2.12.2019

Although our house is very much a “smart” home, I was relatively late to the smart bulb party but I was an immediate convert though.Over the last year I have slowly been changing as many of the bulbs in the house that I can with Philips Hue bulbs. Hue bulbs are usually available in three flavours. White, White Ambience and Colour. The White bulbs are basically just a dimmable bulb, the White Ambience adds a huge range of temperature to your light which can really alter the mood of the room. The Colour bulbs have everything that the White Ambience have, but an almost infinite variation of colours. I do see the Colours more of a gimmick that you’ll rarely use,but if you get creative there are some funky things you can do with them. They’ve also improved with the latest generation so if you do buy a Colour bulb do make sure it’s the latest ones (the ones with Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi) as they have a greater range of colours and fit into a standard GU10 bulb holder whereas the older ones don’t.They’re much more expensive though, so I’d generally recommend the Philips Hue White Ambiance bulbs as they give the best combination of lighting options against cost. If your budget stretches though, you can have some fun with the Colour bulbs.Currently I have 11 White Ambiance GU10s and 3 Colour GU10s, 4 White Ambiance B22s and 1 Colour B22, 4 E27 bulbs and 6 E14 bulbs dotted around the house and have space for several more in the coming months. The elephant in the room with these bulbs is the cost. There’s no getting away from the fact that they are expensive, even if you manage to pick them up on a Lightning Deal. That said, you’re paying for much more than a way of lighting your room. Smart homes are only limited by your imagination, and you can implement some pretty funky routines through the Alexa app if you’re brave enough to delve deeply. Beyond the Hue bulbs I have 12 TP Link smart sockets controlling things like the lights on my two fish tanks, I have 7 Echo dots, 2 Sonos Ones, a Logitech Harmony, Nest thermostat and two Nest smoke detectors. My Denon amp is connected by its HEOS app, and I have a couple of LG TVs with Alexa built in plus another with a Fire HD stick. Five internal IP cameras and 8 external cameras plus my recent addition of a Ring door camera. If thought through, all of these can be interlinked. For example, should the smoke detectors or doorbell go off, I can have the Hue light bulbs dim or light up. If a motion sensor is tripped on one of the IP cameras, I can have the Hue bulbs in the patio lights come on.Additionally, even without working with other smart devices, the Philips Hue bulbs offer plenty of things on their own. The ability to gradually lower the light as the night goes on, and likewise gradually bring the light up as your morning routine begins. You can have lights come on as the daylight begins to fade, and set them to many different shades to suit your mood such as reading or night light, through Savanna sunset and white brilliance.Your options are many and varied, and if you can look past the initial set-up costs, they can hugely enhance your home.

13.2.2020

I must admit, after a lifetime of buying cheap humble lightbulbs, from decades of incandescent through to the low energy compact fluorescent (initially expensive in the early 80's ), dallying briefly with halogen spotlights (banned from sale in the EU since 2018) until finally, in just the last few years, the now ubiquitous led light, which has become the supreme ultra low energy consuming, and , finally, cheap lightbulb of choice.The move to led lighting has been an environmental godsend in terms of CO2 (and mercury, in the case of the compact fluorescent. or CFL, ). The annual energy consumption for an LED bulb is around 30 times lower than for a corresponding incandescent bulb.As lighting accounted for around 20% of national energy consumption in the US, moving to LEDs provides a significant environmental benefit and , due to lower demand for electricity, an economic one as well.Now, a new revolution in lighting is upon us; the smart bulb. I know I'm a little late to the show as they have been around a couple of years but they have been , as still are, relatively expensive. So expensive, in fact, that I found it hard to justify paying so much for what is essentially a simple light source. After all, these new bulbs don't last as long as a simple led (15,000 hrs compared to a theoretical 50,000hrs). I have finally taken the plunge by being given a pack of two Phillips Hue GU10s and a 'smart button' (sold seperately). Initially I thought I would install them in my bathroom, replacing 2 of the very bright cool white recessed spotlights. I was surprised, and somewhat disappointed to find that my bathroom lights were sealed units. I cannot take the bulbs out! As it would take time and money to install new replacement GU10 bulb holders, I opted instead to find another way to try them out. A search on Amazon revealed that I could get a pack of B22 to G10 converters quite cheaply. This meant that I could simply plug them into my Anglepoise lamp or any of the other traditional sockets around the house. Once I had done this, I was so impressed by my new lights. I can now control them with my new Phillips Hue smart button and also from my phone via the free Phillips BT Hue app (BT= Bluetooth, which needs to be enabled on your phone), not just switching them on or off or for dimming but also for setting the ambiance, in the case of these bulbs the temperature, from a cold blue to an almost natural to a warm orange, so useful for whether I want to read or draw or as a background while watching TV or conversing. Furthermore, through the app, you can control the timing of individual lights. It's a remarkable difference to just manually switching the light on or off and well worth 5 stars, and I haven't even got around to using Alexa and Google Assistant capability yet.

31.3.2020

Although our house is very much a “smart” home, I’m relatively late to the smart bulb party. I’m an immediate convert though.Over the last year I have slowly been changing as many of the bulbs in the house that I can. I have chose to go with the Philips Hue White Ambiance bulbs as they give the best combination of lighting options against cost that suit our requirements. Although there are a few benefits to the coloured bulbs, I see it more of a gimmick that you’ll quickly get bored of. Of all my lights, I have four that are coloured bulbs, but I couldn't tell you the last time I had them on anything other than white. I use the dimming function regularly, but not the colours. Plus,not only are they considerably more expensive than the Ambiance bulbs, some are also much bigger and don’t fit all light fittings quite so well, if at all.So, presently I have 10 GU10s, 4 B22, 4 E27 bulbs and 6 E14 bulbs dotted around the house plus some of the exterior Hue lights also. The elephant in the room with these bulbs is the cost. There’s no getting away from the fact that they are expensive, even if you manage to pick them up on a Lightning Deal. That said, you’re paying for much more than a way of lighting your room. Smart homes are only limited by your imagination, and you can implement some pretty funky routines through the Alexa app if you’re brave enough to delve deeply. Beyond the Hue bulbs I have 12 TP Link smart sockets controlling things like the lights on my two fish tanks, I have 7 Echo dots, 2 Sonos Ones, a Logitech Harmony, Nest thermostat and two Nest smoke detectors. My Denon amp is connected by its HEOS app, and I have a couple of LG TVs with Alexa built in plus another with a Fire HD stick. Five internal IP cameras and 8 external cameras plus my recent addition of a Ring door camera. If thought through, all of these can be interlinked. For example, should the smoke detectors or door bell go off, I can have the Hue light bulbs dim or light up. If a motion sensor is tripped on one of the IP cameras, I can have the Hue bulbs in the patio lights come on.Additionally, even without linking with other smart devices, the Philips Hue bulbs offer plenty of things on their own. The ability to gradually lower the light as the night goes on, and likewise gradually bring the light up as your morning routine begins. You can have lights come on as the daylight begins to fade, and set them to many different shades to suit your mood such as reading or night light, through Savanna sunset and white brilliance.You options are many and varied, and if you can look past the initial set-up costs, they can hugely enhance your home. I'd certainly fit them again if I had my time over.

19.12.2019

I'm a big fan of the whole Philips Hue thing, and have it set up all through my house, but many people are put off by the need to have a 'hub' plugged into your router which uses up a power point and needs to be next to your router as well. All of this adds up to more cables in your house and can make things look untidy, and it's a fair amount of money to spend on something you might not use.This bluetooth based version gets rid of the hub by connecting via bluetooth instead of your home network, which simplifies things and reduces the price. Set up is very easy, just screw in the bulbs and fire up the bluetooth app which is free to download. Once you've done that, you have full control over the bulbs from your phone.

2.12.2020

You probably heared by now that philips hue are probably some of the best and most reliable smart lights out there.. So let me tell you how I've found them we have four hubs/ bridges and over 150 bulbs in our house from spot lights to every other type of bulbs.Things to be aware off.If you buy the hub/bridge with the bulbs they come pre configured with the bulbs. So you have to reset the bulbs to join them to another hub.You can use more than one hub/bridge in the house I have four.. However you have to switch between the hubs/bridges in the setting.. You won't see all the bulbs and accessories if you have more than one...

7.10.2019

If you have looked into these bulbs before, you probably noticed that the previous versions were over 7cm tall and didn't fit into normal light fittings - which was a real pain - so either you had to replace all your light fittings with bigger cages or use the cageless fittings - either way it meant messing around with the ceiling and potentially breaking big chunks of it off trying to get the old cages outs (or paying an electrician to do it for you).These new bulbs are only 5.8cm tall (THE SAME SIZE AS A NORMAL GU-10!) - so forget the sparky or broken ceiling - these are a straight swap for your current bulbs - now is the time to buy them!

10.10.2019

If you have looked into these bulbs before, you probably noticed that the previous versions were over 7cm tall and didn't fit into normal light fittings - which was a real pain - so either you had to replace all your light fittings with bigger cages or use the cageless fittings - either way it meant messing around with the ceiling and potentially breaking big chunks of it off trying to get the old cages outs (or paying an electrician to do it for you).These new bulbs are only 5.8cm tall (THE SAME SIZE AS A NORMAL GU-10!) - so forget the sparky or broken ceiling - these are a straight swap for your current bulbs - now is the time to buy them!

29.3.2021

I've waited a long time for these bulbs to be released. I waited a while until I actually needed them since they aren't cheap by any means. I use these bulbs in 3 downlighter sockets illuminating a painting (and wall) above my bed. As many people are aware, when they bulbs were originally released, they were extra large (long) due to the technology having to be crammed into a small bulb. This is the same reason why we are still waiting for 'golf ball' bulb Hues I imagine!As my pictures show (and others), the difference between the sizes of the bulbs (old and new) is significant. This means that they sit flush in most fittings (when pointed down rather than tilted) as opposed to protruding outwards.

19.3.2021

I got this to complement the Philips Hue White Filament bulb that I recently fitted to a bedroom pendant lamp (which I got an electrician to replace a recessed ceiling spot with). The existing 7W GU10 spot in the other ceiling fitting was just too harsh and bright even though "warm white", so this Hue Ambiance is a perfect replacement. Like many things on Amazon the price does seem to vary, so if you're willing to be patient you can get a good deal!I was pleased that by default it's a very warm white but in any case the power-on default can be set using the app, so I can match it to the (fixed) colour of the Hue filament bulb, and set the colour and brightness etc.

16.1.2020

The Philips Hue White Ambiance Smart Spotlight Twin Pack is a good way to extend your smart lighting to lights needing GU10 Spots. This might be to add some extra ambient lighting in the corner of a room using an uplighter. You can then control these with your other smart lights via a smart phone app with Siri, Alexa or Google.Use the Hue App on your smart phone (make sure it is the proper Hue one and not a generic smart lights app) to setup everything easily and quickly. Once you've done that you can change the mood or the brightness of your lights quite easily - and, if you have a hue button, you also have a smart switch to control your lights, on/off and dim,

15.3.2020

I'm a recent convert the smart house party and kind of got into it by accident.My bog standard thermostat was playing up, so after a bit of research, I purchased a Nest learning thermostat.I learnt that you could control the thermostat via an app or using Alexa, so I decided to get a couple of Echo dots and a 3rd Gen speaker.I then heard about the Philips Hue lights. We have 21 downlights around the house, plus various B22, E27 and E14 bulbs and and thought it would be good to upgrade so bought the Philips Hue bridge which was recommended.My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price of the Philips GU10 colour bulbs!! How can they be this expensive??But I was hooked by this point and decided to get a few anyway.

22.12.2020

This is my first smart bulb purchase, and I am pleased to have gone for it. Overall good purchase.Pros:- Easy to set up- connect your bulb to either a hub/bridge (which connects to your home network and allows you communicate with your smart bulb) or an Amazon echo device for voice control. Once I got my bulbs in the fixtures, my Alexa app automatically discovered the bulbs providing the ability to control the bulbs from the app or my Amazon echo (my Amazon echo was already connected to my home network and set up in the app). Once connected, assign the bulbs to rooms so Alexa knows which bulb to turn on or off when asked. This was easy to do!- Good integration with all of the major voice assistants (Google,

17.12.2019

Folks..... no doubt about it. Phillips makes GOOD stuff. I have 6 of these GU10's in use and use them with my Hue Bridge.As with so many things in the smart home arena... most of us tend to stick with the kit/infrastructure we already have and I am no exception. These bulbs, in addition to all other bulbs (lights) work fine. As mentioned.... am not much into Bluetooth, but use them with the bridge. the convenience to have Alexa handle them for me is a key factor. Granted.... Alexa (She whose name must not be spoken in vain) can at times be temperamental with anything under her control, but as a Lady.... you can expect that from her. Phillips....you could double your market share IF you set a more reasonable price.As to the bulbs themselves?

29.12.2019

It didn't take long before the hub connected to the GU10 lights. You need a Hue Bridge to connect any Phillips Hue devices - Make sure you have a Hue Bridge before ordering any Phillips Hue lights. Once connected everything worked as aspected via the app.Now I wanted the Phillips Hue to work with my Alex and Hive. This was a lot easier than the initial setup and I was pleased. Please note it also works with Google Assistant and Apple Home Kit.The are many controls in the Phillips Hue App and you can customise your lights to your liking. Its fun and the number of colours are almost endless. 16 million colours and shades of white. Wow,

13.5.2020

So far I've used about 20 of these in the house in various places and overall I think they are very good. Expensive, but good. I like the fact it's so easy to change the colour of the 'white'. The first hue spotlight bulb I bought was the normal white (eg non ambiance) and it was far too yellow. We like a much cooler white, as it mirrors daylight a lot better. Since switching to these ambiance bulbs, we're delighted with the temperature of the white we can set it to. They aren't the cheapest, or brightest on the market, but I like the hue app and integration with Alexa. Unfortunately, my wallet hasn't enjoyed Philips hue so much, and in that respect I sort of wish we'd not got sucked into the whole Hue ecosystem!

Philips Hue White Ambiance 2 x GU10 5.5W Bluetooth - Reviews

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