The Philips Hue Starter Kit sells for $200 on Amazon and comes with three bulbs plus wireless bridge. That involves buying more things. Now, what it does is it loads up their own website within the app, so it's not as fluid a native feel within the app, but it's way better than forcing you to go to a site, make sure you're linked and then play around. You can find a bunch of anciliary apps in the app store that will automate a few things for you, and I haven't even had the opportunite to really play there. June 19, 2008 August 20, 2023 Jack Sparrow Leave a Comment on Top 10 Best Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus Starter Kit Reviews Of 2021 Top 10 Best Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus Starter Kit On The Market Product Names My wife only wishes that Google would recognize a hand clap to turn things on or off (I imagine there's an anciliary app to do just that. However, I recently ran into an issue where one of my books disappeared shortly after I had purchased it. Our Philips Hue Starter Kit review is a must read if you're considering investing in what many consider to be the best smart lighting currently available on the market. View all products. Lightstrips. Just via voice controls. Reading books is not something that's on my favorite thing to do list, but having my Android device read it out to me really draws me in. How to use Philips Hue with Alexa Then the app has a whole slew of options of 'what to do if it's turned off, what should you do when it's manually turned on again?'. If you own a speaker with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple's Siri – all o f which we've reviewed – you’ll be able to connect up your lighting and control it by chatting to your speaker. Review – Philips Hue Starter Kit: Using from a creative studio’s perspective When Philips announced their Hue RGB light bulbs few years ago, I was intrigued by how it works but was taken aback by its novelty. No matter how many times I refreshed my library or cleared the cache, it never came back. Play with colors or sync lights with your music, TV and games for an immersive effect. Our Philips Hue Starter Kit review will help you decide is Philips Hue is the smart lighting solution for you... Smart lighting is unlikely to be a necessity for you, but it’s a great little addition to make your home feel futuristic and easier to control. Philips Hue Light Strip review I know these Hue Plays are kind of marketed as entertainment accents to be used behind a TV or PC monitor, but I found excellent uses in shelves and under a sound bar. Accessories. As it currently stands that's about what you can do with it. Voice control is one of the most exciting elements of having smart lighting. Within the app, you can choose from up to 16 million colours and even set up some favourites so you can in the future just ask your smart speaker for specific colours. The extra functionality of being able to fiddle with the brightness, temperature and when the lights come on is a big help, and we particularly like how you can integrate it with all of the major smart speakers. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Surround yourself with Philips Hue lights and turn on your movie, music, or game ∙ and then watch your lights mirror the colors and rhythm (Philips … So, to bypass that, you could just tell the family NEVER TOUCH THE MANUAL SWITCH, and get a virtual switch. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. If you like the idea of the added home security, but don’t want your lights on a timer, you can manually turn them on through the Philips Hue app no matter where you are in the world. The Bridge is connected to your Wi-Fi (you can also use an ethernet cable) and acts as the brains to control all of the lightbulbs in your home. Four HDMI inputs allow you to connect your media devices to your Hue setup, resulting in a fast, seamless display of colorful smart light that responds to and reflects the content you watch or listen to. That's the sign of a good geek show off. 99 You’ll find the Bridge to be the most important part of the Philips Hue set up, and you should think of this as your hub for all the extra Hue products that you may add to your collection, in future. I can be in the living room and "Google, turn on the lights" and only mine go on, not Dean's. If you're not comfortable with recipe stuff and tinkering... turn back now. Bulbs. For example, you can ask your smart speaker to set your lighting to a blue shade and the lights will come on in a default blue shade. As much as we do a lot on the phone, there are some things we just need to sit at an actual keyboard and get some work done. ... New: Hue Play gradient lightstrip. A few years passed and Philips Hue made improvements to the entire ecosystem – the hardware and especially the app. Real Homes is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. So, I'm a techy... through and through. Won't even do the 'rave party'. This is where we take it from baby steps to full on running with the wolves mode. Our Philips Hue Starter Kit review is a must read if you're considering investing in what many consider to be the best smart lighting currently available on the market. A quick video looking at the new Philips Hue Play LED accent lighting.Hue Hub required! However, if you're a tinkerer you probably are already seeing how you would use it to get an app like to simulate lightning or have lights follow you around the house, changing as you need. Score: 4 out of 5 Once installed, the lightstrip connects to the rest of the Hue network via the required and separately purchased Hue Bridge ($59.99).This control unit is available separately or comes bundled in a couple of different Hue Starter Kits.. If you're happy at this level of play, stop here. Starter Kits. So, in Dean's room, he asks "Google turn on my light" and it turns on the light just in that room. White ambience – this allows you to make the white light warmer or cooler. Can't figure out why, or if there's any sort of 'calibration' needed. Google Play Books is an amazing app for Android for reading your favorite novels. You can get sensors to watch movement and when it's tripped do something. Colour – this is the most expensive option available, but you'll benefit from access to 16 million colours to choose from. All rights reserved. Two to four bulbs, depending on which set you purchased, A bridge – this will give your bulbs smart capabilities. pictured is also the Hue Play ... review coming later. I'm calling the C423N the Vivobook variant in Chromebook style because it also has the 'NanoEdge' display (slim bezels). You can connect three to a … But, before we get there, there are some other accessories you can get to augment your experience. So it's like a semi manual switch. If you had the 'clapper' and some money to burn, this would be a neat novel thing. Philips Hue has been around for awhile, and are the gold standard for smart lighting. Philips Hue Starter Kit Review Those days are long gone as with Phillipe’s Hue you can change your room’s mood, emotion, and theme with a swipe of a finger or flick of an icon on your smartphone or tablet, not only that, your room’s character can change in tune with music or a variety of other inputs, even your voice! … ... Philips Hue offers a wide range of smart light bulbs, lamps, fixtures and accessories. Dip your toes in, see what else you want to do with it then dive in. Visit our corporate site. Can be integrated with all of the major smart speakers. But if I control all at the same time with the app (or the Home app, or from the Nest Hub) it plays along just fine. We hope Philips plans to include this on other tech as soon as possible as it’s an innovative idea that’s fun to play around with. There are things like colour looping, conditional wake ups, syncing to a football match. When you're done reading, you might want to compare this offering from Philips Hue with others that feature in our guide to the best smart bulbs. Create a vibrant ambiance with the Hue Play light bar. I'm usually the last to bed and making sure I have the lights off in the right order so I'm not stumbling around is a pain, so being able to say "hey google, turn on the stand light 10%" is so handy. LIFX smart lighting review If you’re using th… If you opt for the full colour kit, a fun tool is called Sync that allows you to connect your lighting to the music, TV shows, movies or games you’re currently listening to, watching or playing. If you're curious... we can go deeper. We reviewed the Vivobook recently , but that was an actual Windows laptop, and remember, we here at Android Coliseum are more focused on Android / Google related, so let's look at the Chromebook variant of the Vivobook. It can also give you peace of mind that it looks like someone is home even when you’re away on holiday or a work trip. But is the Philips Hue range really worth the hype? I did find one odd one, that sometimes I'll ask Google to turn the living room to red, the elephant lamp turns green. We can teach it things. One of the highlights is the pre-set moods in the app that offer optimum lighting for reading or relaxing before you settle down to sleep. Whether it’s for your living room, your kitchen, your bathroom or your back-yard, Philips Hue has the perfect light. The build quality is pretty good; it's not metal or anything, but keeping the weight down is good too so that it can be mounted facing down using the provided double-sided tape. The more accurate and precise the syncing is, the more immersive the experience. The power adapter can accomodate up to three light bars (add-ons cost $70 each). If this is your first foray into the world of smart lighting, a starter kit is essential to getting started. It works through your PC or Mac, and sadly that’s currently it. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Philips Hue Play Starter Kit NAM Black at Amazon.com. I feel a little unable to really express the ability of how you can play with these ... it's definitely for the tinkerer and someone who really sees the opportunity. It’s a genuinely great feature that takes whatever you’re watching and mimics the lighting to fit the images on screen, but it’s only currently on your computer and it won’t work on games consoles or TVs. I love having the latest gadgets, no matter how geeky they are, just even so I can show it to someone and have them groan. The possibilities are endless once you start exploring.Here are some things you can do with this starter kit: Getting started with the Philips Hue Play kit is a surprisingly simple process. It includes two Philips Hue Play Light Bars and a Hue Bridge. Get the best deal on the Philips Hue Starter Kit... We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices, How to use Philips Hue with Google Home Assistant. Some of our favourites include: You can also set up in the app when your smart lights turn on and turn off, which means your lights can already be on when you get home from work on a cold winter’s night. There’s also the option to purchase a dimmer switch, if required. Again, back to 'is it worth it'. There are a variety of different lights, light strips, outdoor lights etc... to match your scenario appropriately. This makes the Play Bar a fantastic choice for bias and accent lighting, especially if you have other Hue lights in your home. Philips Go review Sync your smart lights to your on-screen TV content with the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box. The first step is to decide where to place your light bars, and here’s where you get to be creative. The Philips Hue Play Starter Kit comes with a Hue Bridge and two Hue Play light bars that let you sync up colorful lighting to create a modern, stylish ambience. An added bonus is that if there's a light in the same room as the mini, you can ask the mini to turn the lights on, and it does it for that room. A WiFi enabled switch that you set up in the app to control the light. Lay it on the floor, let it stand on the cabinet, or mount it on the back of the TV, and paint your wall with light. Expensive to kit out your entire home with Philips Hue, but the Starter Kit gets you up and running. Options include: You’ll also have to decide the type of bulbs you need as Philips offers GU10 (those are spotlights) as well as B22 and E27. As with all Philips Hue lamps, you will need a Hue bridge ($60 or bundled with a starter kit) to connect the Play Light Bar to your home network. But it's where you make up the value. We've discussed several times the need to sometimes take our online activity away from our phone (which is funny, how it wasn't that long ago we were talking about moving our internet activities from desktop to 'mobile'). The Hue Play Light Bars ($129.99 for a two pack) join the growing family of Philips Hue smart lighting accessories that you can control with your phone, voice, and … Being able to fiddle with the brightness, temperature and when the lights come on is a big help. Then don't get it. I was trying to get it to do things like "at 10pm turn off Dean's light", or "dim the elephant to 10% over 5 minutes". This starter kit is everything you need to set up Hue Play in your home, with the Hue bridge included. This kit opens up so many lighting possibilities. When I posted on Facebook about these, I have one cool friend, Jim, who set his up with a variety of recipes. We thought you should know a few things about the Philips Hue Starter Kit. If you've set up a scene, you can tell it to turn on that scene name. The Philips Hue Starter Kit is one of the simplest and most effective ways to get smart lighting set up. It's going to be a chore... an expensive one. You can then ask for it to be warmer or cooler to change the look of the lighting but it’ll remain blue. The three lights in the Starter Kit aren’t going to light up your whole home, but it’s better than nothing. The rest gets a little 'recipe mode' geeky. They work amazing, very responsive, great colours and brightness. ... the hub. Testing it with an Amazon Echo and Alexa, we found the speaker to be the quickest and easiest way to control the lighting in our home. Some come with an additional dimmer switch, but we’ll explain more about that in a moment. Within the Hue app, you have the option to look over their 'labs'. Reviews; Philips Hue We may earn a commission if you click a deal and buy an item. Philips Hue Starter Kit Review: 5 Things You Need To Know. DaveWeLike unboxes the Philips Hue Play Starter Kit. We've enlisted the help of TechRadar's James Peckham to help us cut through the jargon and reveal – once and for all – whether Philips Hue is worth the investment. If you leave the lamp on all the time, but you turn it off manually, well, you can't turn it on from the app. pictured is also the Hue Play ... review coming later: Prices tended to range with what you find online, but it tends to go for about the $200-250 range. How to use Philips Hue with Google Home Assistant. It may be expensive to kit out your entire home with Philips Hue, but the Starter Kit gets you up and running as it’ll allow you to cover at least one room in your home with all the necessary tech. I got a full kit : 2 play lights + hue bulb and a bridge for C$200 (i guess) The hue bulb is for floor lamp and I have fixed both play light next to my monitor, on the table. But you can go deeper. After doing some Google searching around and contacting Google Support, I finally found an answer and I wanted to share with you. You can also set up your 'home and away' so when the app knows you're no longer at home, it can have various 'routines' to enact. You may have three bulbs in the box here, but you can have up to 100 different lights connected to a single Bridge. Philips Hue Play Black & Color Smart Light, 2 Pack Base kit, Hub Required/Power Supply Included (Works with Amazon Alexa, Apple Homekit & Google Home) 4.7 out of 5 stars 3,777 $129.99 $ 129. Even cooler, is if you have a thing you do fairly often, you can set up a widget on your phone to tap like a switch. The 'okay google start simulate tv routine' and lights can change and flicker like a tv is on while you're out of town. Set up a specific timer and actions with timings and playing around you can do all sorts. Lamps. Turn On Your Imagination. The colour bulbs Philips Hue offers are the highlight, but if you don’t need that you’ll likely be happy with either the white or ambience kit that are both a little cheaper than the full-blown top-end Starter Kit. Turn your everyday lighting into an extraordinary experience. Each light bar comes with a six-foot cable that plugs into a single power adapter. Bottom line: The Philips Hue Play Bar is a versatile lighting solution that offers bright, vivid colors in a compact and light form factor. So far these just sound to be like normal light bulbs, right? Individual bulbs can be purchased for $60 . Searching around forums and such, I realized I wasn't alone with this issue. Hue is the one of the most accomplished platforms, and the Starter Kit is the best way to get started on filling your home full of smart products from the brand. Hue app sync With the Hue Sync app and the Hue Bridge, you can bring your entertainment to new heights. The main difference is the type of bulb available. To make things even more interesting, I'm going to show you how to try a different voice when having your device read your book for you. Some neat options. And it bears repeating that the required Philips Hue Bridge is not included in the kit. Philips Hue starter kits include both bulbs and the bridge that's required to connect the lights to your home Wi-Fi network. The whole idea behind the HDMI Sync Box is to boost the immersion of whatever you’re watching by precisely syncing your surrounding Hue lights with the picture on your screen. When you start to think about it, there really is a whole host of potential that accompanies smart lighting – and the Philips Hue Starter Kit, in particular. If this is your first foray into the world of smart lighting, a starter kit is essential to getting started. Enhance your gaming or home cinema experience. The Good The Philips Hue Play light bars are well designed and easy to mount in a variety of ways, making them a good fit for spots where bulbs aren't an option. © Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. Of course, there’s a school of thought that says such “responsive” TV bias lighting is more … Read on Philips Hue Starter Kit review to learn how you can make your home smarter. The kind of TV “bias” lighting that the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box enables isn’t for everyone. The dimmer is easy to attach to a wall so even your guests can control your lighting without any hassle. Complex controls it doesn't quite do. Light switches, sensors etc... these just add to the ability to automate what you're doing. Make your valuation assessment based on everything up to now. We review all things Hue, from the latest starter kits, Hue Bulbs, lamps and light strips, as well as the Tap, Dimmer and motion sensor. There are multiple versions of the Philips Hue Starter Kit available, but don't let that confuse you when making a purchase. I know we really enjoy this in our house. So no extra apps, just click on the 'explore' and then see the labs. There are also the tools to switch your lights on or fiddle with the features within the smartphone app if you’re not in the same room as your speaker. Hive Active Light review. Once your hue knows a 'routine' or a formula from the lab, it's accessible via the Google Assistant by that name. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. A three-bulb starter kit that includes a smart button and the Hue Bridge costs $180. Blink blue for a Facebook notification, purple for Instagram, turn red when his heartrate goes above a certain number, etc... Once we start looking into automation there's no end to what we can do. Philips Hue starter kit review - getting us to the future one item at a time Posted by Ryan Moore on August 09, 2019 ... so I thought I'd start with the Hue starter kit. Give it the rules, if tapped, what lights do what. Or my wife turn the lights out on me in the living room. 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