The IoT has changed the way we live, from programming washing machines to printing photos remotely. Philips Hue smart lighting takes the front line when it comes to innovative smart lighting to bring into your home. Although smart lighting has been around since October of 2012, Philips has taken time to perfect the offering and ensure you get good-quality lights that remain easy-to-use.
Related: Guide to Philips Hue Lights for Saudi Arabia
Today you can bring home smart lighting which enables you to remotely control the ambience and colors of lighting in your home. Smart lighting can transform your living room into a party hall or amp up the mood in the bedroom within a couple of seconds. Among the various smart lighting platforms, Philips Hue is one that stands out. The brand is exceedingly reputed and established that produces electronics, gadgets, and home appliances of admirable quality.
Popular Philips Hue Products in UAE
| Product Name | Contains Hub? | Requires Hub? | Check Price |
| Philips Hue Starter Kit | Yes | – | Price on Amazon.ae |
| Philips Hue Bar Light | No | Yes | Price on Amazon.ae |
| Philips Hue Wall Lantern | No | Yes | Price on Amazon.ae |
| Philips Hue Table Lamp | No | Yes | Price on Amazon.ae |
| Philips Hue Light Strip | No | Yes | Price on Amazon.ae |
What does smart lighting let you do?
Smart lighting allows you to switch on and control the lighting in and around your home from an app on your smartphone. It doesn’t take much time to screw a light bulb and enjoy smart lighting but Philips Hue offers a wide range of bulbs to choose from. Selecting the absolute best for your home isn’t the easiest when you have a plethora of options.
Before we get into the various bulbs that you can buy let’s understand what the Hue really is.
What is Philips Hue?
Philips Hue is a series of smart LED light bulbs and fixtures that has its own platform. The smart LED bulbs communicate individually with the Hue Bridge that allows you to operate and control the lights through your smartphone.
As it is with most smart lighting systems, Philips Hue uses both the WiFi and Zigbee wireless system to connect the lights to your home. Using the app of a physical remote allows gives you the freedom to operate the lights remotely. Once installed, you gain a greater degree of flexibility with your lighting. You can control brightness, colors, integration with other smart home technology, and even schedule systems. With the integration of digital voice assistants you can even skip the laborious task of unlocking your smartphone and picking up the remote. Simply speak to Alexa or the Google Assistant and control the smart lighting with just your voice.
If the idea of owning a smart home with Philips Hue lights is appealing then you need to buy the Hue Bridge and connect it to your router. The bridge enables the voice command control feature and automated timer control or device trigger control.
Your First Philips Hue Purchase – Starter Kit
Ideally, your first Philips Hue purchase should be the starter kit. The Philips Hue Starter Kit is a mix of the Bridge and a variety of bulbs that you can choose from. The price does vary based on the bulbs you choose. However, purchasing the starter kit is value for money as you will need the Hue Bridge in order to fully utilize your Philips Hue bulbs. You can grab a basic kit includes the Bridge and two warm light bulbs or take one on the higher end with the Bridge and 4 multi colored lights for three times the price.
Setting up a smart home may be easy but isn’t an overnight job and shouldn’t be. Start by buying the starter pack and select a room, preferably one that you spend most of your time in. If smart lighting is your cup of tea you can gradually expand the IoT device across your home. The Hue Bridge allows you to connect up to 50 lights in your home.
Your first Philips Hue purchase can also include the Hue tap which won the title of ‘best accessory’. It is a four button remote that controls the lights and even works with the Apple-home kit. The best feature about it, is that you never have to charge it or replace batteries as it powers itself whenever you press a button.
By now it’s pretty evident that a Bridge is an important component and needs to be installed correctly. Which brings me to the next part.
How to Setup a Philips Hue Bridge?
- Setting up the Hue Bridge is fairly simple.
- Firstly, plug the Hue Bridge into a power outlet and connect it to your router via an Ethernet cable.
- Then you’ll need to wait for it to boot up completely, signaled by four lights on the Bridge lighting up.
- Now you’re ready to pull out your smartphone and open the settings, and click on Hue Bridges.
- Here you can add a Hue Bridge within the Philips Hue app which you need to download beforehand. Then follow the setup instructions.
It’s as easy as that. After setting up the Bridge you can set up the lights that come with your starter kit and the ones bought additionally.
How to setup a Philips Hue bulb?
- Once the Bridge is connected and running you can connect bulbs. Take your desired bulb and screw it into the socket.
- Open the app, go to settings, and click on light set up. From there you can search for the bulb or manually add it with the serial number.
- Then you need to simply follow the set up instructions.
- As part of the final step consider renaming your lights. This makes it easier knowing which light belongs in which room, especially if you plan on creating an elaborate smart home network.
Setup Philips Hue with Alexa
If you want to enjoy the basic function of remote accessibility then you can skip out on buying the Hue Bridge. A Hue dimmer switch or Bluetooth feature on newer bulbs allows you to operate them. However you are limited to 10 bulbs and miss out on tons of features. But it might be worth it if you don’t want to embrace the smart home revolution and just add elements of convenience. You can always go back and buy a starter kit and additional lights if you change your mind later.
Owning Amazon’s Alexa/Echo allows you to set up the lights without the Bridge as they both run Zigbee hubs. It is important to remember that despite this you are limited in a number of ways. This includes lights coming on/off automatically when you enter/leave the house. It also doesn’t allow smart switches and sensor control. Neither does it learn your wake up and sleep routines to intuitively brighten or dim your home at particular hours. Also syncing your lights with music isn’t possible without the Bridge. Personally, the greatest drawback is the inability to access third-party apps.
If you plan on setting your Hue lights with Amazon Echo/Alexa then you’ll need to go through a few more steps. That being said here is how you use Alexa to connect the Philips Hue lights.
- Ensure your Hue light is ready to connect.
- Download the Philips Hue Skill on your Alexa device (smartphone)
- Then ask Alexa to find your devices and wait until the scan is complete.
- Your bulb should be discovered, you can now connect it through the app or have it done via voice command.
- Here you can group lights with other smart home devices, this helps when you want to control multiple lights at one time. You can also name them individually to avoid confusion.
- If you’ve created a scene using the app then you can discover and control it through Alexa. (Although this is only possible if you have a Bridge but use Alexa to control the lights).
Once connected you can group lights collectively using the app based on your room, monitor, machines or maintain individual function as per your convenience.
It is important to note that you can control the lights using just the Alexa app without the Hue bridge. If you want to use the Hue app or other integrations then you will need the Hue Bridge.
Philips Hue Light Fixtures
Apart from standard and colorful bulbs there are a number of fixtures you can buy. You need to consider the bulb shape before heading out and buying one. You can get candle shaped bulbs, curved bulbs, flat ceiling bulbs and filament bulbs for a vintage look.
Further, Philips with its basic range has color options available such as white, white ambience, and white and color ambience. It’s flagship range offers 16million colors and shades. Not each and every product is marvelous and justifies the price tag. So, here is a list of those bulbs and fixtures that seem to provide best value-for-money.
Philips Hue Starter Kit
- Type: 3 LED White and colour ambience bulbs and Hue Bridge.
- Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple Home Kit).
- Voice control: Yes.
- Light effects: Choose from 16 million colours, customizable presets, download 3rd part apps.
- Price: Approximately AED 630.
- Use: Great in any room that requires a light such as your kitchen, washroom, bedroom, living area, gaming room, or recreation area. Works great when synced with your gaming set up and home theatre.
Philips Hue Bar Light
- Type: LED Bar light, home lights kit.
- Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple Home Kit).
- Voice control: Yes
- Light effects: Multicoloured, Smart control with Hue Bridge
- Price: The fixture costs roughly AED 890.
- Use: Great for adding ambience to your living spaces. Fit it under a false ceiling, behind your smart TV, over your bed board, or cabinet. Use it horizontally or vertically and spill light over a surface that you want lit up.
Philips Hue Light bar is great for creating scenes, especially in conjunction with what’s playing on your TV or other ambient light ideas. Wherever you have a larger space like a long wall or an alley, it is a great opportunity to use the light bar to create a striking scene. Each pack of light bars comes with 2 bars which can be mounted or placed close to each other creating a continuous hue of light.
Philips Hue Wall Lantern
- Type: Outdoor lantern
- Control: This device can be controlled using the Philips Hue Hub (Hue App), Hue smart accessories, voice assistant, and even your smart home device.
- Resistance: The built of this robust outdoor design is strong enough to resist nature’s elements. Therefore making it durable and having a long lifespan.
- Light Effects: Balanced and well-distributed light with 16 million colors to choose from. Choose warmer red tones or a cool blue to light up your porch.
- Additional Features: Feature like controlling your lights when you are away from home, geofencing, scheduling, or linking to the Philips hue Outdoor Motion Sensor is what makes this device so great.
- Price: This light can be yours at the price of almost AED 1500.
Philips Hue Table Lamp
- Type: Table lamp, portable LED light.
- Compatibility: Works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple Home Kit).
- Voice control: Yes
- Light effects: 5 patented natural dynamic effects: cosy candle, Sunday coffee, meditation, enchanted forest, and night adventure.
- Price: The light costs roughly AED 446.
- Use: Best used for a small pool of light on your table, ideal for reading, working on your laptop, or performing tasks testing hand dexterity.
The Philips Hue table lamp is a great portable half-orb of light. Its a beautifully designed hemisphere with a back-stand. The back of the table lamp is a diffused cover, so when you choose the colour of the light, the table lamp takes that colour. Its super-portable at just about 1kg. You can easily pick it up and take it from your study table to your bar table or from your kitchen table to your night stand.
Philips Hue Outdoor Light Strip
- Type: Indoor and outdoor light strip
- Styles: Adjustable thickness to fit the desired area.
- Compatibility: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri (Apple Home Kit)
- Voice control: Yes
- Light effects: Balanced and well-distributed light with 16 million colors to choose from. Choose warmer red tones or a cool blue to light up your porch.
- Price: Approximately AED 770.
- Use: Great for outdoor use, decorate your front door or porch. Ideal to illuminate pieces of furniture, fill in behind false ceilings, or decorate garden swings with.
Philips Hue Light Strip is great for outdoor use, in the porch or the drive through. It is 7 feet or 2m long and is water proof making is suitable for wet weather. An interesting feature is that you could have different colors through the length of the strip.
With these selections of Philips Hue lights, you can light up every nook and cranny of your home. Start with the starter kit and experiment with a particular area before going all in. There is no limit to how you can creatively use lighting arrangements in your home. From timers that switch lights on to using certain lights when an appliance boots up. Join the Philips Hue family and redefine lighting in your home.
4 Cool Philips Hue Smart Lighting Tricks to Impress
Create mood indoors
The Philips Hue Light-strips are a great buy and add elements of drama to your home that cannot go unnoticed. The 40-inch extension covers larger surfaces and enables wider application than other lights. Since you can bend the light-strip in any manner they are nifty to light up otherwise empty areas. Therefore you can use them under kitchen counters, behind TV panels or couches, or to border false ceiling areas. The best part is you can trim the light strip to your desired size and thickness with the help of the given cut marks.
Add motion sensors to your outdoor lighting
Adding lights to the area outside your home can have a major impact on the overall ambiance. Hence apart from a light-strip, you can buy Philips Hue smart lighting full outdoor range. It includes wall mounts, bulbs, and spotlights along with the light-strips. Since if you have a garden or stone structure harsh sources of light can help you break tones. It helps you highlight areas that you are proud of such as flowerbeds with the help of spotlights. If you have a path leading up to your porch then you’ll love the path lighting option, you want the Philips Hue Calla.
Okay, say you grab the outdoor lighting range and group up the lights, its still a pain to constantly remove your smartphone and switch it all on. Perhaps you just don’t fancy the idea of yourself talking to Alexa in the middle of your driveway. For this very reason, you can grab a Philips Hue motion Sensor and allow complete automation. Decide a location to set up your sensor (perhaps outside your door and gate). Setting up your sensor is fairly simple.
- Open the Hue app and head on over into the settings option.
- Tap accessories setup and press on add accessory and then add the Hue motion sensor.
- Then tap the LED blinking to confirm the orange LED color and allow pairing.
- Follow the instructions and finally choose the outdoor area and lights that the sensor controls.
Create Scenes
When you buy the high-end bulbs you can select from a variety of light animations to match the mood you want to create. If your desired light preset does not exist, you can create it. This is a game changer when it comes to throwing house parties or when having movie night. Further if you need something a little more elaborate like a theme or lightning effects you can use third party applications without spending hours trying to create the same. Of course, this is only possible if you have the Hue Bridge.
Set up light animations
When syncing the lights to the music the app uses your smartphones microphone to detect music from external speakers. This does result in a little bit of delay at times but for the most part goes unnoticed. If you have a home theater system then adding visual drama to the movie with ambient lighting takes it a notch higher than just an immersive sound experience. You need to point your phones camera towards the screen. It analyses the color in front of it and changes your Hue lights to match it accordingly.
Are the Philips Hue Lights Safe?
Safe can be a vague term. But your safety isn’t. Be it in terms of your health or in terms of your online safety. Both can’t be compromised on. Therefore to clear any doubts read on to know bout your safety.
Health
In terms of health, these lights have more good points than bad. Smart lighting can help you fix your sleep schedule. As your body begins to naturally produce melatonin. This induces sleep but the blue hue from your interior lights or even your electronic devices can mess with this setting of your body. Therefore with the smart lighting, you can simply shift to a hue that has more red in it. Therefore not interfering with your sleep. Besides helping you sleep, the smart lights can help wake you up as well. Cortisol is like melatonin which is produced to wake and keep you awake throughout the day. So if you set your smart lighting to simulate the daylight lightings into your room. This will cut down on the sleepy and groggy feeling you have even after you wake up.
Furthermore, using smart lighting can help you set your mood right after a tiring day as well. In the sense that psychologists present that, the intensity of the light in a room can trigger the intensity of emotion of the people in the light. Therefore, it can affect you negatively as well as positively. Thus, if you have your lights set on a dimmer intensity you can have a balanced and clearer perspective and help you in making decisions.
Lastly, we come to the impact lights have on your eyes. Normal lighting can cause strain on your eyes. But with smart lighting, you can adjust the needs of the lights constantly. Like while you are working with papers you would prefer desk lighting. As for when you are talking or interacting with someone you would prefer the overhead lighting brighter than the desk lighting. Depending on the task your lighting needs to change which your normal lighting can keep up with. That too without having you move from your place.
Online Safety
Since after all, your Philips hue kit is connected to the internet and the internet can be dangerous. Especially because it’s the same connection used on your other electronic devices. Which has your sensitive information. Moreover, it is noted that the Philips Hue Lights has been tested and has adapted necessary security levels to the bulb. Until you are on the latest updated version of the lights, you are good to go. Since the company is constantly updating the security levels of the smart bulbs. So, you can not be left with many blind spots and possibilities to be hacked.
Philips Hue FAQs
Philips Hue is a series of smart LED light bulbs and fixtures that has its own platform. It grants you the freedom to take full control of the lighting in your home. Yes, this means individual colors and intensities of each room (assuming you buy the required bulbs). If investing in Philips Hue is something of interest then you will need to buy the Hue Bridge and connect it to your router. This connection gives you voice command control and automated timer control or device trigger control. More recent Hue bulbs give you the ability to pair directly with your phone via Bluetooth. However, in the bargain, you may miss out on some advanced features.
You could opt to buy the new Hue bulbs right off the bat, but I feel that option is limiting. It restricts you from using older bulbs (which are now cheaper) in your home. You could also buy the Hue Bridge as a standalone but then miss out on the value offer. Personally, it makes more sense to buy the Hue starter kit that includes the Hue Bridge. Buying it as a kit gives you two Hue white light bulbs for a fair price in addition to the Hue Bridge. For a slightly higher amount, you can even bring home a total of 4 Hue Bulbs. Hue bulbs are great for your bedroom, kitchen, dining area, or even washrooms. As time progresses you can add more bulbs of various sizes and colours according to your preference and desired lighting arrangement.
Now, assuming you’ve decided to hop on board the smart lighting express, (huehuehue, bad pun,) here is everything you need to know about setting up your smart lights. For a traditional set-up, firstly, plug in the Hue bridge and connect to your router via an Ethernet cable. This is the primary step before you even unbox your lights. Next, screw in your Hue bulbs into the desired locations of your house. Now you can erect the dimmer switch anywhere in your home. Since it is magnetic you can carry it about as well like a remote. You’ll have to download, install, and open the Philips Hue app onto your smartphone and follow the steps from there.
Once you’ve paired the individual lights with your device you can rename them. This is important as you can then individually control each light making it easy to remember. Although don’t go too crazy, as you don’t want to be screaming bewildering acronyms at Alexa or Siri. The Hue app comes with a number of preset scenes that cast various tones of light. From warm daylight to the greenish blues of the aurora/northern lights to a burgundy Carribean sky. You can also customise and save your own preference for future use.
The Philips Hue Bridge is the brain of the Philips Hue smart lighting system. It allows you to connect and control up to 50 lights and accessories. Just plug it in and use the Hue app to set routines, timers, custom light scenes and more. There you go!
You don’t have to go anywhere. Shop original Philips Hue products online at your convenience. Save time and effort and enjoy your shopping experience from home or office. Check out Amazon.ae now for the best Philips Hue products and varieties at an affordable price.
Philips Hue is based on ZigBee that’s a safe, low-power, and reliable technology. Moreover, this technology works even if the Internet is down. Besides this, new features and improvements get added automatically so you’re always up to date. Additionally, Philips Hue integrates easily with other smart devices like voice assistants for truly smart home automation.
Coming to the most interesting question. With these amazing and creatively designed appliances, I understand that making a decision is difficult. But after research and reading the reviews, the best and recommended Philips Hue products lie below in this article. Check out the Philips Hue Starter Kit, Philips Hue Bar Light, Philips Hue Wall Lantern, and Philips Hue Table Lamp.
The number is endless. There are so many brands of bulbs available. But the best lie below. Philips Hue is sure to work with or be compatible with these.
The Osram Sylvania Smart Bulb, Cree Connected LED Light Bulb, and IKEA Tradfri LED Bulb.
To switch the lights off and on and control their dimming does not necessitate the owning of the Hue Bridge. Alexa or your Google Assistant work perfectly well for this and can operate it via Bluetooth. It does limit the number of lights you can connect from 50 to 10. However, if you’re looking to experience all the features offered by Philips Hue then you will need to buy the Bridge.
If all you want is to change the colors during the next get-together at your place then buying a starter kit doesn’t make too much sense. You are more likely to be happier with WiFi alternatives instead of investing in a hub. Choose one from Ankers smart home brand or Tp-Link’s.
The answer is yes. There are a few quirks however that you need to sort out beforehand. For the Philips Hue Sync app to work it needs to be on the same device you are watching or playing on. After downloading the app, you need to have a designated entertainment area. To do this open settings in the app and pick areas and rooms with the lights you want to sync. Remember, this only works for multi-color bulbs. You can control the strength, frequency of the intensity of these lights both as an individual unit or as a group.
Integrated LED lights have the LED’s actually built into the fixture itself. Within the Hue range this is commonly seen in the dress up table that has a ring-light vibe to it.
No, even if you lose connection the system can work. The being said, you will be unable to control the lights from your phone via the internet if you are away from home.
Update the app through the app store on your phone, from time to time, there will be updates for the bridge itself. In order to search for these check for these open the hue app, go to settings and click âSoftware-updateâ. The app will now start to look for updates and download them when available.
Philips Hue smart lighting bulbs can last can last up to 15 years or 15,000 hours, which ever comes first. Philips claims that each bulb uses 80 percent less power than a traditional incandescent bulb.
In comparison a typical incandescent bulbs last anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 hours.
Light it Up with Philips Hue Smart Lighting
In the end, converting your home into a smart home isn’t an overnight job and needs to be well thought. One of the most important reasons people are reluctant is because of its step price. Since smart lights and their accessories don’t come cheap.
Unless you are absolutely sure of which lights and accessories you wan to buy it makes more sense to research the offerings and build an idea of how you want your home to look. The Philips Hue starter kit is of tremendous value and allows you to use it to the maximum. Bringing home the Philips Hue smart lighting kit allows you to add elements of ease and convenience like never before. Schedule times that you want your house lit up or dimmed down even in your absence and turn your living room into a fabulous venue when you have guests over. If you’re just embarking on your journey to building a smart home, I’d recommend you give ‘How to setup a smart home in Dubai‘ a quick read.
