Philips Hue: Automated Home Lighting Gets Colorful
by Ashu Joshi on March 1, 2013 12:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Gadgets
- Home Automation
- Philips
- Hue
- Lighting
The Philips Hue Experience
Subjectively, I find the light from the Hue system looks beautiful; it’s also fun watching the different combinations (or scenes) pre-programmed into the app. If not for the $60 per Connected Bulb price, I would seriously consider getting more lights and having them all over my home. I’m not going to try and reproduce pictures and videos showing what Hue looks like in action, as you can experience that on MeetHue.com, but it definitely creates a different feel than having standard lights.
There are many pre-programmed scenes that come with the app (and others are available online, including user-created scenes). If you can’t find something you like, however, you can easily edit existing scenes or create new ones. The app gives you the ability to set both the brightness and the color of each bulb and then save that setting, and you can group these settings so that, for example, your living room light settings are separate from your bedroom light settings.
There is no observable latency when controlling the lights while on the home network. The bulbs respond to changes with barely perceptible lag when being controlled from the smartphone. They ramp up/down to the specified brightness level and you can see the gradual change of color or brightness. This makes sense as an abrupt change would make for a very harsh experience.
Once you leave the home network and control the lights over the Internet, the lag/latency increases to around 8-12 seconds. I was able to simulate this by turning off my phone’s WiFi connection and using its data connection, but however you do it the results should be similar. When you’re remotely managing the lighting, there are a few extra steps that account for the delay, as communication has to go through a server that then has to send commands over the Internet to your Hue Bridge. Now you have to use the app to connect to the MeetHue portal (which takes around 8-10 seconds initially). Once connected the bulbs respond to changes to a new scene or to turn on/off in around 5-8 seconds. Depending on the protocol used and the server load, this could account for the majority of the lag, but it’s worth noting that instant responses to remote changes in lighting levels don’t really matter since you’re not physically there to see what’s happening anyway.
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melgross - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
I began moving to compact fluorescents a couple of decades ago, and now I'm moving to LEDs. Until recently, LEDs have been too expensive ($125 for a 450 lumen bulb), but have dropped considerably ($30 for an 800 lumen bulb). One problem was that the brightness of LED bulbs weren't really known because standards weren't there, or being followed. I'm now finding that they are.I've experimented with a lot of these over the years, including naked chips up to 100 watts (vast light output, but terrible color, and requiring a massive heatsink. Which reminds me, the reason why these bulbs weigh so much is because of the heatsinks. That rear portion of the bulb is an aluminum casting, which you can tell by tapping on it. LEDs do get very hot. It's the lack of infrared light in the output that keeps LED light cool. But the LEDs need a sink for the self heating they undergo (a major reason why OLED phone screens are so dim. The hotter an LED gets, the shorter the lifespan, and OLEDs can't run nearly as hot as can these silicon, carbide, etc. models can.)
But one disappointing part of this review is the lack of information as to the output of these bulbs. ARsTechnica also did a review of these some months ago. I don't remember if they said what the output is. Without knowing that, it's difficult to know how useful these are. For some people, dim rooms are fine, but for others, the room must be bright. So what are these equivalent to? Are we getting 400 lumens, 500, 600?
BravoRomeo - Sunday, April 7, 2013 - link
Philips specs the Hue at 600, depending on color temperature. Supposedly it derates itself if it gets too hot, so you might loose some brightness in a poorly ventilated fixture.I found the Hue bulbs comparable to a 60W GE Reveal incandescent. In fact, it was able to tune the color of Hue to exactly match the Reveal bulb, but without the heat... All you do is shift the hue a notch or two towards red/yellow and away from green, and a touch less saturated, which is what the filtering on the Reveal bulb does. Very impressive.
foxalopex - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
I've bought a few LED bulbs over history and they've impressed me. They're definitely the next generation compared to compact fluorescents. They turn on instantly and you never have to worry about breaking the bulb if you turn it on and off a lot. Granted there are some problems too. Cheapo LED bulbs like the ones you can get from Walmart sometimes have the problem of the ballast dying if used for a long time. I have some expensive ones too and they've worked great except for slight FM radio interference. They're also horrifically expensive but that's not a surprise since the LED components are pretty pricy. Still I think it's just a matter of time.JeffFlanagan - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Changing colors don't seem very useful unless the user is on LSD, but being able to red-shift home lighting after sunset could be very helpful for people who have trouble sleeping.Installing f.Lux on my PC to dim and redden the screen at night has greatly improved my ability to fall asleep, and I'd like to do the same with all my lighting.
halbhh2 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
"not to mention compared to incandescent lights you’re already cutting power use per light by about 55W, so it should come out as a large net savings..."'should' ??
Not.
Why did the reviewer stop there, without doing the very easy math?
Perhaps because the real cost comparison is the *opposite* in reality.
For instance, you might run 10 bulbs an average of 10 hours a day 365/year, saving about $200 on electricity in 1 year vs. incandescent.
And incandescent is *not* even the competition here, since most households run a mix of bulbs which include numerous compact flourescents. That's the real comparison.
In other words, the opposite conclusion is more valid: instead of a "large net savings" expect a *significant net cost*.
And that's fine if you really want these. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you are saving money.
Shame on the reviewer.
JarredWalton - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Full quote instead of your ellipses:"For the Starter Pack and three bulbs, you’re looking at around $1 per year, not to mention compared to incandescent lights you’re already cutting power use per light by about 55W, so it should come out as a large net savings (though not compared to running non-connected LED lights everywhere)."
Obviously, we could have listed CFLs along with LEDs, but that's not the point. The point is whether the additional power draw incurred by the use of ZigBee (home automation) is a concern, and the answer is that no, it's not. Compared to CFL (14W), even running 24/7 for a year you'd only be spending an extra $7-$8 per light. If you can get the CFL for about $2 compared to $60, you might break even over the life of the bulb but probably not. But then, a $2 CFL doesn't offer the colored lighting options or home automation, which is the main attraction here.
halbhh2 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Ok, but I just did not read it that way, and I'm not a poor reader. Perhaps you should clarify the text, so that it doesn't give the wrong impression.Qwertilot - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Surely the energy use should be a concern?Its seemingly 0.4 watt continous vs 5 watt for the actual bulb, so if the light bulb is on for an average of two hours a day you've just *doubled* its yearly power usage. For many bulbs it'll be worse than that.
While the overall amounts aren't massive it really does seem to be horribly gratitious.
If this is going to scale out to whole houses/lots more devices then it badly needs some way to power the radios almost entirely off when not required. Some master controller device and a mode where they poll every minute or something.
darkcrayon - Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - link
You could help save energy with them in other more unusual ways... I have mine set to turn off automatically when I leave my apartment which guarantees I can never leave them on by mistake - Using a proximity app that senses if my iPhone is in range. And my hallway light comes on to greet me when I get home after a certain hour. Of course, running a server to handle that easily negates that power difference (of course the server is for a myriad of other purposes and not just for home automation control).glugglug - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
> And incandescent is *not* even the competition here, since most households run a mix > of bulbs which include numerous compact flourescents. That's the real comparison.Which brings up what for me is the main flaw in this product.
The bulbs are type A (LED approximation of a standard light bulb).
Most fixtures where you would use that type of bulb have a cover over them so a CFL is suitable and already uses almost the same power as an LED.
This would be a lot better if they made the bulbs for PAR30/PAR20/PAR38 where LEDs are a much better fit, and the only 2 real choices are LED or incandescent/halogen, because CFLs are absolutely blinding in those types of fixtures.