Philips Hue Bridge – Unlock the Full Potential of Hue – Multi-Room and Out-of-Home Control – Create Automations and Zones – Secure, Stable Connection Won’t Strain Your Wi-Fi – Works with Voice, Matter

What a great system!
After trying several different smart bulb brands, I am very happy and impressed with the Hue system. Mine consists initially of the hub, three light bars, and 4 dimmable white bulbs.Make sure you set up an account with your Phillips Hue before connecting with Alexa, and I recommend using the same email address as your Alexa. If you don’t, you’ll end up with an error/failure message. (Took me a couple of tries to figure that out.)Everything was very, very easy to set up. No turning off and on light switches to make bulbs discoverable, wondering if you’re doing it at the right speed. The hub detects your lights automatically, as long as they’re switched on. Love that!I needed a smart light in an outbuilding, far from my router. The distance makes for an unstable connection with normal smart bulbs. In building my Hue network, I now have a light out in the yard that dependably goes off and on as programmed. This is the main reason for choosing Hue in the first place. Works perfectly!Automating is easy, too, and when the lights turn off and on, they fade instead of doing an abrupt on/off. Love that! You’re not limited to one light/color intensity on automation either. The lights can be set at one brightness and/or color at one time of day, then a different brightness and/or color at a different time of day. Wonderful!This system is more expensive than other smart bulbs, but definitely worth it. This is my system of choice now, and I will be expanding it as my budget allows. A++

A fun product – but is it worth the crazy cost for a whole system?
I struggled with what to include in this review as the product itself is pretty straightforward and really has no meaningful functionality to “review,” per se: it either works or it doesn’t. In my case, the hub worked just fine, setup was easy enough, and I haven’t had any actual trouble with the hub. Since most people looking at the hub are likely considering diving into the Hue system as a whole, my review, instead, will focus on my experience with a relatively built-out Hue system after a few weeks.My current setup includes two BR-30 multicolor lights in my theater room, three of the same in my kitchen, a LightStrip with multiple extenders in the bedroom, and two A7 lightbulbs for our nightstand lamps in the bedroom. The only “smart” home product that I’ve owned prior to the Hue lights was two Nest thermostats and a Ring doorbell, so my experience with this category of technology is fairly limited.Overall, this lights are just fun. Adding lights to the system was straightforward, the automatic detection worked well, and it was easy to get individual lights assigned to rooms and scenes set up. The Hue app itself is fairly easy to use, though some of the UI decisions in the most recent version of the app are a little annoying (for example, having different “tabs” for individual lights and scenes). I’ve had some hiccups with getting individual lights to “group” together for color changes when setting up scenes, though this has been relatively rare. Setting up scenes was straightforward, though I’ll admit I almost immediately deleted most of the included presets since I thought they were a bit strange. But setting up individual scenes with custom colors and brightness was a breeze.Getting used to using an app – rather than light switches – has been a bit of a challenge. This isn’t a fault of the Hue system itself but is something relevant, I think, to the experience of switching to a smart lighting system. A few weeks in, I still accidentally use my light switches at times. I’m looking forward to getting some of the Hue motion sensors to see if this can make the system truly automated; I love the idea of lights turning on and off automatically based on need, and I imagine that this will improve my experience with the system immensely. For now, though, there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve to getting used to using an app (and carrying a phone around) to turn your lights on rather than the much more convenient light switch.The main problem I’ve had thus far is having individual lights being “unreachable” for, sometimes, long periods of time. Interestingly, the lights still respond to scene changes even when they’re listed as “unreachable,” but I can’t control “unreachable” lights individually. I haven’t quite figured out what the issue with this is, and I’ve verified that all of the firmware for the lights and the iOS app are up-to-date. This seems to mostly happen with the bedroom lights, which are located upstairs while the hub is downstairs, and I wonder if this is part of the problem. Perhaps it’ll be less of an issue as I continue to expand the system and have a stronger mesh network throughout the house. But I will say that this has been quite an annoyance that I haven’t been able to sort out completely. Not enough to say that I won’t continue to buy Hue lights, but certainly something to be aware of if this might be enough to cause you to think twice.Because of this issue, HomeKit integration has been spotty for me. While the Hue app will allow me to change the lights via scenes even when they’re “unreachable,” this isn’t the case in HomeKit. As a result, I rarely use HomeKit, and frankly I just find the Hue app easier to use. Since I don’t have a ton of smart products, I don’t necessarily need the deep integration and automation that can be achieved with the HomeKit system.The brightness and color setting are very granular, and you can create just about any lighting situation you can imagine. You’re really only limited to your creativity. For day-to-day use, most of these features are a bit unnecessary, though even at times it can be fun to use some of the different colors. The adjustable brightness and color warmth are incredibly useful on a regular basis. But I can imagine this being a very nice touch for parties or big get togethers.Overall, do I think the Hue system is work the admittedly high cost? After about $600 to be able to light three rooms, I have to say I don’t think so. It’s a very fun toy, and I’ll continue to expand the system, but I don’t see this as a huge game-changer. Maybe it’s because I’m not using the system to its fullest extent (e.g., integration with a smart thermostat), but I see this as a very expensive amusement and nothing else. Hopefully the lights will last quite a while: at $30-40 for each replacement, this can very quickly become an expensive system. But for those looking for the ability to fine tune your home lighting setup and are willing to pay the high price, I would definitely recommend it, although perhaps try setting it up in just a room or two to see how it goes before you spend a ton of money for whole-house lighting.

Fácil de instalar, se vincula también con google home y en un departamento tiene buen alcance.

Es necesario si tienen solo el foco phillips, antes se desvinculaba y no me permitía colocar escenas, actualmente ya con el aparato sin problema puedo cambiar, generar automatismos, sin duda alguna vale mucho la pena.