Anyone get these and use them for interesting things like mood lighting for PnP RPGing?
I’ve considered getting them, since they work with the Wink system. But I haven’t really had a need at this point.
I’ve got one, well, not a bulb but a standalone table lamp. Sadly I didn’t realise at the time that you need the bridge to do the more interesting stuff with the Hue system and they don’t seem to sell it on its own. So basically I use it for party lighting and that’s about it. I may end up getting a starter kit eventually, but it’s pretty low on my list of priorities.
They’re clearing them out in Home Depot, in Canada at least.
We have a hue hub and 13 or 14 bulbs around the house. They are very useful in situations where their use is very regular and can be programmed OR where mood lighting is needed. They are a luxury for sure, but a nice one. The apple watch app makes controlling them more convenient than it used to be be.
Here’s how we use them over the last year:
1.bedroom light slowly comes on in yellow / orange at wake up time. Goes out within an hour because nobody will be in the room at that point.
2.Office lights come up slowly thereafter, changing to bright white around the middle of the workday and then a soft orange / red glow for use of the room after hours.
3.Den lights come on in soft white around sunset and then off slowly around 1:30 am (when we usually go to bed)
4.outside front door comes on around sunset and off around 10:30 (when people usually stop coming by)
5.my wife’s a tutor, so the lamps on her work tables for kids come on around the time she starts and off when she ends. Times vary throughout the year. Right now is test prep so on at 10 and off at 7.
6 exercise room, bedroom have timed programs for mood lighting. Lights come on in various colors when enabled and then off when the timer expires (around an hour usually).
In general I’d say DONT get them if you sporadically turn lights on / off as you come and go around the house. These are really mostly useful when you use some consistently at the same places and hours. No point putting them in rooms that see only brief sporadic use (bathrooms, hallways, etc).
Diego
Can you explain the limitations a bit? The lamp is what I would have been interested in as a natural light alarm clock basically. What can you not do with just the lamp? can it still be controlled via phone or watch over wifi?
I want to get one and integrate it with my vera3 hub so I can have it show certain colors when I forget to do something after a specific time like close the windows downstairs before I go to bed. But $200 bucks for a starter kit? Even if I can afford it I wouldn’t pay that much.
So has anybody played with the alternatives? I just noticed the Flux bulb which doesn’t even need a hub but I can’t find anything on micasaverde integration. Or the Milight which already has a plugin in the verde universe?
A lot of the cheaper ones have shittier apps and the whole openness of the apps, their API etc is what I prioritize most.
I don’t care about their apps and I don’t really want a hub. I just want a decent RGBW bulb with either wifi or zwave and a public api.
Nope. The lamp comes with a remote with a click wheel. You can basically choose the hue, saturation and brightness or set it to cycle.
Whelp there goes that purchase idea.
Well, if you’re smarter than I was, you can get a starter kit with a lamp and a bridge. It’s all of 4p more expensive than the lamp alone on Amazon at the moment.
Yeah, seriously this. If you buy any hue bulbs make sure you get a bridge the fist time!
I bought the starter kit a long time ago. Love it.
I basically got mine initially because i saw some video where someone with a harmony remote was turning on their tv/bluray and turning off the light with one button. This is a really cool functionality that really adds to the atmosphere of a home theater.
Recently i got an amazon echo and now i control the lights in my living room with “Alexa, Lights On/Off.” The Hue integration with Echo is very nice. I can even dim the lights with echo. Not sure you can change the color though.
That said, i’ve mostly been disappointed with the Hue apps for both android and apple. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t really good either. You can do stuff like turn on/off your lights based on your phone being connected to your network, but it is mostly a pain in the ass to do that. I’d probably get a real smart home system if you want to do that.
For a time i tried to make the lights come on with my (android) alarm clock, but i couldn’t get it to work with the one really good alarm app i found and i got tired of my lights sometimes randomly turning on in the middle of the night.
I’m thinking about getting this. Does the bridge require a wired ethernet cable?
Please tell me if it does! it’s coming in sunday and I don’t have an ethernet cable!
Yes. It does. Has to be plugged into a router in order to be able to be controlled via smartphone.
Thanks! It looks like off to bestbuy I go
Just got one of these for Christmas, or I’d have been able to tell @sether01 that the starter kit includes an Ethernet cable. ;)
Got the two-bulb white kit and installed them both in the bedroom. It’s really cool since the bathroom Alexa is in listening range. “Alexa, turn bedroom to nightlight.”
A set of the color bulbs would be awesome for our media room, but it has recessed ceiling lighting and I’d need six bulbs. Pretty darn expensive. I’ll keep getting up and using the wall dimmer, and live without the color which would be cool for about a week and then mostly forgotten. :)
I got a couple and I’ve not been able to get them to work. Maybe it’s a broken hub but they keep blinking on and off but never connecting. There’s a lot of debugging possibilities but I’m not psyched about looking into them. Ugh.