Why I LOVE Philips Hue (5 Reasons They’re NOT “A Rip Off”) – New Video

Whether it’s Linus (from LTT) or Paul Hibbert (of “Oooh the Zigbee” fame), YouTubers seem to love bashing Philips Hue.

As a result, I wanted to give a rare insight into why I sleep with my highly prized Philips Hue bulbs and accessories each night.

Or, to be less flippant, I wanted to cover 5 reasons why I personally think that a Philips Hue ecosystem beats out its competitors and offers more for your money overall.

These include:

  • 0:00 Intro
  • 1:26 Reason 1 – Diverse product lineup
  • 2:38 Reason 2 – Stock levels
  • 3:32 Reason 3 – Oooh the Zigbee
  • 4:29 Reason 4 – Simple smart home automation
  • 5:05 Reason 5 – Bluetooth + Bridge = extra options
  • 5:55 Wrapping up

Video Transcript

(voiceover) We are currently witnessing “Tristan”, a rare homosapien who loves Philips Hue so much he even sleeps with his Hue bulbs and accessories. Very peculiar.

Hello, I’m Tristan from Smart Home Point. As you may have guessed, I’m a fan of Philips Hue. This isn’t because they’re ultra cheap… because they clearly aren’t!… but it’s because they offer a really diverse product line-up and each product is fairly high quality. So in today’s video I wanted to discuss a few reasons why I like Philips Hue bulbs, but without saying pointless things like…

(cutaway) “Reason 1 – Philips Hue bulbs are like totally colorful man”

… because that wouldn’t be too helpful. Many smart bulbs are “colorful”, after all. So whilst Hue bulbs ARE colorful and generally quite high quality, I wanted to cover 5 slightly different benefits of Philips Hue, and also why I disagree with other YouTubers that they’re somehow a “rip off” or “too expensive”.

Right, my first reason is that – as I just mentioned – Philips Hue offers a really diverse product line-up. In-fact, if you go on their store, it currently shows me 90 different products. This includes everything from bathroom and outdoor lights, to light strips for your TV (that change color based on what’s actually on the screen – which is pretty cool), to standard light bulbs – and a whole load more. This is really useful because you can add smart lighting to all areas of your home, and the lights themselves blend seamlessly in  – you wouldn’t know they’re smart lights, in many cases.

This compares to many other smart lighting providers who typically just offer smart light bulbs, and that’s it, meaning if you have a light which doesn’t contain a common bulb type, or it has an irreplaceable bulb, you just won’t be able to make it smart. The LIFX website is a good example of this – you click on the “Outdoor light” section… and they just show you some light bulbs. That’s it. If you want a smart pedestal light or non-standard wall light, you’re out of options with LIFX and most other smart light providers.

My second reason is: stock levels. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a really interesting topic, BUT Philips Hue generally has much better stock availability than many of their competitors. Whilst Hue products WILL naturally go out of stock from time-to-time, I have found it generally easier to buy Philips Hue lights than lights from other competitors – even though all have been equally hit with the 2020 hardware shortage. Whilst LIFX acknowledge these supply shortages and say that they should be resolved throughout 2021, I still like that Philips Hue’s stock levels seem more consistent than many of their competitors. If I want to waste – sorry, I mean invest – $100 in some awesome new smart light, I don’t really want to have to wait for it to be in stock.

The third reason I love Hue is technical interoperability due to the Zigbee protocol ooooh. Before you fall asleep, all this means – in practical terms – is that because Philips Hue lights all ‘speak’ a common language, you can actually buy smart lights from other compatible manufacturers and still control them within your Hue ecosystem (such as with the Hue app and accessories). For example, lights from Innr, Slyvania, Gledopto and a range of other companies are all usually cheaper than Philips Hue’s own lights, but they can be installed and controlled as though you purchased them directly from Philips Hue. This is actually pretty cool. You’re certainly not going to be able to control some $10 smart bulb from your LIFX app anytime soon, but you CAN do this with Hue.

Fourthly, the diverse Philips Hue line-up means that you can do… random stuff with it. For example, you can use Hue motion sensors to activate outdoor lights (or even a smart plug), or you can use a Hue dimmer switch as a physical remote for a smart plug, light bulb or light strip. This all works really quickly and efficiently, and the alternatives are often a bit clunky (such as buying products from multiple companies, and then controlling them in the Alexa or Google Home apps).

My final point is that newer Philips Hue lights can be operated with Bluetooth which is a nice way of testing out the lights without needing to buy expensive Hubs or Bridges (that Ring and some other smart lighting systems require you to do). If you then decide that you really like Philips Hue, you can then pick up a Hue Bridge (usually fairly cheaply as part of a starter kit) and THIS controls up to 50 lights. This approach reduces the load on your internet router, unlike most other smart lights which connect directly to the router – and can mean having dozens of connected ‘WiFi’ devices. Low quality internet routers will struggle with this – meaning that smart WiFi bulbs will be a no-go for you, but a Philips Hue-based system will still work fine.

And that wraps up today’s video, briefly covering five functional reasons why I sleep with my Philips Hue products each night. Whilst some of their lights are more expensive than random smart bulbs you see on Amazon, they are often similarly priced to their main “high end” competitors – such as bulbs from LIFX. But you then get a whole lot more with a Philips Hue ecosystem. So I don’t really agree that Hue is a “rip-off”. If you compare like for like (i.e. you actually compare to more premium smart lighting providers), Hue typically offers a lot more.

And that wraps up today’s video. I hope you enjoyed it.  If you did, please click the thumbs up button and don’t forget to subscribe. Thank you!

About Tristan Perry

Tristan Perry is a software developer who is passionate about tech gadgets, DIY and housing. He has therefore loved seeing smart homes hit the mainstream. Tristan also has an academic background (in Math & Computer Science), and so he enjoys digging into the technical ways that smart home devices work.

Tristan owns close to a dozen Amazon Echo devices, way too many Philips Hue bulbs and lightstrips, a boat-load of Ring Cameras and Doorbells... and a bunch of other smart home devices too (from Reolink, Google Nest, GLEDOPTO and others).

If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions about this article, please leave a comment below. Please note that all comments go into a moderation queue (to prevent blog spam). Your comment will be manually reviewed and approved by Tristan in less than a week. Thanks!

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