Philips HueSmart Light Starter Kit - Includes (1) Bridge and (4) 75W A19 E26 LED Smart White and Color Ambiance Bulbs - Control with App - Compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit

Hue first impressions. The box arrived a few minutes ago and it felt heavier than I expected it to, but maybe, I thought, that was because of the included bridge. Upon opening the box I found three bulbs packaged beside each other. I removed the upper cardboard piece and below it was the fourth bulb along with the bridge, power supply, cords, and instructions. This was where I realized that the weight wasn't only the bridge: these bulbs are wonderfully heavy! I have a pack of four Fovaa bulbs and the whole pack doesn't weigh as much as a single Hue bulb. I haven't even put power to a Hue bulb yet and I already feel confident in what I have purchased. Next I opened the instruction booklet; and as professional as everything else in the box feels, I was disappointed with the instructions. They are basically a collection of stick drawings with no textual guidance whatsoever. I was not daunted, though, since there is so much help available online.The Hue bulbs are more expensive than the bargain brands and I wondered why until I began researching them. Philips uses Zigbee radios in their bulbs and bridges which increases the cost significantly. And after holding one of the bulbs in my hand I could actually feel the difference in quality compared to the other bulbs that I own (Fovaa). Until I actually put these bulbs into service I can't comment on their function, but I expect to be very satisfied with them. My Fovaa bulbs work very well, although when set to blue or green they are not as bright as I think they should be. I am expecting much better brightness with the Hue bulbs. I have read that Wyze makes some really good bulbs in terms of color output that rival the Hue bulbs. Still, the Hue bulbs are constructed differently and are able to do some things that the others evidently cannot do. Once I have these lights going and I have a chance to put them through their paces I will report back with some updates. I'm anxious to try a simulated fireworks display and am hoping that four bulbs are enough to do it. Some of the scenes and animations require more than four bulbs to get the color mixtures right, but I think that a fireworks display could be done using white plus three other colors. At least a small fireworks display. I'll let you know when I have tried it.Edit 2-12-2024OK, I have the lights up and running and I can give you a little more insight now. First of all, if you look at the many photos of Hue lights you will know exactly what to expect in terms of color. These bulbs have colors that are full and rich yet are mellowed a bit as they are made to provide ambience to a space instead of producing stark coloring. You can get very deep blues, greens, and reds, and still have good brightness. A word that comes to mind is pastel, and yet the colors can be much deeper than pastel; in fact, the room color can become very red, very blue, very green, and yet still maintain some small bit of pastel quality. Again, I'd say look at a lot of the available pictures and you will know. In contrast to this, my Fovaa bulbs give very dark blues, reds, greens with no mellowing at all. There is no way to brighten the Fovaa bulbs when those colors are cranked to the maximum and maybe that is as it should be. Then again, I have read articles that claim Wyze bulbs have more intense colors than Fovaa bulbs (in fact they are ranked close to the top of all bulbs in that category) and also have more brightness; so it may be more a matter of design. If you want absolute, saturated, bright colors with no compromise you might want to try the Wyze bulbs; however, if you want lights that are tailor made for enhancing the atmosphere of your living spaces I can't imagine a better choice than Hue lights. I want to reiterate here just how good the bulbs feel in the hand, and after screwing them in and setting them up how good they look in action. Something else to touch on is that there are numerous apps available in addition to the official Hue app that can add to the functions your Hue lights can perform. The fireworks display I referred to above is in one of those apps: the app is called "hueDynamic" and the fireworks is under the Experiences heading. The fireworks display cycles your bulb colors mimicking real fireworks. The colors ramp on and off at speeds that seem realistic and your room is bathed in a frenzied display of light. Now that I have tried it I probably won't ever use it again, but hey, these lights can do that! Some other, more restful effects on the menu are flickering candles and a fireplace. If I actually had a fireplace I could see myself using that to enhance the natural flicker of flames. The candles...maybe I will use that one, maybe not. The animations can actually be rather distracting. The ambience settings are probably the most useful, but I should tell you that it is better to have the bulbs located next to walls so that the reflected light can add to the overall effect. I have mine temporarily in a ceiling fan in the middle of the living room and looking up at the light you can see all four bulbs with different colors and it doesn't look so good. Eventually they will be relocated to individual lamps around the room where they should provide a much better experience.If you buy any bulbs other than Hue bulbs you will be tied to one single app: the official app from the manufacturer of the bulbs. Or you may be limited to tying in to Alexa and the set of skills available because your choice of bulbs doesn't even have an app. With Hue bulbs you have many choices of apps, and you will find that Hue apps, even the third party apps, have a level of professionalism not found in apps for other bulbs. Yes, Hue bulbs cost more...but you will get what you paid for. Top quality, great looking light, an almost endless list of ways to use them; Hue bulbs are probably the very best you can buy.

Love these smart bulbs. You can soften the harshness of LED by using them.

These are a gift to my brother as my whole house indoors and outdoors are Hughes lights and sensors.

They are pricey, but Hue makes the best smart lights. They’re brighter than the cheap ones, have the best scenes, and sunrise mode allows you to wake up more naturally at a certain time.

I started out having a hue starter kit years ago. I loved it. As new brands created smart bulbs, I decided to try them out and see if the cheaper bulbs were as good as Philips hue. The other brands were more challenging to set up, constantly lost connection, and were no where near as beautiful. I finally switched back to Philips hue and went all out with their products. Nothing compares to this brand. The colors are rich and bright. They stay connected with the bridge. It’s simple to set up both with the hue app and Alexa. These lights are the best. It has transformed my home into an ambient little oasis. I haven’t had one problem with this brand to date.

OriginalI got these to replace some sengled lights thinking they would be better but I was wrong. Hooked up the bridge to the router and initially the app found it and tried to update but the update failed. After that I could see the bridge had an IP address on the network so I tried to add via IP address but that didn't work either and then it wouldn't even show on the network after that. Tried to factory reset and nothing would happen with the lights on the top of the bridge. I am returning this junk for a replacement and hoping I just had a defective product and the next one will work. If so I will update the review but right now I am quite disappointed at having shelled out almost $200 for something that doesn't work.Edit:I did order a replacement and this bridge updated and connected without any issues. The reason for not going all the way to 5 stars is because none of the lights were found until I added them by serial number. In addition one of the lights in the box would not work. Luckily I still had the previous box that didn't work correctly and swapped out the non-working light for a working one so problem solved.Also, the hue connect skill on Alexa does not work properly. I kept trying to link up the lights through the Alexa app but kept getting a "Can not connect now, try again later" error. I did manage to get Alexa to control some of the lights but I had to go through the web page and then discover the lights that way and add them.

The kit has everything you need to have a good connectivity and performance of the lights, is pretty easy tu setup the lights using the hub, i have them for almost a year and they are working perfectly.

I used to have the Phillips Wiz smart bulbs, but after adding more than 4 they overloaded my wifi network and I think were confused by all the wifi chatter from my apt building in a dense city. After 6 months, they only responded to the Wiz app about half the time.I switched to Hue and the zigbee-style mesh network and all my problems are resolved. The color seems clearer and more true as well, but it could just be me trying to justify the expensive upgrade lol.My only complaint is that they cannot automatically turn on to the "Natural Light" setting that adjusts the color temperature throughout the day; when turning on and off, they can only be a static color and you have to manually change it to "Natural Light" each time. With Phillip Wiz bulbs, as soon as they turn on they can connect to a dynamic light setting automatically.