Philips Hue WiFi lighting set up - what do you have?

Shlippery

If anyone has any spare bridges going, let me know!

Got 2/3 bluetooth bulbs to get the parents started but they're suuuper limited without the bridge! I may cave and buy one bricks n mortar in town tomorrow!

Alkers

Got a nice few hue related gifts, 2*2m strips and a 2m extension as well as a bloom. Will move it more from purely functional to decorative

FastFullBack

Shlippery wrote: »

If anyone has any spare bridges going, let me know!

Got 2/3 bluetooth bulbs to get the parents started but they're suuuper limited without the bridge! I may cave and buy one bricks n mortar in town tomorrow!

I sold one earlier this week for €35 on adverts. Check there and there is bound to be some for sale

Sheep Shagger

Shlippery wrote: »

If anyone has any spare bridges going, let me know!

Have a spare unused one, am in D18 - if of any use, send me a PM.

AndyBoBandy

Bought my first Hue lights in a good few years…

Went for the Impress outdoor light.

New boards has the photo’s sideways!!!

also picked up some of the new golf all e14 white bulbs for my mother, who has an e14 lamp where a regular e27 bulb in an adaptor looked silly, so grabbed a pack of these;

OU812

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959639#Comment_117959639

Andy, without doxing yourself, could you post what the outdoor ones look like lit up in the dark please?

About to pick & install new outdoor lights and wondering what the actual illumination level is off them

AndyBoBandy

It’s actually a fairly bright light. (For a comparison, the hallway & living room lights are both on the Relax scene (2 bulbs per room, though tv is also on in living room).

this is it in the Relax scene;

This is the Read scene;

And this is the Concentrate scene;

OU812

That's really nice thanks. Does it do colour also? Are the bulbs regular size & replaceable?

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117960609#Comment_117960609

Yeah, does all the colours like regular hue bulbs… so will be fun at Halloween.

the bulb(s) are built into the light so you can’t change them. I say bulbs because there’s 2 in it, top & bottom.

OU812

Thanks for the info. Would prefer if they were replaceable. Oh well… on with the search

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961673#Comment_117961673

If that’s the case then just get a regular light fitting that you install your own bulb into….

my oldest Hue bulbs (gen 1 colour) are from 2013 and they all still work fine!!!

shanec1928

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961712#Comment_117961712

this we have two regular hue bulbs in our outdoor lights for 18 months now and no issues. great having the outdoor lights on a schedule.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961758#Comment_117961758

That’s what I had too, but wanted something a bit fresher looking so went for the Inspire…

now the collection of spare bulbs grows even bigger!!!!!

3x colour E27 bulbs

2x colour E14 bulbs

1x light strip Plus with 4x 1m extensions

1x Colour Bloom

2/3x White only E27’s

1 E14 white only golf ball

Sheep Shagger

Does anyone use the little square light sensors?

Have 3 from past bargain alerts that I'd forgotten about, anyone use them?

Re outdoor lights, thats what I have my eye on for this coming black Friday.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968386#Comment_117968386

Yeah, I have about 5 of them fitted around for the last 4-5 years…. They are brilliant, especially in bathrooms as they bring on the lights at their lowest level during the night.

Kitchen one is also brilliant as it controls 2 light strips and 10 spots…

then we have one in each of our 2 offices.

hands down one of the best accessories that came out for Hue.

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968386#Comment_117968386

Useful also in the landing and hall so you don't have to go looking for a switch when coming in or carrying stuff

JDxtra

I'm up to 45 Hue devices between bulbs, lamps, filaments, strips, dimmer switches and sensors. Probably close to max to what I can get on one bridge. 18 of these are GU10 recessed lights in kitchen ceiling.

Usually purchase items from Amazon when they are on sale. Tricky to source here in Ireland, especially at a reasonable price.

Most recent edition is 5 x Outdoor Lily lights when they were on special. These are really nice, excellent build quality and work perfectly. Have them on a sunset timer and a fixed off time. I’ll add an outdoor sensor eventually to turn them bright white when it detects movement.

Overall, the Hue system works flawlessly. Bulbs react instantly to requests - from front garden to bottom of rear garden and all the way up to the attic (conversion). 

Muahahaha

Just a question for Hue owners- do you get network drop outs often and then have to re-connect the bulbs to the network using the app? Im running a few Teckin bulbs and they tend to drop out maybe every 6 weeks or so which is getting a bit frustrating.

Just wondering if its a problem with smart bulbs in general or not. My internet is crappy mobile 4G but I dont think thats the problem as Ive had power & internet cuts before and the bulbs worked when the power came back on again. So they are re-connecting after a loss of internet but its just every 6 weeks or so one or two of them will refuse to work until manually re-connected.

JDxtra

I’ve never had to reconnect any Hue bulb. Note they connect to a Hub, not the internet directly.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118071547#Comment_118071547

wow really thats excellent. Id just presumed there would be times they lose connection. Think I'll look at going with Hue in future even though they do add up, at least that is better than drop outs.

How does a hub improve it though if that itself is connected to the internet? And if a mobile broadband signal is lost (even just for a few minutes) does the hub re-connect automatically or only manually?

JDxtra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118081252#Comment_118081252

I moved the Hue bridge (the hub) recently, so it was disconnected from the network. Once it was plugged in again everything worked as before - none of the bulbs needed to be reconfigured or reconnected.

Also during a recent internet outage - I could control my bulbs locally even with no internet to the Hue bridge.

Yes, it's expensive - but for me it has worked very well.

AndyBoBandy

The hub is connected to the internet to give you out of home control, so if your internet goes down, and you are at home, you still have full app control of the lights as long as your device is connected to the same network as the hue bridge.

reubenreuben

I was using mine with amazon alexa but they stopped working with alexa. They switch on as a normal bulb only.

They don't even appear when searching via the Alexa app.

Any ideas how to reconnect?

umpsfar

Irish Gunner

Whats the power consumption on the Hue lights like

Have them all around the house and now going outdoors and have 8 Hue Lily and had them on timer at night time and noticed Elec bill went up. Also had downward lights and linked these to Ring so any movement they would flash on and off. Have not gone into detail to see if these upped my bill but have turned timer off and unlinked downward lights

So are they Electricity Huggers? (Dont tell Tony)

OU812

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185652#Comment_118185652

I believe they're really low. They're LED, so a GU10 traditional 50W bulb is replaced by the equivalent which is about 4.5W, Also automated so can turn off automatically as opposed to being left on

AndyBoBandy

I think then when they are energised, but turned off via app/timer etc... they are only drawing something like 0.2W.. so over a 24 hour period, each bulb not being used is using 4.8W, so the equivalent of having a bulb on for 1 hour... so pittance really..

1.752kWh per year - so around about €0.30 a year, and thats just if you never use the bulb, but it's always still 'on'.

I've about 45-48 active bulbs, some of which are rarely used, but always still 'energised', I think long term my bills reduced as everything is timed, and usually never on at 100% brightness.

irelandrover

Recently i noticed that all my dimmer switches had a really slow response rate, sometimes wouldn't work at all. Got so bad i was almost ready to ditch the whole system.

I did a cleanup of my bridge yesterday and now they work perfectly again. I wasn't really near the limit on the resources so its a bit disappointing that the product doesn't work that well when you are under the limit for resources.

it would really stop me buying more products until a more powerful bridge comes out.

OU812

I have an issue with my bridge currently. Can't add it to HomeKit. I go through the process of adding it, press the button & then the app fails. Trying to put the phone beside it also has no effect. I've only reset the bridge & re-set up everything, going round doing it all again is going to be a pain (but will do it if it's the only way).

Anyone experience the same thing?

I can just use the Hue app, but got a new HomeKit TV so wanted to be able to say "Her Siri, movie time" and the lights dim & tv start

First world problems, I know, but I can still remember the days as a kid, when I was the remote for the TV

AndyBoBandy

So in addition to having the house here completely full of hue bulbs for the last 4-5 years or so since getting the 1st starter kit 9 years ago, we now have a holiday home in Lithuania that I’ve decided to ‘Hue’ up to the max!!!!

I went over about 2 weeks ago to set up internet/modem/Hue bridge etc and do a few other bits, and we went back this week for a few days and I got to install a few lights I sent over from Ireland!! The house is brand new so it’s a completely blank canvas to work with!!

Installed this dining table light with 4x Hue filament white ambience giant globes and have to say Im delighted with how it looks..

They’ll obviously sit lower once we have a dining table, so they’re just up out of the way for now..

Then on the stairway which was a big blank area, I picked up this odd looking shade that we really liked the look of (and thought it was a lot smaller), but in the end it fits the space really well… I’ve 2x white ambience bulbs in it, though after trying out a few things, it’ll probably never be on brighter than 30%..

Then while I was on a roll, I broke out the hole saw bit and installed 6x spot lights with white & colour ambience GU10 bulbs… I was nervous enough doing this as they’d be pretty big holes to fill if I wasn’t able to run the cable out from the centre spots to the outside ones either side of them…

All we need now is the kitchen installed!!!

Also back in November I installed 2 Hue Enrave lights in the upstairs bathroom and downstairs toilet, a small downstairs and a large upstairs, but there was no power in the house at the time to test them so I finally got to test them and set them up on the Bridge.. Have to say they look fairly awesome too….

They’re both white ambience (colour would have been great but just too expensive to be having a poop or taking a shower in a blue/green/purple bathroom!!)

I’ve a sensor in the main bathroom and also installed one of those Hue smart buttons that came in a starter kit I got a few weeks back (needed a new bridge), and have to say those smart buttons are actually really nice…. I’d probably never have bought one, always favouring the dimmer switches, but I’m very much in the market for more of them now!!

I have 4 dimmer switches there and about another 6 or so colour bulbs and 4 white only bulbs that will all end up in various floor and bedside lamps and centre lights etc… just need to pick up those lamps & fittings over the next year or so…. I was just keen to get the big ‘headline’ lights in and I was delighted getting the stairs, kitchen & dining room lights done yesterday..

More to follow….