Philips Hue Bridge Evaluation vs Bluetooth

Over the previous yr, I’ve reviewed fairly a number of glorious Philips Hue merchandise, and I’m at present in the course of reviewing the brand new Philips Hue Surimu rectangle panel mild and the wall change module.

I’ve all the time used the Philips Hue Bridge as I began utilizing Hue earlier than they rolled out the Bluetooth performance again in 2019. Nevertheless, I’ve by no means really reviewed the Philips Hue Bridge or the way it compares to Bluetooth management.

Somewhat than including an enormous part to my Surimu evaluate, I made a decision to jot down a devoted piece on the Hue Bridge.

For all of the Philips Hue indoor lights, you’ll be able to management the lights with Bluetooth. For the outside lights, it is advisable use a Hue Bridge.

You probably have a Hue Bridge, you’ll be able to join as much as 50 lights all through your total dwelling, however in case you management your good lights by way of Bluetooth, you’ll be able to solely join as much as 10 lights in a single room.

Philips Hue Critiques

My earlier Philips Hue opinions embody:

Philips Hue Bridge vs Bluetooth Management Professionals and Cons

Philips Hue Bridge

The Hue Bridge is a central hub that acts as the center of the Philips Hue ecosystem. It connects to your private home community by way of Ethernet, and the good bulbs talk with the Bridge utilizing a wi-fi protocol known as Zigbee. The Bridge serves as a bridge between your smartphone or different good units and the Hue bulbs, permitting you to manage the lights remotely by means of the Philips Hue app or voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple HomeKit. The Bridge allows superior options corresponding to creating schedules, scenes, and automation, which give a extra sturdy and seamless good lighting expertise.

Professionals of Philips Hue Bridge:

• Helps a bigger variety of bulbs and equipment.
• Higher vary and reliability as a result of Zigbee’s mesh community expertise.
• Permits for extra superior options and integrations with different good dwelling units.
• Distant management and entry once you’re away from dwelling.

Cons of Philips Hue Bridge:

• Requires an extra buy (the Bridge itself) to function the system totally.
• Requires a wired connection to your private home community.

Bluetooth Management

Philips Hue additionally launched Bluetooth-enabled good bulbs again in 2019 to cater to customers who could not need to put money into the Hue Bridge initially. These Bluetooth bulbs might be managed straight out of your smartphone by way of the Philips Hue Bluetooth app. This setup does not require the Bridge, because the bulbs themselves have Bluetooth functionality built-in, permitting for fundamental management and color changes.

Professionals of Bluetooth Management:

• No have to buy the Hue Bridge, making it a extra reasonably priced entry level to good lighting.
• Appropriate for customers who solely need fundamental management with out the necessity for superior options or distant entry.

Cons of Bluetooth Management:

• Restricted vary; it is advisable be comparatively near the bulbs to manage them straight by way of Bluetooth.
• Restricted gadget assist
• Bluetooth connection might be much less steady in comparison with the Zigbee community used with the Hue Bridge.
• No assist for superior options, corresponding to automation and integration with different good dwelling units.

Vary of Hue Bridge vs Bluetooth

The Hue Bridge has a 291-metre outside vary and an indoor vary of 25 metres. Nevertheless, the Hue lights themselves will act as a repeater for the ZigBee sign, extending the vary of your total system. So, it is best to by no means have any vary points with the Hue Bridge, whereas Bluetooth could be a bit annoying.

With Bluetooth, you’ve an approximate vary of 9 metres and customarily, you’d management no matter lights can be found within the room you’re in.

Improve the gadget capability of the Hue Bridge

As acknowledged beforehand, the Hue Bridge is designed to deal with 50 lights and equipment (it will probably deal with a little bit greater than that).

Prior to now, in case you had extra units than this, you’d should arrange a second Hue Bridge and run the Hue app on a distinct gadget.

Nevertheless, Philips Hue now means that you can add a second Bridge to your account by:

1. Go to Settings

2. Faucet Hue Bridges

3. Faucet the plus icon (+)

This successfully runs two Zigbee networks which might trigger congestion. It’s best to place the hubs throughout your private home and pair up the lights to the closest hub. It will guarantee probably the most dependable efficiency.

Philips Hue Bluetooth Options

With the Hue Bluetooth app, you’ll be able to activate and off your lights, dim and brighten them, and set mild recipes or customized scenes, relying on what sort of bulb you’ve: White, White Ambiance, or White and Color Ambiance. 

You may management your Bluetooth lights along with your voice by way of good dwelling assistants, corresponding to Amazon Alexa utilizing the Echo Dot third Technology or choose Google Dwelling units.

Philips Hue Bridge Options

As highlighted within the professionals and cons, the Hue bridge can join as much as 50 lights throughout your private home and extra with further Hubs.

It then offers you full entry to the vary of Hue and Mates of Hue good equipment and all of the good capabilities that Hue has to supply. This contains:

Philips Hue Bridge Equipment

To take advantage of good lighting, I feel the varied equipment you may get are important. Having to drag my cellphone out each time I need to change on a light-weight defeats the article of getting a wise mild, I would as properly use a change.

Philips Hue has an in depth vary of their very own equipment. Highlights embody:

Dimmer Swap

A necessary funding. The dimmer change successfully replaces your mild change and magnetically attaches to the wall mount, and is battery-powered, permitting you to take it with you once you enter the room. You assign the change to a room or rooms, and you may set scenes primarily based on the button presses.

Sensible button

This can be a simplified model of the dimmer change. A single click on controls your lights whereas urgent and holding the button dims or brightens them. There’s not a lot value distinction between this and the dimmer, so I would personally follow the dimmer.

Faucet dial change

The Faucet dial change is an upgraded dimmer, providing you with 4 buttons and a pleasing-to-use dial to manage the brightness. Utilizing the completely different buttons, you’ll be able to management completely different rooms with one change.

Hue Movement sensor

This has been one other important funding for me, and I discover that is superior to different movement sensors that you need to use from third-party integrations.

On the time of writing, there are solely two time zones, one for day and one for night time. Later within the yr, this might be up to date to provide you as much as 10 time zones.

Philips Hue wall change module

I’ve just lately put in a Philips Hue wall change module and might be reviewing it quickly. You probably have changed all of your lights in a room with Hue bulbs, then this makes numerous sense.

It sits behind your dumb change within the again field, and it basically leaves the sunshine circuit powered on. While you press the change, it would then activate no matter operate you’ve assigned. Generally, this might be on/of, and you may toggle to vary scenes.

There are two massive advantages to this:

• It is a a lot cleaner look vs having a dumb change and a dimmer sat subsequent to it.
• It prevents anybody from by chance turning the lights off with a traditional change.

Play HDMI Sync Field

I’ve reviewed the Play HDMI Sync Field, and it’s a very good however costly strategy to sync up your lights with no matter you’re watching on TV or listening to in your cellphone.

It sits between your media participant, corresponding to a FireTV or Nvidia Defend, and the TV (or AV receiver). It then takes the sign from the HDMI cable and maps the lighting to no matter is displayed in your TV.

Matter

Matter is meant to rework the good dwelling market by bettering interoperability between manufacturers. It has been off to a rocky begin, I wasn’t overly impressed with Matter after I reviewed the Google Nest WiFi Professional, however it would enhance as extra manufacturers assist it.

Philips Hue was alleged to roll out Matter by the top of 2023, however this has now been delayed. There was no timeframe given for the rollout, and lots of different manufacturers have additionally delayed rolling it out on their merchandise.

Third-Get together Integrations

A giant promoting level for Hue is the in depth assist throughout platforms. It’s so properly supported that you do not actually need to fret about Matter that a lot.

The third-party integrations are too in depth to listing, however highlights embody:

• Voice Management:
• Leisure / Mild Syncing
  • Spotify – hyperlink your account to sync your lightsCorsair iCue to sync your lights with iCue units
  • Razer sync your lights with in-game actions and Razer merchandise
• Sensible Dwelling Units:

With IFTTT, Homey, SmartThings and Dwelling Assistant, you may get Hue working with a variety of good dwelling ecosystems and create advanced dwelling automation scenes.

My Philips Hue Dwelling

Amazon tells me that I purchased my first Philips Hue product again in 2016 with one of many starter kits. On the time, I assumed it was an overpriced luxurious that I would not use that a lot. Within the subsequent two months, I purchased 5 extra bulbs and two dimmers. Then one other eight bulbs and a dimmer in 2017, and continued to switch as many bulbs as doable since then.

The one space I have never invested in is the Hue GU10 bulbs. At £50 for a single color atmosphere bulb, it will get a bit spendy when I’ve eight or extra GU10 bulbs in my dwelling areas. I would strongly suggest the panel lights in its place product.

I feel when you go down the Philips Hue route, it’s laborious resisting the temptation to develop the system and decide to their ecosystem.   

TV Room

The room the place I watch TV has probably the most spectacular Hue options. On this room, I’ve:

• 2 x lamps with Hue atmosphere bulbs
• Philips Hue Signe Gradient Ground Lamp
• Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip
• Philips Hue Faucet Dial Swap
• Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Field

I haven’t got any automations arrange, I as a substitute use the Faucet Dial Swap to activate the lights and choose no matter scene I need. After I watch a film, I’ll sync my lights utilizing the HDMI Sync Field for a extra immersive expertise.  

For normal TV, I’m a bit fan of the Tropical Twilight and Savana Sundown scenes as they supply stage of sunshine that’s straightforward on my eyes.

Hallways

Utilizing Philips Hue in my hallways is my favorite a part of my Hue system. We dwell in a nook home with no exterior home windows within the hallways, so they’re all the time darkish. Utilizing dumb switches inevitably means I fumble round at midnight at night time and overlook to modify the lights off.

With Hue, I’ve movement sensors to activate the lights after I enter after which change off mechanically after 2 minutes. At night time, the lights come on with the dim scene or night time mild, so I do not get blinded.  

Workplace

I’ve three Hue bulbs in my workplace, and extra just lately, I put in the wall change module. The lights come on mechanically by schedule as a result of I keep on with the identical schedule day by day. The wall change module then offers a neat set up, and after I go away the workplace within the night, I can press the change, and it’ll flip off all of the Hue lights with out disconnecting them.

Bedrooms

For the bedrooms, we management the lights utilizing dimmer switches. I then have the lights switched off at a set time within the morning to keep away from them being left on.

Most of my Hue merchandise are managed by way of schedules or the Hue sensors, however I even have Hue built-in into Homey and use Aqara mild switches on lots of my sockets, which might then activate the lights.

Since reviewing the Homey Bridge, I’ve additionally arrange an Aqara wi-fi change to modify my Hue bedside mild on and lift my Aqara blinds after I change it on within the morning. Simply to be further lazy.

General

The Bluetooth performance with Philips Hue is absolutely solely there to provide you a taster of what Hue can provide with out the necessity to put money into the £50 Bridge.

You probably have no intention of ever getting the Bridge or increasing your system, then there are lots of competing manufacturers with extra reasonably priced merchandise that might make extra sense than Hue.

Signify, the corporate behind Philips Hue, additionally personal WiZ, they usually appear to be the most effective good lighting various. There’s TP-Hyperlink Tapo which has fewer lighting merchandise however is a bit higher worth for cash.

As for Philips Hue, they’re by far the most effective good lighting ecosystem on the market, and the Philips Hue Bridge is a necessary buy if you wish to take advantage of their merchandise.

The one drawback with them being the most effective is that there’s a vital premium to pay for his or her lighting merchandise. I really assume the Bridge is sort of reasonably priced, and it’s a minor price in comparison with the remainder of my system.

Final replace on 2023-07-23 / Affiliate hyperlinks / Pictures from Amazon Product Promoting API