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I've been blogging about smart lighting for the past five or six years. During that period, anytime a friend, member of my family, a coworker, or a complete stranger asked me for advice on how to upgrade their light bulbs, I always advised them to start with Philips Hue.
The most advanced smart lighting platform available for purchase is Philips Hue. It has been around for a while, offers a wide range of products to choose from, is regularly updated with new features, and integrates with practically everything. This includes everything from voice control with Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant to more substantial smart home platforms like Apple HomeKit, Logitech Harmony, Google Nest, and Samsung SmartThings.
Brightness
The new Hue bulb with the plastic top is substantially less light than all of these choices, which is the first significant finding. The Hue bulb is midway between the brightness you'd expect from an accent light and what you'd expect from a primary light source, with a default, soft white setting of roughly 580 lumens. In terms of incandescent bulbs, that is exactly halfway between 40W and 60W.
Given that Hue is the best option here, that undoubtedly sounds counter-intuitive, but keep in mind that some of Hue's higher, more bluish-white color temperature settings are substantially brighter than the default, soft white setting. The bulb will produce around 830 lumens if the color temperature is set to a neutral 3,800 K, for example.
Colors While no color setting can ever be as bright as a white light setting (white light diodes are just much brighter than RGB diodes), some bulbs are better than others at avoiding weak points. Again, Lifx was ahead of the competition with vivid, realistic colors across the board, but I was also delighted with the Sylvania Smart Plus LED, which performed better than average in almost all of the color settings we looked at. The C by GE LED was the brightest of the bunch, while the colors with Philips Hue and Sengled were the least bright.
Another issue is color fidelity, however most of the top players currently do it correctly. There are a few notable exceptions, most obviously the cyan color offered by Philips Hue, which has a greenish hue. Even while it appears slightly worse in the photo than it did in person, it was still apparent when the picture was taken. However, the Hue bulb was the only one that, in my opinion, produced a legitimate-looking purple.
For the record, we used locked-down camera settings and turned each bulb up to its brightest level for all of those pictures. Since the lights are each much brighter in the soft white images, we employed separate, locked-down camera settings for those. The C by GE bulb and the Sylvania bulb were the only two for which we used color presets from the Google Assistant and Siri, respectively. For all other color presets, we used Alexa instructions.
Clever elements
We now come to the apps. The only alternative that can truly compete with Philips Hue is Lifx. In fact, I believe that I prefer the Lifx app to Hue because of its color wheel, which is a much better interface for selecting a specific shade than the overwhelming ocean of tints that Hue gives you and requires you to drag a small icon over the desired shade.
I prefer Lifx's added features, such as color cycles, music visualization, and Day & Dusk mode, which automatically cycles your lights in time with the sun. It just feels cozier and more precise. None of the other applications have such a good balance of functions and style as Hue does.
However, these apps aren't nearly as important if you're going to use your lights with a voice assistant or a more comprehensive smart home platform like Apple HomeKit because you'll only use them for the initial pairing process and potentially to troubleshoot if you ever have connectivity issues. As much as I appreciate the app, I actually only use it on the infrequent occasion when I want to create and save a new scene. I have a few Lifx bulbs in my home that I've purchased on cheap throughout the years. I'll use voice commands 99 times out of 100 to turn the lights on and off.
Conserve some green
Contrary to what you might believe, there is not as much space between these lights. However, that's more than many people may actually want from their lights. Philips Hue offers a ton of possibilities for people who want to go all out with an intricate, whole-home smart lighting setup that they can use in all sorts of creative ways. Hue's lights aren't the brightest and their colors aren't the most realistic either if you're using an Echo Plus to control them.
Finally, all of these Hue alternatives are capable of handling the fundamentals of smart lighting. They can be set to turn on and off at predetermined intervals. Voice instructions can be used to control them. You can dye them red to create the right atmosphere when you invite friends around to watch cheesy slasher movies. If that's sufficient to satisfy your desire for multi-colored lights, ignoring Philips Hue is simply a wise choice and not a compromise.
1. Can smart lights change their color?
It is possible to automatically change the color of the Smart Wi-Fi LED Multicolor bulb, which is the one that does not need a hub.
2. What color spectrum can a smart bulb switch to?
From Soft White to Daylight - You can choose white light in a range of temperatures (2700K to 6500K), or you can choose from a palette of 16 million colors. Use voice control or an app to control brightness; do not use with dimmers.
3. Can you purchase colored light bulbs?
One of the most well-liked items for the smart home is color-changing lightbulbs. They can be configured to display different colors depending on the time of day or for special events. They can also be adjusted to match your mood or the color of your clothing.
4. Which color of light helps depression the most?
According to research, blue light is the best color of light for alleviating depression when compared to other colors. According to studies, blue light at a certain wavelength and frequency can provide the same effects as brilliant light with a whole spectrum when utilized at a lower intensity.
5. What is a light bulb that changes colors?
Red, green, and blue LEDs are used in color-changing light bulbs to create their range of colors, and a tiny computer (referred to as a "microcontroller") turns them on in various combinations.
6. LED color-changing lights: what are they?
Based on the primary RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) colors, LED lights are able to produce millions of other color shades. With wireless remotes, smartphone apps, or controllers, you can switch or cycle through colors depending on the LED light fixture.
The LIFX A60 and Philips Hue A19 are the top two color-changing smart bulbs. They offer a variety of colors and settings to pick from and are simple to set up and use. These are your two finest choices if you're seeking for a smart light that can change colors.
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