Philips Hue or something else?

[AJB Temple]

I am now contemplating lighting for parts of my new kitchen and general lazing about room. The below photos are several weeks old and wiring and decor has moved on somewhat, but these are the snaps I have.

The lights dangling from chains came from a decommissioned church (I snaffled 4 for a song from a dispersal sale - new they are about £1200 each, which is silly). They are about 2 feet diameter. Maybe a bit more. Each weighs about 25kg. The ceiling apex is about 5.5 metres to give and idea of scale. The lights over one of the worksurfaces next to the wall are from an RAF hangar (holophane glass as are the church lights). There are a few ceiling mounted.

Although wiring tails are all in, I am considering using Philips Hue colour bulbs controlled from a mobile switch or an app, to give me a full colour and dimming range. I also have task lighting over the induction hob and tepinyaki and other areas (fitted after photo) which I may also fit Hue bulbs to.

My question is does anyone have experience of similar products or even of the longevity of the Hue system? I think lighting systems are moving in the direction of wireless control. However, I know very little about this and would value any actual experience others may have.

Thanks, Adrian

 

[AJB Temple]

The photos were meant to be thumbnails. Sorry.

 

[Sideways]

Personal view - great way to waste a lump of money, kinda cute but you do pay for that little bit of novelty / turning the light off without getting out of bed when you could just walk over and use a switch.
Hue are maybe one of the better options but £££
A vendor can totally destroy the value of your investment simply by messing up the app. Second generation Hue app was strongly criticised and it took them about 2 years to get round to doing something about it.
You become hostage to having a phone that works with the app: I bought a Nest thermostat which is a clever device, but I use it in limited fashion as I don't need (or want anyone else) to remote control my heating over the internet. My Nest is set to only operate from phones logged onto my home wifi. That didn't stop Nest selling themselves to Google and now I am constantly nagged / threatened that I need to have a google account to manage everything. Eventually they will force this on me as there is nothing I can do to stop Nest / google downloading updates to my device and they have already started meddling. I have bought a router to create an isolated wifi network for home auto, if ET can't phone home they can mess with it's programming, but it's an inconvenient way to stop meddlesome manufacturers exploiting you for their profit.
There are a few, but not many, lighting solutions that are not internet dependent. They use one of or both zigbee or z-wave I think. I believe home automation has a long way to go before we get something cheap and standardised that will last. Spend your spare money on tools

 

[AJB Temple]

Thanks Sideways. It is not actually for convenience that I am considering it. It is to create room ambience, and Hue is capable of being programmed, by bulb, to deliver a set of colours and brightness levels. This is useful to me because when I am cooking I want good bright lighting. But when I am with family or guests I will want a totally different ambience.

More tools are always appealing to me but I have far more tools than I need.

I agree that Hue bulbs are expensive. But not THAT expensive. Let's say I spend £20 to £25 per bulb for each light fitting in these big holophane lights. So around £200. I can, if I want move the switching system freely to wherever I want it, and do not need to locate switches anywhere really.

My main question really is Hue the best or is there a better emerging technology? I have been trialling Hue for nearly a year elsewhere in the house. I am not blown away by it, but it has been reliable and easy to programme. Whatever I use must be DIY - I am not interested in paying installers.

 

[pcb1962]

Don't be tempted to use the IKEA RGB bulbs as a cheaper alternative to Hue. Although they are good value for money the quality of the colours is nowhere near as good as Hue and certainly wouldn't meet your demanding standards.

 

[spb]

We've had Hue in the house for a few years now, slowly expanding to more rooms as we replace old bayonet-fit ceiling roses with newer, nicer fittings that are generally E27 - if we need to buy new bulbs anyway, we get the Hue ones. From my compulsive researching before committing to a system back then, Hue is the best of them in everything but price, but once you've bit the bullet on the Hue bridge, you can apparently use the cheaper Ikea bulbs with it if you've got some rooms that don't need the same level of colour control. It's got an uncommon mixture of just working out of the box, but also being tinkerable-with if you want to write your own control software or use some other open source automation system. That's mostly a function of the bridge, though; the bulbs are interchangeable with other Zigbee-based systems. Internet connection is also entirely optional, but if you've got the system in already you probably know that.

The major thing I've learned from experience so far is that for my uses at least there's not much point in the full colour bulbs. Even in the rooms that have them, we end up only using the white spectrum settings 99% of the time. The single best thing about the system, for me, is being able to have a bright high-temperature light in the day and a warmer tone at night.

The only downside (apart from price), for your high ceilings in particular, is that the light output per bulb can't yet match the non-smart options. They've recently come out with a 1600 lumen bulb, but it's the version that can't change colour or temperature. The white ambience or colour-changing ones are still 800 lumen max, or a roughly 60W equivalence in old money. We've currently got two of the white ambience bulbs in the living room, and they can't quite match the brightness of the single bulb that was there before.

In terms of emerging technologies, I can't see anything supplanting it in the foreseeable future. Zigbee (the radio protocol they use) is pretty much made for this type of small, self-contained network with no central switching required, and it's what everyone who makes a complete smart lighting system seems to be converging on. Newer Hue bulbs also support Bluetooth control, but the only advantage of that is talking to a smartphone without needing the bridge hardware; once you've got the bridge the Zigbee system is just better in every way. The cheaper WiFi connected bulbs are a nightmare to set up and manage in any sensible way; again their only advantage is managing to work (just about) without extra hardware. If you're after a complete system, then everyone that provides them is doing it based on the same underlying technology, and anyone bringing out a new range will have a strong incentive to make it interoperable with the large numbers of Zigbee systems already out there. Even if someone comes out with something new in a few years' time, there's a strong chance it'll be able to mix and match into a Hue system - and even if it can't, there's an even stronger chance that your Hue bulbs will be able to drop into the newer control system if you do decide to upgrade it.

 

[AJB Temple]

spb that is super helpful. Thank you. I am not overly worried about the pendant lights hanging from the chains. They will be ambience rather than light delivery. The ones over the counter do need to be fairly bright.

I agree that the colour aspect is much less important than the range of cool to warm white light in most cases. That has been my experience too. However, in this instance I will opt for colour ability as when the room is used for relaxing or entertaining, it will occasionally be useful I think.

As you surmise, I am aware of the bridge / internet / app aspects. I am not worried about Philipps screwing up the software, and I can isolate from it anyway if necessary.

 

[Jake]

What bulbs were those fittings designed for? (Asking because they don't exactly look like built for BC22 60W).

 

[sometimewoodworker]

I have Hue Mostly and a couple of other makers. The Hue are totally reliable, the others not so much. If price were not a factor it would be exclusively Hue but in Thailand there’s not the choice you have.

The Hue lights supplement our main lights and provide a warning of people outside. As our main room has about 65 non hue lights to use Hue exclusively would be a major expense. Here are some of the non Hue lights

 

[craigs]

Personally I only use Hue for lighting, but lifx colours are richer and they are also brighter (more expensive though). don't underestimate the value of motion sensors/smart light switches/contact sensors and other smart addons. I control a lot of the automation with smartthings and sharptools for more complex rules.

 

[Nelsun]

IDK if this has been said already but one thing that keeps me buying Hue bulbs (as opposed to Innr and others) are power cuts believe it or not. We get plenty blips up here and these wonderful smart lights would all switch on every time the power came back on. That's Not Good when it happens through the night!

Philips brought in functionality a while back to allow you to pick what each bulb does when the power comes back on and, yes, their Hue bulbs can be set to remain off.

This behaviour wasn't something I was aware of... until it happened... and the better half politely expressed her displeasure... in many different ways.

 

[AJB Temple]

Jake. What you see is just shades. I have replaced all light fittings and rewired everything as brand new.

 

[Jake]

OK, but what I meant is they look like they were designed for lots of lumens (E40 originally maybe?) Is 60W equivalent enough in them? I guess the fact they throw direct light helps. (They look great by the way).

 

[Padster]

I'm a long time Hue owner and nearly all our lights now are controlled via Hue. I like SPB did a lot of research before going down this route and have to say despite the cost I'm a big fan, I've never had to replace a bulb yet and have a variety of spots (GU10) conventional bayonet, some indoor lightstrips under my kitchen cabinets, and some of the new outdoor strips. Again like SPB we rarely use the full colour, except with the strip lighting and occasionally in the lounge.
We also have a tap switch (very useful at the top of the landing), a sensor near the front door and I have everything synced with Siri & Homekit too.
I see they are still constantly developing and the app remains regularly updated and supported.
Personally I think current lighting is a lot like tools buy cheap buy twice (or potentially run the risk of support ceasing) or you get what you pay for.. Hue is not the cheapest but I've never been disappointed by them yet!

 

[AJB Temple]

OK, but what I meant is they look like they were designed for lots of lumens (E40 originally maybe?) Is 60W equivalent enough in them? I guess the fact they throw direct light helps. (They look great by the way).

They were church and aircraft hangar lights, so I imagine they were both intended to use large light fittings and throw a lot of light. However, that is not what I want - these are to provide low level background lighting for effect. I dislike very bright ceiling lights, but the high void does need some lighting I think. I am adopting elements of industrial deign aesthetics.

 

[AJB Temple]

Thanks all. As I mentioned I have been trialling Hue, but wanted to check if there was something better I have missed. Hence I will go ahead and purchase the hue bulbs now. Adrian