ChrisCicc
Active Member
As a home automation expert and long time user of Hue (dating back to the Living Colors days, and before that building my own color changing LED fixtures), I thought I'd submit a review because I've definitely had a mixed experience.
First the good. These might be the best featured light bulbs ever to grace the Earth. Between the ability to perfectly replicate the entire white light spectrum, to replicating any color of the rainbow, all while consuming just 7 watts, is absolutely incredible. This is what bulbs should be. Period.
Now the bad. I've owned five of the BR40 (downlight) bulbs. TWO of them have died.
What happened in each case was while using the color changing ability, the bulbed flashed colors and then locked. Flipping the switch resulted in the bulb restarting to white only, and never changing a color again. More importantly, it was no longer reachable in from the Hue bridge.
The second failed bulb I was able to eventually control remotely again, by manually starting a bulb search in the Hue app. Instead of appearing as "Downlight 2" as it had before, it now appeared as "Lamp 1" with a different icon.
I was able to dim it and change color, but I noticed the colors no longer matched the rest of the bulbs in the set depending on the color selected. That's when I figured out what happened: one of the LEDs shorted out, causing the networking failure. When it rebooted the short was burned out so it communicated again, but not as itself. And when it tried to replicate colors, anything with blue in it was off, but the reds were pretty much spot on. So one of the LEDs burned out. So now I'm off to Home Depot to exchange.
Finally, the software. My goodness is it atrocious. Thankfully I use my own software CastleOS to control the scenes, because when I add the new bulb, I'm going to have to do a factory reset on the bridge because THERE IS NO WAY TO DELETE OLD/BAD DEVICES.
After months and months, it is beyond my comprehension why when I open the app, my lights don't show up. It doesn't detect them for several seconds, AND I have to cycle to and from the lights tab before they'll show even after detection. And when they show in the list, it's a few seconds longer before they'll show on the color selection panel.
Here's the thing - I've used the Hue API extensively, and there is no lag time in getting this information from the Bridge. When you open the app, the connection to the bridge, even if using network discovery over WiFi, is near instantaneous, and the device list and current state is immediately available.
Let me repeat that. It will often take 20-30 seconds for me to be able to control the lights upon opening the Hue app, but the information is instantly available from the Hue Bridge's own API.
Finally, some other flaws. The Hue app when I'm connected to both WiFi and the cell network will think I'm only connected to the cell network when trying to update the Hue software. Also, the Hue app routinely gives me notifications, but when I open them, the action buttons therein are disabled and I can't do anything with them.
So in summary, the bulbs are great, but clearly have some quality issues with LEDs in these early devices. The quality of the hardware overall is great, and it's clear the hardware team doesn't deserve the software team. Philips should fire the software management and start fresh, because they have no idea how to build a quality software app.
First the good. These might be the best featured light bulbs ever to grace the Earth. Between the ability to perfectly replicate the entire white light spectrum, to replicating any color of the rainbow, all while consuming just 7 watts, is absolutely incredible. This is what bulbs should be. Period.
Now the bad. I've owned five of the BR40 (downlight) bulbs. TWO of them have died.
What happened in each case was while using the color changing ability, the bulbed flashed colors and then locked. Flipping the switch resulted in the bulb restarting to white only, and never changing a color again. More importantly, it was no longer reachable in from the Hue bridge.
The second failed bulb I was able to eventually control remotely again, by manually starting a bulb search in the Hue app. Instead of appearing as "Downlight 2" as it had before, it now appeared as "Lamp 1" with a different icon.
I was able to dim it and change color, but I noticed the colors no longer matched the rest of the bulbs in the set depending on the color selected. That's when I figured out what happened: one of the LEDs shorted out, causing the networking failure. When it rebooted the short was burned out so it communicated again, but not as itself. And when it tried to replicate colors, anything with blue in it was off, but the reds were pretty much spot on. So one of the LEDs burned out. So now I'm off to Home Depot to exchange.
Finally, the software. My goodness is it atrocious. Thankfully I use my own software CastleOS to control the scenes, because when I add the new bulb, I'm going to have to do a factory reset on the bridge because THERE IS NO WAY TO DELETE OLD/BAD DEVICES.
After months and months, it is beyond my comprehension why when I open the app, my lights don't show up. It doesn't detect them for several seconds, AND I have to cycle to and from the lights tab before they'll show even after detection. And when they show in the list, it's a few seconds longer before they'll show on the color selection panel.
Here's the thing - I've used the Hue API extensively, and there is no lag time in getting this information from the Bridge. When you open the app, the connection to the bridge, even if using network discovery over WiFi, is near instantaneous, and the device list and current state is immediately available.
Let me repeat that. It will often take 20-30 seconds for me to be able to control the lights upon opening the Hue app, but the information is instantly available from the Hue Bridge's own API.
Finally, some other flaws. The Hue app when I'm connected to both WiFi and the cell network will think I'm only connected to the cell network when trying to update the Hue software. Also, the Hue app routinely gives me notifications, but when I open them, the action buttons therein are disabled and I can't do anything with them.
So in summary, the bulbs are great, but clearly have some quality issues with LEDs in these early devices. The quality of the hardware overall is great, and it's clear the hardware team doesn't deserve the software team. Philips should fire the software management and start fresh, because they have no idea how to build a quality software app.
