Philips hue white and color starter kit review

Philips' hue range has become the must-have for connected lighting. With a very complete range, both inside and out, Philips was able to convince by the quality of its products, but also by the functionalities they integrate!

In this article, we discover the Starter Kit Hue White and color so keep your eyes open (not too much, you might be dazzled)!

Presentation

The Philips Starter Kit is sold in a colorful box. It presents a lot of information, such as possibilities or power.

Inside, we also have many devices:

• 3 Bulbs Hue White and Color
• A Wifi and Zigbee Hub
• A wireless remote control

Philips has chosen to use the Zigbee protocol for its Hue products. You will therefore need a Hub (included in this pack) to be able to control your bulbs with your phone.

The advantage of Zigbee over WiFi is that it consumes much less and is a mesh network. The other devices can therefore be used as repeaters.

But the disadvantage (even if he's not really one) is that you need a gateway. An additional device to integrate into our house, you might say. Yes, but the latter hardly consumes any power (about 1.6 W) and its design is quite convincing.

The included remote control is quite good. Its design is in the image of the Hub, very modern, and it can be fixed to the wall like a switch. The big positive point of this remote control is that by fixing the bracket to the wall, you can still take it elsewhere because it has a magnetic fixing! Extremely practical (well done Philips!)

Installation

The installation of Philips Hue bulbs is very simple. First, connect your Ethernet Hub to your router and power it with the included power cable.

Then download the Android or iOS "Hue" application. The latter will serve as a control center to control all your equipment.

First, the application will search for your Hub. So make sure you have connected it to the network that broadcasts the WiFi you use on your phone.

Once the HUB has been found, updates may take place. Don't worry, these are not too long 😉

Once this is done, you can start creating your first piece! Inside you can configure its name but also the devices that compose it.

And that's all! When your part is created, you have immediate access to the associated bulbs.

The Bulbs

What are the Hue bulbs worth? What do they have more than RGB bulbs from other brands? Well, they're very good! The customization of the whites (either warm white or cool white) is incredible, you can move from one atmosphere to another in no time and the IRC is really very good (especially in cold whites)! To adjust the white you want, simply move the bulb on the wheel and choose the shade you want.

On the top right, you also have the color wheel to choose from 16 million colors! Very intuitive, the application allows you to easily create an atmosphere that suits you. No need to exit the interface to choose the color of another bulb! All those present in the room can be adjusted at the same time! It's very practical and very intuitive.

It is also possible to choose predefined scenes, such as sunset or playback, but also to create them! Very useful when you have found a color/ambiance that you like and want to apply it with a single click without having to do it again next time.

It is also possible to choose predefined scenes, such as sunset or playback, but also to create them! Very useful when you have found a color/ambiance that you like and want to apply it with a single click without having to do it again next time.

But also the leisure space! This last one is a little jewel signed Philips and which makes it possible to synchronize your bulbs with multimedia content! Whether it's a photo, a video, a game or music, your bulbs will adapt either to the colors of the screen or to the rhythm of the music!

The image synchronization feature is very useful because it gives a real atmosphere when watching a movie. The piece will then take on the hue of the scene environment and the immersion will be total.

There are several ways to have this: A Philips TV compatible with Hue Sync, or a computer. Being complete and interesting, we will develop this feature in another article 😉

Conclusion

Philips Hue bulbs are very, very good. Probably the best RGB bulbs on the market today. The colors are rich and the customization of the color temperature of the whites offers great possibilities to change the atmosphere of the room.

The application is very intuitive and full of features and Hue Sync which allows you to synchronize your lighting with multimedia content promises great things!

Hue bulbs are certainly at a rather high price, but the promise is there: Beautiful, bright, colorful and incredibly connected.