Philips Hue Bridge Evaluation Ranking
Over the previous yr, I’ve reviewed fairly just a few wonderful Philips Hue merchandise, and I’m presently in the course of reviewing the brand new Philips Hue Surimu rectangle panel mild and the wall swap module.
I’ve all the time used the Philips Hue Bridge as I began utilizing Hue earlier than they rolled out the Bluetooth performance again in 2019. Nonetheless, I’ve by no means truly reviewed the Philips Hue Bridge or the way it compares to Bluetooth management.
Slightly than including an enormous part to my Surimu evaluate, I made a decision to jot down a devoted piece on the Hue Bridge.
For all of the Philips Hue indoor lights, you possibly can management the lights with Bluetooth. For the out of doors lights, you should use a Hue Bridge.
In case you have a Hue Bridge, you possibly can join as much as 50 lights all through your total residence, however if you happen to management your good lights through Bluetooth, you possibly can solely join as much as 10 lights in a single room.
Philips Hue Opinions
My earlier Philips Hue opinions embody:
Philips Hue Bridge vs Bluetooth Management Professionals and Cons
Philips Hue Bridge
The Hue Bridge is a central hub that acts as the center of the Philips Hue ecosystem. It connects to your property community through Ethernet, and the good bulbs talk with the Bridge utilizing a wi-fi protocol known as Zigbee. The Bridge serves as a bridge between your smartphone or different good units and the Hue bulbs, permitting you to manage the lights remotely by means of the Philips Hue app or voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple HomeKit. The Bridge allows superior options akin to creating schedules, scenes, and automation, which give a extra strong and seamless good lighting expertise.
Professionals of Philips Hue Bridge:
- Helps a bigger variety of bulbs and equipment.
- Higher vary and reliability attributable to Zigbee’s mesh community expertise.
- Permits for extra superior options and integrations with different good residence units.
- Distant management and entry while you’re away from residence.
Cons of Philips Hue Bridge:
- Requires a further buy (the Bridge itself) to function the system totally.
- Requires a wired connection to your property community.
Bluetooth Management
Philips Hue additionally launched Bluetooth-enabled good bulbs again in 2019 to cater to customers who could not wish to spend money on the Hue Bridge initially. These Bluetooth bulbs may be managed immediately out of your smartphone through the Philips Hue Bluetooth app. This setup does not require the Bridge, because the bulbs themselves have Bluetooth functionality built-in, permitting for fundamental management and color changes.
Professionals of Bluetooth Management:
- No have to buy the Hue Bridge, making it a extra inexpensive entry level to good lighting.
- Appropriate for customers who solely need fundamental management with out the necessity for superior options or distant entry.
Cons of Bluetooth Management:
- Restricted vary; you should be comparatively near the bulbs to manage them immediately through Bluetooth.
- Restricted gadget help
- Bluetooth connection may be much less steady in comparison with the Zigbee community used with the Hue Bridge.
- No help for superior options, akin to automation and integration with different good residence units.
Vary of Hue Bridge vs Bluetooth
The Hue Bridge has a 291-metre out of doors vary and an indoor vary of 25 metres. Nonetheless, the Hue lights themselves will act as a repeater for the ZigBee sign, extending the vary of your total system. So, you must by no means have any vary points with the Hue Bridge, whereas Bluetooth is usually a bit annoying.
With Bluetooth, you have got an approximate vary of 9 metres and customarily, you’d management no matter lights can be found within the room you might be in.
Enhance the gadget capability of the Hue Bridge
As acknowledged beforehand, the Hue Bridge is designed to deal with 50 lights and equipment (it will possibly deal with a little bit greater than that).
Up to now, if you happen to had extra units than this, you’d should arrange a second Hue Bridge and run the Hue app on a unique gadget.
Nonetheless, Philips Hue now means that you can add a second Bridge to your account by:
1. Go to Settings
2. Faucet Hue Bridges
3. Faucet the plus icon (+)
This successfully runs two Zigbee networks which may trigger congestion. You need to place the hubs throughout your property and pair up the lights to the closest hub. This can guarantee essentially the most dependable efficiency.
Philips Hue Bluetooth Options
With the Hue Bluetooth app, you possibly can activate and off your lights, dim and brighten them, and set mild recipes or customized scenes, relying on what sort of bulb you have got: White, White Ambiance, or White and Color Ambiance.
You’ll be able to management your Bluetooth lights together with your voice through good residence assistants, akin to Amazon Alexa utilizing the Echo Dot third Technology or choose Google Residence units.
Philips Hue Bridge Options
As highlighted within the execs and cons, the Hue bridge can join as much as 50 lights throughout your property and extra with extra Hubs.
It then provides you full entry to the vary of Hue and Pals of Hue good equipment and all of the good capabilities that Hue has to supply. This consists of:
Philips Hue Bridge Equipment
To benefit from good lighting, I feel the assorted equipment you may get are important. Having to tug my telephone out each time I wish to swap on a lightweight defeats the thing of getting a sensible mild, I’d as effectively use a swap.
Philips Hue has an intensive vary of their very own equipment. Highlights embody:
Dimmer Swap
A vital funding. The dimmer swap successfully replaces your mild swap and magnetically attaches to the wall mount, and is battery-powered, permitting you to take it with you while you enter the room. You assign the swap to a room or rooms, and you may set scenes primarily based on the button presses.
It is a simplified model of the dimmer swap. A single click on controls your lights whereas urgent and holding the button dims or brightens them. There may be not a lot worth distinction between this and the dimmer, so I might personally keep on with the dimmer.
Faucet dial swap
The Faucet dial swap is an upgraded dimmer, providing you with 4 buttons and a pleasing-to-use dial to manage the brightness. Utilizing the totally different buttons, you possibly can management totally different rooms with one swap.
Hue Movement sensor
This has been one other important funding for me, and I discover that is superior to different movement sensors that you should use from third-party integrations.
On the time of writing, there are solely two time zones, one for day and one for evening. Later within the yr, this might be up to date to offer you as much as 10 time zones.
Philips Hue wall swap module
I’ve lately put in a Philips Hue wall swap module and might be reviewing it quickly. In case you have changed all of your lights in a room with Hue bulbs, then this makes plenty of sense.
It sits behind your dumb swap within the again field, and it basically leaves the sunshine circuit powered on. While you press the swap, it’ll then activate no matter operate you have got assigned. Basically, this may be on/of, and you may toggle to alter scenes.
There are two huge advantages to this:
- It is a a lot cleaner look vs having a dumb swap and a dimmer sat subsequent to it.
- It prevents anybody from by chance turning the lights off with a traditional swap.
Play HDMI Sync Field
I’ve reviewed the Play HDMI Sync Field, and it’s a excellent however costly option to sync up your lights with no matter you might be watching on TV or listening to in your telephone.
It sits between your media participant, akin to a FireTV or Nvidia Protect, and the TV (or AV receiver). It then takes the sign from the HDMI cable and maps the lighting to no matter is displayed in your TV.
Matter
Matter is meant to rework the good residence market by bettering interoperability between manufacturers. It has been off to a rocky begin, I wasn’t overly impressed with Matter after I reviewed the Google Nest WiFi Professional, however it’ll enhance as extra manufacturers help it.
Philips Hue was alleged to roll out Matter by the tip of 2023, however this has now been delayed. There was no timeframe given for the rollout, and lots of different manufacturers have additionally delayed rolling it out on their merchandise.
Third-Celebration Integrations
A giant promoting level for Hue is the intensive help throughout platforms. It’s so effectively supported that you do not really want to fret about Matter that a lot.
The third-party integrations are too intensive to record, however highlights embody:
- Voice Management:
- Leisure / Mild Syncing
- Spotify – hyperlink your account to sync your lightsCorsair iCue to sync your lights with iCue units
- Razer sync your lights with in-game actions and Razer merchandise
- Sensible Residence Gadgets:
With IFTTT, Homey, SmartThings and Residence Assistant, you may get Hue working with a variety of good residence ecosystems and create complicated residence automation scenes.
My Philips Hue Residence
Amazon tells me that I purchased my first Philips Hue product again in 2016 with one of many starter kits. On the time, I believed it was an overpriced luxurious that I would not use that a lot. Within the subsequent two months, I purchased 5 extra bulbs and two dimmers. Then one other eight bulbs and a dimmer in 2017, and continued to exchange as many bulbs as potential since then.
The one space I have never invested in is the Hue GU10 bulbs. At £50 for a single color atmosphere bulb, it will get a bit spendy when I’ve eight or extra GU10 bulbs in my residing areas. I might strongly advocate the panel lights in its place product.
I feel when you go down the Philips Hue route, it’s arduous resisting the temptation to increase the system and decide to their ecosystem.
TV Room
The room the place I watch TV has essentially the most spectacular Hue options. On this room, I’ve:
- 2 x lamps with Hue atmosphere bulbs
- Philips Hue Signe Gradient Ground Lamp
- Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip
- Philips Hue Faucet Dial Swap
- Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Field
I haven’t got any automations arrange, I as a substitute use the Faucet Dial Swap to activate the lights and choose no matter scene I would like. Once I watch a film, I’ll sync my lights utilizing the HDMI Sync Field for a extra immersive expertise.
For normal TV, I’m a bit fan of the Tropical Twilight and Savana Sundown scenes as they supply an excellent degree of sunshine that’s straightforward on my eyes.
Hallways
Utilizing Philips Hue in my hallways is my favorite a part of my Hue system. We stay in a nook home with no exterior home windows within the hallways, so they’re all the time darkish. Utilizing dumb switches inevitably means I fumble round in the dead of night at evening and neglect to change the lights off.
With Hue, I’ve movement sensors to activate the lights after I enter after which swap off routinely after 2 minutes. At evening, the lights come on with the dim scene or evening mild, so I do not get blinded.
Workplace
I’ve three Hue bulbs in my workplace, and extra lately, I put in the wall swap module. The lights come on routinely by schedule as a result of I stick with the identical schedule every single day. The wall swap module then provides a neat set up, and after I depart the workplace within the night, I can press the swap, and it’ll flip off all of the Hue lights with out disconnecting them.
Bedrooms
For the bedrooms, we management the lights utilizing dimmer switches. I then have the lights switched off at a set time within the morning to keep away from them being left on.
Most of my Hue merchandise are managed through schedules or the Hue sensors, however I even have Hue built-in into Homey and use Aqara mild switches on lots of my sockets, which may then activate the lights.
Since reviewing the Homey Bridge, I’ve additionally arrange an Aqara wi-fi swap to change my Hue bedside mild on and lift my Aqara blinds after I swap it on within the morning. Simply to be further lazy.
General
The Bluetooth performance with Philips Hue is admittedly solely there to offer you a taster of what Hue can supply with out the necessity to spend money on the £50 Bridge.
In case you have no intention of ever getting the Bridge or increasing your system, then there are numerous competing manufacturers with extra inexpensive merchandise that might make extra sense than Hue.
Signify, the corporate behind Philips Hue, additionally personal WiZ, and so they appear to be the perfect good lighting different. There may be TP-Hyperlink Tapo which has fewer lighting merchandise however is a bit higher worth for cash.
As for Philips Hue, they’re by far the perfect good lighting ecosystem on the market, and the Philips Hue Bridge is a vital buy if you wish to benefit from their merchandise.
The one downside with them being the perfect is that there’s a important premium to pay for his or her lighting merchandise. I truly assume the Bridge is kind of inexpensive, and it’s a minor value in comparison with the remainder of my system.
I’m a UK tech blogger and have been within the trade for over 10 years now, working Mighty Gadget and its sister websites and contributing to different websites across the net. I’m captivated with all tech, together with cellular, wearables, and residential automation. I’m additionally a health fanatic, so I cowl as a lot health tech as potential.
Final replace on 2023-07-23 / Affiliate hyperlinks / Photos from Amazon Product Promoting API
