Dynamic and colourful lighting – Philips Hue Bulb, Lightstrips and Bloom – Review

It never ceases to amaze me the things we can control and activate with our mobile phones.  From your front door, to your air-conditioner to your lights or power points it seems endless.  Philips entry into this space is impressive to say the least with a range of products adding some serious colour and flare to your home.

Called Philips Hue this is a range of lighting products which are connected to your home network and controlled via a smartphone or tablet app.

It’s all done using a “bridge” which is connected to your home network, and it is that device which your individual Hue products (Bulb, Light Strips or Bloom) then connect to.

(Philips Hue Bridge)

Once connected, your smartphone app shows all your devices and allows you to control the brightness or colour of any individual light, or you can group them together to control several devices at a time.

To take the trippy nature of this idea to the next level, you can link up your Instagram account and have the lights change colour and brightness to suit your most recent photo, or perhaps the weather.  It’s amazing stuff.

The bulbs are available in “screw” only, no bayonet unfortunately which is a problem for many people – however I found we had a couple of lamps which were screw-in bulbs so the addition of a Philips Hue bulb meant we could control the brightness and colour tone with ease.

Sitting on a desk or shelf you might put the Philips Hue Bloom which for me points at the wall and adds a touch of colour to the room, while there is no doubt in my mind that my favourite of all are the Hue Lightstrips.  This is a 2m length of lights with tiny LED lights and the backing of the strip is a sticky tape so you can tape them around the back of a bookshelf, along the top of a shelf or in my case around the bed head of my son’s room – adding a great colour look to his room.

The starter pack will set you back $250, and includes the bridge which you need to get started, and three bulbs.

Add to that the Bloom for $100 or the light-strips for $125.

Starter packs and bulbs are available at Harvey Norman, while the Lightstrips and Bloom are available online from the Apple Store.

Great product, just amazing innovation in technology.

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