Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 Starter Kit - Review 2022

Philips set the bar loftier for smart lighting with its original Hue Connected Bulb. Now in its third generation, the White and Colour Ambiance A19 Starter Kit ($199.95) raises information technology even college, thanks to Apple Homekit compatibility, enhanced effulgence and color consistency, and a retooled app experience. It still costs a pretty penny, but you become amend blindside for your buck as Philips has improved the longevity of each bulb. With form-leading features and a robust third-party ecosystem, the White and Color Ambiance package is a neat fashion to get started with smart lighting, and our Editors' Choice.

New and Improved

The latest Hue bulbs aren't and then much about innovation as refinement. Blueprint-wise, there isn't annihilation different from the original Hue lights—they're notwithstanding the same shape and size. Aside from the words "Hue White and Colour" at the base of operations of the bulb, you lot'd be hard pressed to tell these apart from outset-gen models.

So what's unlike? For starters, the included Hue Bridge features an upgraded processor with more than 500 times the retentiveness and is now square. This lets information technology run multiple applications like the Hue system and Apple HomeKit at the same time, whereas the original (circular) span was actually but designed with the lights in mind.

Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance A19 Starter Kit

The bulbs themselves are besides brighter. Philips has increased lumen output from 600 to 800 lumens, which is equivalent to a jump from 40W to most 60W. Each bulb is also estimated to last 25,000 hours or 22 years, up from the 15-year judge for the original. And in terms of color, the new bulbs have a richer gamut, with special attending paid to the blues and greens.

I plugged ii bulbs into my living room and one in my bedside lamp for testing. At nighttime, I was pleased that I didn't have to strain my eyes to read a book or write in a journal cheers to the adaptable brightness levels. As for colors, the range is truly impressive. Yous can choose annihilation from lite pastels to intensely vivid (bordering on garish) hues. True to Philips' claims, the blues and greens are both rich and bright. I tried out the preset Artic Aurora Scene, which is full of shades like mint, teal, bounding main foam, and sky blueish. Even with a crimson accent wall, my living room was thoroughly transformed into what felt like an undersea paradise. Likewise, the bulbs were able to produce a darker, murkier shade of green that mimicked deep infinite (or at to the lowest degree what I imagine deep space to look like) quite well.

Cost-wise, individual bulbs are now slightly less expensive at $50 apiece, instead of $lx. That's notwithstanding request a lot if you're looking to outfit your entire abode, or even an apartment. Thankfully, Philips now offers a more various lighting portfolio and then y'all don't take to empty your unabridged bank account. The Hue White Ambiance bulbs, which offer the full spectrum of white low-cal, are $30 per bulb, or $129.99 for a starter kit. Alternatively, if you lot don't care virtually having multiple shades of white and just desire the bare basics, you can go the Hue White bulbs at a relatively affordable $fourteen.99 per bulb, or $69.99 for a starter kit.

The setup process is elementary. Commencement, you screw in your bulbs into the fixtures yous want and switch them on. And so you connect the bridge to your router via Ethernet, download the Philips Hue app to your Android or iOS device, and follow the on-screen instructions to place the individual bulbs and group them into rooms. Because the Hue bulbs connect to the bridge via Wi-Fi, you tin can control them even when y'all're non at home—something yous can't do with Bluetooth-only bulbs like the TikTeck Smart LED.

Streamlined Experience

The ability to personalize not merely the colour and intensity, but also to recreate lighting scenes from your photos, was a major draw for the original Hue bulbs. The simply caveat was that the original Philips Hue app wasn't the almost intuitive to employ.

Color gradient

So information technology's a good thing Philips has created a new Hue app that addresses many of the problems we had with the original. First off is a more streamlined blueprint. You no longer have to rotate your smartphone to access the full color gradient for individual bulbs. The layout has also been tweaked then there's a bit less sifting through menus to access the features you want. For instance, y'all can now notice the slope for colors, whites (cool or warm), and preset lighting recipes all on the same page.

Group lights by room is as well more intuitive. Previously, you had to drag individual bulbs together to create a room. But they'd still exist listed individually under the Lights tab, which is confusing when you have a lot of bulbs. The new app does away with that approach. Instead of focusing on bulbs, information technology centers on rooms. In one case you lot've created groups, yous can hands adjust effulgence and color for an entire room from the main menu. Yous tin however customize each seedling individually—you only have to tap on the room name.

Adding scenes

The Scenes feature is easier to use too. Yous tin can notice the Scenes tab one time you tap on the proper name of an individual room. There are a number of presets and lighting recipes, including the aforementioned Arctic Aurora, Energize, Read, Relax, and Spring Blossom, among others. Scenes like Jump Blossom are based on bodily pictures, while Energize and Read are optimized white lighting for specific moods or tasks. Energize is a libation, blue-tone white calorie-free, while Relax utilizes a warmer, yellow tone.

To select a Scene, tap on the chimera with the Scene photo and your lights will automatically lucifer that color scheme. If you want to edit it, hit the pencil icon. That will take you to a larger version of the same image, where you can select a specific area y'all desire to recreate. The app will and so assign the colors to each bulb, and you tin adjust brightness using the slider at the lesser of the screen. You lot can easily upload your own photos besides. For instance, I uploaded a photo of my vacation to Cozumel, Mexico, and the app automatically adapted my living room lights to soft shades of teal and sand to recreate the lighting on the embankment.

Setting Routines

Even with these improvements, the Hue app isn't perfect. Setting Routines is a footling more than roundabout than information technology needs to be. There are presets for waking up, going to bed, and you tin enable location services then that lights plough on and off based on where you are. These are simple plenty, merely information technology's less intuitive to create a custom schedule. Setting a start time, brightness, color, and days of the week is straightforward, but it's frustrating that you can only programme an on or off fourth dimension in a unmarried routine, so y'all essentially need to create the same Routine twice (once to turn lights on, and one time to turn them off).

Lastly, the Settings carte is where you can add extra lights, accessories, and fifty-fifty widgets for the Apple Watch. The latter are basically shortcuts on the watch to your favorite settings, so yous don't have to pull out your phone. I was surprised past how much fun I had with these—especially since I could apace change the living room lights to my favorite colour whenever I won a dispute with my roommate. (Immature, yes, merely an entertaining use of applied science.)

Throw a Party With Tertiary-Party Apps

Philips likewise has a big leg up on the competition with 400 unique third-party apps in its Hue ecosystem. Some are fairly practical, but most heart around syncing your lights to music, movies, or tv set shows. Others, like Lightbow, offer you more options for presets and colour palettes. None of these are necessary, but they enable yous to do more than the official app solitary.

Continue in mind that many of these third-party apps price a few actress dollars. I tried the gratis SyFy Sync app, which uses your phone's microphone while you're watching certain SyFy shows to match your lights to what's happening on screen. Initially I was skeptical, but information technology worked pretty well for season i of The Expanse—even if I ended up focusing more than on how well the lighting fit each scene than the actual plot.

You can find these apps in either the Apple App Store or Google Play, only I'd recommend rifling through the Explore tab in the Hue app. In that location's a handy, curated listing of third-political party apps and all compatible platforms, including Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Bosch, Google Dwelling, IFTTT, Logitech, Nest, and SmartThings.

I tested the Hue lights with Amazon Alexa and Apple tree HomeKit. With Alexa, y'all just download the Philips Hue skill in the (Alexa) app itself. You can then create groups and control your lights through voice commands such as, "Alexa, dim living room lights to fifty percent" on your Amazon Repeat. You tin practise the same with Siri and Apple HomeKit, right from your iPhone. In that location's a unproblematic "HomeKit & Siri" menu in the Hue app, and you don't actually accept to practise anything extra to set things up. The merely caveat is that y'all can't edit HomeKit settings unless yous're on the same Wi-Fi network.

The Best Smart Bulbs Money Can Buy

Hue's only real limitation is the depth of your pockets. At $200 for the White and Colour Ambiance A19 Starter Kit and $50 per boosted bulb, it's however quite expensive for the boilerplate consumer. This is especially true if you want smart lighting in every room of your home. But as mentioned, you can spend far less by adding a mix of Hue White bulbs, which are less expensive and offering similar functionality, minus the color. (And let'southward be honest, most rooms don't demand to light upward like a club.)

If yous want to go the more economical road, the C by GE Starter Pack is almost a quarter of the price, doesn't crave a hub, and comes with four bulbs—ane more than you get here. You tin can't set up routines and there's no Wi-Fi support, so yous tin can only command your bulbs when you're habitation, but you lot can't really vanquish the price.

If cost isn't an issue, nonetheless, the Hue White and Color Ambiance are the smart bulbs we recommend. They're piece of cake to install, customize, command remotely, and they integrate with many other devices and services you probably already utilize. Despite the intimidating kickoff-up cost, they are shining examples of what smart bulbs should exist, and our Editors' Selection.