Zigbee or something more open if you want to ditch the online services. People here will pressure you to do that immediately, but I think dip your toes in with the official automations, see how you feel, and then see if you want to switch it over. Hue is a great way that will work from app based official all the way down to 6 years from now when you’re coding your own automations.
I leave my lamps powered on all the time with hue bulbs and have never had an issue. Even very old lamps have been completely fine. For usability and wife approval I would recommend getting a switch (which is useful for other reasons too) that you can stick on your wall and turn them all off at once. Even if your wife is onboard with automation, a switch will make it mother-in-law proof.
Mixing in some Ikea bulbs on the hue bridge will work just fine as well, with both Google and home assistant. The Ikea switches and sensors are paired directly to a bulb, so don’t buy those if you do get their bulbs.
I am glad that your bulbs have lasted 7 years. I knew the Hue were the high end brand and am glad it isn’t all branding but hold up over time. I didn’t consider the switch but that will be needed for a few of these. Some we were considering would be set on timers all the time but having a switch would be nice
I didn’t think I needed a switch until the mother in law came and turned off all my lights manually. A switch keeps things in line but lets family still work with your bulbs the old fashioned way
Makes sense to have a switch to make it simple and idiot proof. We have a sink that has a sensor and a handle that both need to be on to turn on. We have to explain it to everyone who tries to wash their hands at our house.
I have a few Philips wiz lights and they are reliable. I blocked them from connecting to the internet and I manage them from HomeAssistant. The only issue is that if I have a blackout, they come back all on at 100% brightness. I know there’s a setting for “keep the last state” on setup, but I redid it a few times and it never sticks.
Expensive but great quality.
I like ThirdReality’s zigbee bulbs.
I’ve had some Hue bulbs and and an LED strip for a bunch of years. It’s been pretty reliable. The LED strips are really awesome and frustratingly expensive. You can chain them together to cover longer/larger areas. I’ve tried a few generic LED strips, and they’ve kinda sucked by comparison. but sometimes that’s ok for a given purpose.
Not that it’s what you’re asking, but I had a 100 year old house with retrofitted LED can lighting. It’s do-able. and might not be as expensive as you think.
Thank for the insight. I think I’m going to see what I can get started and then expand
I got into Hue way back in 2014, before I knew what HA was, and before I cared about local control. Hue is OK, and they have a wide variety of form factors to choose from, but I’m always afraid they’ll enshitify to the point you can’t pair the bulbs with a non hue zigbee controller. I’m pretty sure I can’t update the bulbs unless they’re connected to a hue bridge.
Using smart bulbs to mitigate the lack of in-wall plugs/switches is a great idea. I do that with my bedroom fan since the light chain is busted.
If you use Zigbee2MQTT in Home Assistant, you actually can update the firmware on Hue devices, obviously it’s up to you if you actually want to push the update though
I use ZHA.
I like Innr. Hue is way too overpriced imo.
I have a mix of normal Hue bulbs and some Innr brand GU10 (spotlight) bulbs. The difference in quality of light from both brands is quite noticeable, with Hue being far and away better in terms of colour blending and accuracy. There’s a reason the Hue bulbs are 2-3x the price of the competition
That said, I’ve had multiple Hue bulbs either outright fail or one LED die so that it still works but the colour is completely wrong. It’s frustrating for bulbs that are supposed to last decades but maybe the latest generation are more robust.
They’re also regularly on sale for Black Friday and the like, so I’d advise planning your purchases around those events.
I wouldn’t worry about leaving them on. Standby power draw is very low and I think even at maximum output they use about 7W each. It’s just not a big deal.
I think Black Friday will be the day to buy them. I have heard that they last 7-10 years so a bummer they don’t last.
Expensive but the color quality is the best on the market.
Wasn’t a fan of their hub so I connect the bulbs directly to my ZigBee hub/dongle.
I won’t get on too high of a soap box, but strongly considering moving away from Google especially for home automation. Support open source privacy respecting systems and products (or at least products that don’t push anti-consumer practices).
I know Phillips doesn’t fit that by any means, but any device that supports a local API/ZigBee/z-wave/matter is fine in my book.
If I was going to do more automation I would consider moving away from Google. Since their smart speakers are 90% of what we have automated there doesn’t seem to be a point now.
To be honest the best “home automation” we have are two sets of these Wireless Remote Controls that are dumb automation. Just a remote to turn things on and off. Its been the most reliable thing and simplies thing to set up so far.
What was your problems with their Zigbee Hub? I know I will need one but want something that is plug and play. We just had a new baby so I don’t have forever to play around with setting up automations
I had a few issues with pairing. Besides that, Phillips has made some controversial changes in the past that were anti-consumer.
But bypassing their hub and therefore the app and online account by using a ZigBee hub avoided those concerns for me.
Connecting and setting up a ZigBee hub was very simple. But I’m also using Home assistant so can’t vouch for the process with Google.
Wasn’t a fan of their hub so I connect the bulbs directly to my ZigBee hub/dongle.
I did the same, I wish it was more widely known that it was possible (and very easy with Zigbee2Mqtt).
you will never be upset with the hue ecosystem… they aren’t cheap, but they’re reliable as hell and have a lot more than just the lights if you ever want to go all in (eg the hue sync - for tv backlighting, light strips, most kinds of lighting fixture you can think of, etc)
oh and the quality of the light itself is top notch, which i think is super important
