Review: The Philips Hue Festavia Lights Are Expensive, But Perfect for Christmas Trees and Holiday Decorating

[compwiz1202]

If you need gas to commute, then you need gas to commute. What exactly is staring at the price on the sign and acknowledging it going to accomplish? It ain’t gonna make the price any lower.

My MIL's friend is one of these. She's the nicest person. but my MIL says she will just go to the grocery store and just put stuff in the cart and go pay. My MIL is well off too, but she has the sense to compare prices. The former is why inflation is out of control

 

[da9l]

Phillips Hue actually have pretty poor light specs. Their CRI values are pretty basic, even Ikeas Tradfri have better color reproduction.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Phillips Hue actually have pretty poor light specs. Their CRI values are pretty basic, even Ikeas Tradfri have better color reproduction.

Typical generic post, which bulbs are you comparing to which bulb, and what about the other light specifications besides the CRI? It is really pointless making a statement like that unless you back up the specific comparison.

And actually I don't disagree, Ikea do some good smart bulbs, also do some terrible smart bulb, definitely don't do Christmas lights in their range, nor many of the other kind of bulbs. So if you have very minimal requirements for just a few bulbs and they cover what you need then it could be great, most definitely. But their range just doesn't cover a whole home implementation I'm afraid. And why the light can be decent what I also find is that their gradations when you adapt the light, or just dim it, is in rather big steps. Some may not be bothered by that, but say you have a waking up program, or adapting towards twilight it becomes really noticeable that the lights are on and that they are changing.

 

[da9l]

Typical generic post, which bulbs are you comparing to which bulb, and what about the other light specifications besides the CRI? It is really pointless making a statement like that unless you back up the specific comparison.

And actually I don't disagree, Ikea do some good smart bulbs, also do some terrible smart bulb, definitely don't do Christmas lights in their range, nor many of the other kind of bulbs. So if you have very minimal requirements for just a few bulbs and they cover what you need then it could be great, most definitely. But their range just doesn't cover a whole home implementation I'm afraid. And why the light can be decent what I also find is that their gradations when you adapt the light, or just dim it, is in rather big steps. Some may not be bothered by that, but say you have a waking up program, or adapting towards twilight it becomes really noticeable that the lights are on and that they are changing.

I believe all Tradfri bulbs have a CRI value of over 90, whereas the Hue bulbs i have at least, are all ">80" which is possibly just over 80.. I have their White, Color And white ambience and white ambience in various sockets.. And yes i know there are more factors to how the light looks than that single value, like temperature etc.

With that being said though, Hue bulb colors are MUCH better than the other bulbs I've tried from other vendors.. Its just that their normal everyday white light isn't as good as it should be IMO considering their price tag.

 

[mw360]

I believe all Tradfri bulbs have a CRI value of over 90, whereas the Hue bulbs i have at least, are all ">80" which is possibly just over 80.. I have their White, Color And white ambience and white ambience in various sockets.. And yes i know there are more factors to how the light looks than that single value, like temperature etc.

With that being said though, Hue bulb colors are MUCH better than the other bulbs I've tried from other vendors.. Its just that their normal everyday white light isn't as good as it should be IMO considering their price tag.

Hue bulbs don't have a fixed CRI - it varies with the colour temperature you select. Reportedly it's above 90 for high and low colour temperatures, but closer to 80 in the middle of the range. It makes sense that cheap bulbs might be better since they're only trying to achieve a single colour temperature and can optimise for that. Regardless it's a bit suspect that anyone outside of colour-sensitive professionals should be concerned about CRI specs, and definitely not people putting up Christmas lights or RGB mood lighting.

 

[okkibs]

About CRI:

I have fourth generation Color Hue bulbs as well as older "Hue LUX" and "Hue White Wireless" bulbs. As far as I know these are the best color Hue bulbs, newer ones just got Bluetooth added. The White Wireless bulbs are actually fairly new, I got them on a sale 2018 for a couple light switches almost for free and thought why not have a few more. These white ones are the worst and actually show how the CRI matters. It gives the coziest room a bleak hospital atmosphere and everything just looks weird. It's not the color temperature either.

The color bulbs can be set to the harshest white and are more like sunlight, they don't make the room weird to look at.

On the other hand I mostly use them on warmer white color or even a fairly strong red color at night so it's easier on my old eyes. That would be a really bad CRI and obviously nothing will look anything like natural sunlight. But it's good for my eyes.

The older LUX lights are ok, not great, the light is unnatural but not as bad as these White Wireless bulbs.

Its just that their normal everyday white light isn't as good as it should be IMO considering their price tag.

If it's anything like the White Wireless that I got then they are just really bad. I have kept a single one in use on the toilet and that's it...

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Lowest in the range I would go is Ambiance where I don't need colour. Way nicer than the just white ones in my opinion...

 

[_Spinn_]

They look like great lights but they’re a bit too pricey for me.

 

[Katspike]

It looks like you missed out the two biggest differences between these and Twinkly lights. These Hue Festavia lights have no mapping (?) and they’re INDOOR only, which is a massive disappointment considering the massive price.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I did see an article on these back in November and it did make me laugh. Very expensive lights to be used for 3 weeks a year and pretty pointless for those of us that only desire one colour on our trees anyway.

I do like Phillips Hue products though but these are rather extravagant to be honest. Each to their own though.