Philips Announces New Hue Bulbs, Hue Bridge 2.0 With HomeKit Compatibility

[newdeal]

Apple has dropped the ball on home kit. It could have been a game changer but they have basically turned it into utter garbage

 

[BruceEBonus]

How about a sickly green hue. To reflect the pointlessness and stupidity of the whole concept? And talking of hue ... how uncanny (and apt) is this ....
call Huey
. To, puke. Also call Ralph, call Ruth, call God on the great white telephone etc.

 

[alexandr]

if only the lights were brighter. is it some technical issue that won't let them make their bulbs bright enough?! i mean they just now got them to be 800l - a whooping 60w...

 

[stefmesman]

In 2015 wireless bulbs shouldn't require bridge hardware. The mere idea of these existing frustrates me. They are like power bricks—yuck! The bulbs should be designed to be popped into the light fixture whereby they would appear in the app to be setup via an ad-hock connection and via password from your mobile device connect to the network. Yes, it would require more hardware and software work on Philips part to get their bulbs to work like this, but that is their job and it is technically possible. And if the bulbs cost $5 extra to do this, so be it. It would simplify setup and ownership of these bulbs greatly, and there would be savings from the lack of fussy bridge hardware.

Lol, and have every light be 5 extra? And use more energy? And mess up wifi connections woth more 2.4ghz? Wifi was not made for domotica. And no security through wifi only setup? Theres a reason theres a bridge because the hardware for encryption cannot run in a small bulb. The reason theres a new bridge now is because of apples encryption standards for homekit.

 

[5105973]

Umm...they are Philips hue bulbs. You can set them to literally any shade of white that you want (whether cool/blue or warm/yellow...or even a super warm orange) as well as just about any color in the rainbow.

The Hue Lux and Hue White bulbs, which you can't do that with, have a fixed color temperature in the warm white range. People only equate "LED" with "blue" because they either don't pay attention to color temperature when buying bulbs themselves and are then somehow surprised, or they think of industrial applications (e.g., most LED streetlights) where cool LEDs seem to have been established as preferred (perhaps because of their greater efficiency in terms of power consumed to lumens).

Thanks for the explanation because I was wondering about that and you've done a great job explaining this technology. But the particular post you were responding to was (I think) a joke on the iPhone screens having inconsistent displays ranging from cool blue tints to cat pee yellow.

 

[8692574]

if only the lights were brighter. is it some technical issue that won't let them make their bulbs bright enough?! i mean they just now got them to be 800l - a whooping 60w...

Brightness was a doubt i had when i bought the first set, I can happily say that replacing my old 3 light in the Kitchen with 3 hue made me very happy, since difference when white is barely noticeable.... i am sure the 800L version would make them brighter than my old regular bulbs.

 

[doctor-don]

$200????
That may seem like chump change to Californians who are used to living in houses with quadrupled prices, but I will pass.

 

[mdelvecchio]

What kind of hardware might that be? I call ********.

maybe you missed all the stories about hardware manufacturers needing to support HK with chips designed for it? listening when off, etc.

this stuff isn't magic.

 

[Silver Idaten]

Umm...they are Philips hue bulbs. You can set them to literally any shade of white that you want (whether cool/blue or warm/yellow...or even a super warm orange) as well as just about any color in the rainbow.

The Hue Lux and Hue White bulbs, which you can't do that with, have a fixed color temperature in the warm white range. People only equate "LED" with "blue" because they either don't pay attention to color temperature when buying bulbs themselves and are then somehow surprised, or they think of industrial applications (e.g., most LED streetlights) where cool LEDs seem to have been established as preferred (perhaps because of their greater efficiency in terms of power consumed to lumens).

The coloured bulbs support 16 million colours. The Lux (white only) support warm to cool in white only for a cheaper price.

I know, I know, I was just making a joke in reference to all the iPhone launch stuff.

 

[mdelvecchio]

No kidding. As interesting as this is, no way am I spending thousands of dollars just so I don't have to get my butt up to switch the lights throughout the house. I'm interested and have the ability to get this working but cost is still an issue.

thousands of dollars? it cost me $200 to put them into my living room and study. another one bucks to do the kitchen. major areas covered. you don't need to replace every single bulb.

also, point of reference -- in the 80s a smart home was for the very wealthy only. now anybody can do it for s few hundred bucks.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

No kidding. As interesting as this is, no way am I spending thousands of dollars just so I don't have to get my butt up to switch the lights throughout the house. I'm interested and have the ability to get this working but cost is still an issue.

Absolutely -- I couldn't agree more.

 

[UCLAKoolman]

Does this homekit-enabled hub have any new features besides voice activation?

Voice activation isn't something I'm really interested in... and there are already ways to control hue lighting via voice.

 

[zorinlynx]

Do the Hue bulbs have white LEDs in them as well? Or is all the white light from them just RGB mixed together?

White created from RGB mixing has a very lousy CRI (color rendering index) and can seem unnatural when compared to a true white (continuous specrum, high CRI) light source. I'm afraid to purchase this tech only to find out the CRI is garbage.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

The more I see these the more I want.

 

[Zorn]

Do the Hue bulbs have white LEDs in them as well? Or is all the white light from them just RGB mixed together?

White created from RGB mixing has a very lousy CRI (color rendering index) and can seem unnatural when compared to a true white (continuous specrum, high CRI) light source. I'm afraid to purchase this tech only to find out the CRI is garbage.

I own these bulbs, but I'm not sure as to the answer to your question. It's worth noting though that all of the stores carrying these have a generous return policy, so why not just try them out?

 

[jclardy]

In 2015 wireless bulbs shouldn't require bridge hardware. The mere idea of these existing frustrates me. They are like power bricks—yuck! The bulbs should be designed to be popped into the light fixture whereby they would appear in the app to be setup via an ad-hock connection and via password from your mobile device connect to the network. Yes, it would require more hardware and software work on Philips part to get their bulbs to work like this, but that is their job and it is technically possible. And if the bulbs cost $5 extra to do this, so be it. It would simplify setup and ownership of these bulbs greatly, and there would be savings from the lack of fussy bridge hardware.

I think there are two problems with this, one you already noted which is cost - every bulb now needs a wifi chip. The cost of that will be more than $5 to the end consumer. But then also power consumption wise each bulb will nearly double, hue bulbs use 9W of power, versus 17W for a comparable LIFX bulb (Which uses wifi like you want.)

The second is configuration/setup...which isn't easier. Each bulb now needs to be manually connected to wifi, which for an entire house of bulbs is going to take some time. Not to mention you do something as crazy as change your wifi password. With the hue bridge you just plug it in to ethernet and the network settings are handled.

I own a bit of home automation equipment (hue bulbs, GE Link, smart things, sonos) and to be honest, none of it is really ready for mainstream adopt (Well, except for Sonos.) At this stage it is best for people who like to tinker and tweak things as I have had all of them fail individually on me, but they are slowly getting better. I don't think HomeKit is really the solution yet either because of its hardware requirement.

 

[jz-]

In 2015 wireless bulbs shouldn't require bridge hardware. The mere idea of these existing frustrates me. (…) And if the bulbs cost $5 extra to do this, so be it. It would simplify setup and ownership of these bulbs greatly, and there would be savings from the lack of fussy bridge hardware.

Have you heard of LIFX bulbs? They work independently, and at $70 each, it's pretty close to $5 extra per bulb (compared to $66 at $200 for 3).

But then also power consumption wise each bulb will nearly double, hue bulbs use 9W of power, versus 17W for a comparable LIFX bulb (Which uses wifi like you want.)

I believe a large portion of that extra power is due to the LIFX bulbs being significantly brighter than Hue bulbs - a Wifi connection shouldn't use anywhere near 8W of power.

 

[gsmornot]

thousands of dollars? it cost me $200 to put them into my living room and study. another one bucks to do the kitchen. major areas covered. you don't need to replace every single bulb.

also, point of reference -- in the 80s a smart home was for the very wealthy only. now anybody can do it for s few hundred bucks.

I thought the idea was to automate the home. If I'm doing a few bulbs here and there what about the other lights in and out of the home? The bulbs they offer are only one shape too it seems. (that I always see displayed) I could do a lamp here and there I guess but I have can lights in two sizes, small bulbs in hanging fixtures, fan bulbs, lamps, candelabra style fixtures, etc that these bulbs just don't fit. My bathroom alone has 12 bulbs above the mirrors, maybe I'm thinking too big. Still a couple hundred for a few lamps is on the same scale for me as whole house for thousands and don't you agree that if I did my whole house, I could spend a few thousand?

Edit: I wanted to add that generally, my lighting money lately has been going to just the basic LED bulbs to replace my incandescent and compact florescent bulbs.

 

[deviant]

Umm...they are Philips hue bulbs. You can set them to literally any shade of white that you want (whether cool/blue or warm/yellow...or even a super warm orange) as well as just about any color in the rainbow.

The Hue Lux and Hue White bulbs, which you can't do that with, have a fixed color temperature in the warm white range. People only equate "LED" with "blue" because they either don't pay attention to color temperature when buying bulbs themselves and are then somehow surprised, or they think of industrial applications (e.g., most LED streetlights) where cool LEDs seem to have been established as preferred (perhaps because of their greater efficiency in terms of power consumed to lumens).

The coloured bulbs support 16 million colours. The Lux (white only) support warm to cool in white only for a cheaper price.

he was attempting an amusing joke about iPhone screens and people complaining that theirs are more blue or more yellow. if you remember all those countless threads.

 

[Technodynamic]

can these bulbs pull of green color yet? Real green? versus the yellow+ blue trick they use on the old gen bulb?

 

[mw360]

Do the Hue bulbs have white LEDs in them as well? Or is all the white light from them just RGB mixed together?

White created from RGB mixing has a very lousy CRI (color rendering index) and can seem unnatural when compared to a true white (continuous specrum, high CRI) light source. I'm afraid to purchase this tech only to find out the CRI is garbage.

The aren't RGB. They are lime green, red-orange and violet-blue.

 

[Jgl598]

Er was that a Nest thermostat in that ad (8 seconds in)? Does Phillips know something we don't?

Hue and Nets have worked together for a while now, so in Homekit you can actually set options that would integrate the lighting and heating. This could be handy for wake-up and "go to sleep" modes

 

[8692574]

can these bulbs pull of green color yet? Real green? versus the yellow+ blue trick they use on the old gen bulb?

You do realize that Blue and Yellow is the way to make green right? After all there are ONLY 3 primary color....

 

[kycophpd]

I am not happy about the price. Most everything I saw from Phillips said they were going to make the original bridge compatible. Either way I have several bulbs already so I am going to actually buy another full set of bulbs with the new bridge for the house. I will then take two of my older bulbs to my office along with the V1 bridge. This will give me Hue options at the office without Siri but I am fine with that.

 

[uhslax24]

Er was that a Nest thermostat in that ad (8 seconds in)? Does Phillips know something we don't?

I was wondering the same thing....