My order for four Philips Hue bulbs in the White Ambiance E14 size, which is also known as “decorative candles,” and a starter package that included the hub/bridge, was delivered to my door this morning, as promised. To be completely truthful with you, I was almost angry with myself for ordering these because I’ve had reservations about smart lights for a long period of time.
Why?
Consider the following scenario: I was having a talk with someone who had just purchased a few Hue bulbs about four years ago. He was gushing about how wonderful they were and how only $130, including the bridge, would be required to get there and back. After all, a bulb costs over 65 dollars. The fact that they can change color and serve as a natural warning is impressive, but I am not convinced at a cost that is 50 times that of normal ‘dumb’ lights.
When I originally shifted into my current home a few months ago, I had the notion that having smart spotlights in my kitchen-dining area that could be synced with music would be amazing. In doing the math, I discovered that if I wanted to purchase 12 Hue GU10 spotlights at a price of £40/$50 apiece, the total cost would be £480/$600. Ouch!
As a reference, I could have spent roughly £18 ($22.50) on a pair of cheap GU10 spotlights, which would have cost me about £1.50/$1.88 each. It was as a result of this that my intention to install 12 exquisite GU10s in my kitchen-dining area was quickly scrapped!
Consequently, why did I make the decision today to purchase four Hue lights in addition to a beginning kit? How did the situation change as a result of what occurred? In addition, and perhaps more significantly, do I still believe that they are overpriced?
This ecosystem, which supports a wide range of bulb types, is one of the most adaptive and powerful smart lighting platforms currently available. The total cost is also quite low if you purchase the bulbs at a discount.
In comparison to standard incandescent bulbs, the cost of a typical Philips Hue bulb is significantly lower
Typically, the three hue groups of Philips Hue bulbs are divided into three categories: white, yellow, and red.
- White: A Philips Hue White Ambiance E14 bulb in the color white. This color of light bulb is identical to the ones you might find in your house, yet they have the added new feature of being dimmable. To establish the mood at night, you can still utilize them, albeit with harsher white light instead of pleasant colors. If you configure them to automatically brighten as the time for your intended wake-up time approaches, you may also use them as alarms. These bulbs can be acquired for as little as $12.49 per bulb when purchased in a four-pack of A19s.
- Color: Adding blue and yellow light capabilities to your game allows you to modify the light levels to better reflect the time of day. Bluer tones, for example, could be used to replicate daylight light, while brighter yellow tones could be utilized to help you relax and unwind after a hard day at work. ‘Night time’ mode on telephones, for example, is becoming increasingly popular since it emits less blue light.
At the time of writing, the Philips website lists these bulbs at approximately $22.49 per bulb.
Color is the focus of the Hue advertising, and the bulbs allow you to choose from a pallet of 16 million different colors. If you’re seeking for a bright pink light, you’ve come to the correct place. It’s only passable if you prefer a dark gray,’ moody’ light. This is a useful feature, especially if you’re watching television and want the color to match the movie you’re now watching on the big screen.
But this comes at a price: depending on the manufacturer, bulbs can cost up to $50 per bulb (although they can be as low as $45 if you buy in bulk).
To put it another way, the greater the number of color options you select, the more money you’ll have to spend. As seen in the chart below, which compares LED lights to more traditional bulbs, the benefits of using LED bulbs are numerous.
| Bulb | Hue White | Hue White Ambiance | Hue Color | Dumb LED Bulb (White) |
| A19 | $12.49 | $25 | $50 | $1 |
| E26/BR30 | $14.99 | $22.49 | $45 | $4 |
| E12 | $16.50 | $22.99 | $50 | $3 |
| PAR38 | $25 | n/a | n/a | $6 |
| GU10 | n/a | $25 | $50 | $3.50 |
In this comparison, the colors of Hue bulbs are compared against the cost of plain LED bulbs.
While bulb costs can vary (and some may be less expensive depending on sales and quality), Hue white bulbs are obviously 4-12 times more expensive than the standard LED light bulbs.
So, what is the source of their expensive pricing?
Throughout the section above, you’ll see that I make use of a ‘like for like comparison, which means that I compare the performance of a smart bulb to that of a regular, or dumb’, bulb. They aren’t the same thing, but… The following are the benefits of using a smart bulb:
- It is possible to dim your lights without having to make costly changes to your electrical equipment.
- The hue of the light changes.
- Alarms that softly rouse you out of bed each morning.
- Activation and deactivation on-demand, as well as as part of the sunset and sunrise cycles… There are some other features as well.
- It is operated with the use of a smartphone application and your voice.
People who are uninterested in any of this will continue to regard Hue bulbs, as well as smart lighting in general, as being unduly expensive. However, if you rank in a high value on these characteristics, it may be good to spend a little more money to obtain them.
These are the criteria that influence the ‘affordability’ of Philips Hue bulbs:
- Due to the fact that they are all LED, some of the bulbs that can be purchased are still incandescent. Due to the fact that LEDs are more energy-efficient than halogen lamps, using a smart Hue light will help you save money on your electricity bills (which is an LED).
- Using a Zigbee chip, the Hue Bridge and other similar devices can communicate with and control Philips Hue bulbs, allowing them to be controlled in a variety of ways.
- A technology known as RGB-CCT is used in Hue’s color lights, which outperforms cheaper RGB color bulbs of equal quality. The following section goes into greater depth on this subject.
- Modern Hue lights have a Bluetooth chip, which allows you to manage the bulb directly from your smartphone without the need for a Hue Bridge.
- PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) is the dimming technology utilized by the Hue lamps, and this package comprises the components required to support it.
- It is made up of high-quality components, which allows a three-year warranty and an average rated life of 25,000 hours to be offered with assurance.
- The company is well-known, and as part of their ecosystem, they provide a diverse selection of smart lighting alternatives. You can save more money by purchasing a less expensive alternative, only to discover that you are unable to obtain an outside bulb or light strip – and therefore forced to switch bulb providers – is a possibility.
A Hue light, like many other smart bulbs, can be thought of as a mini-computer. When it performs a function, such as adjusting lighting, it may communicate with external devices (input/output). This is significantly more expensive than conventional incandescent light bulbs of the same size.
The RGB-CCT color lights from Hue are a great example of this
In addition, because Hue’s color bulbs are RGB-CCT rather than simply RGB, they are more expensive than smart color lights.
Okay, that’s enough explanation for now – let’s get started.
Of course, I’m exaggerating. To put it another way, what does this exactly imply? RGB LEDs are made up of three separate LEDs: red, green, and blue, which are connected together. They are less expensive than other options. The light that is given out ultimately consists of only three spikes in the light spectrum, despite the fact that they can be combined organically to generate any color. As a result, simple RGB lights can sometimes appear flat and drab, which is not ideal.
In order to correct this problem, the RGB-CCT system includes two more LEDs: a cold white LED and a warm white LED, making a total of five LEDs in the system. Aside from that, it allows Hue bulbs to operate in the CIE color space, which allows for a greater variety of light hues to be produced – and, as a result, makes the light more realistic and vibrant in general.
How to get the highest bang for your dollars during the holiday sales?
Rather than paying a modest sum of money to convert all of your bulbs at once, I recommend doing what I’m doing and keeping a lookout for good offers. This also implies that you should only purchase items that you intend to use – for example, don’t get a beautiful Hue light strip if you don’t intend to use it.
Alternatively, if you know you have ten A19 sockets, four E26 sockets, and six E12 lights, you can keep an eye out for special deals on specific types of bulbs and purchase them as needed.
Beginner kits are a good place to begin your research. If you want to control more than 10 lights, the Hue bridge/hub is included in the package. […] It also grants you access to a plethora of new functions that aren’t available through Bluetooth. Additionally, the kits may include one to four bulbs, and the overall cost is frequently cheaper than the cost of the bridge and lights purchased individually.
Once you’ve decided what you want to buy and when you want to buy it, use a price monitoring site such as Slickdeals or CamelCamelCamel to keep track of the price.
These can alert you to good offers and provide you with historical prices for things, allowing you to purchase just when the price has dropped sufficiently to make the transaction a genuine bargain rather than when the price has risen.
The best deals on Philips Hue lights will not only be available on Black Friday but will be available on a regular basis all year long, frequently at a lower price than you’ll find during the Black Friday sales.
This strategy worked for me, and I ended up paying £103.79 ($129) for six lights and a Hue bridge, when the total price, excluding sales and deals, should have been £159.95 ($198).
Is it possible to save money by foregoing the purchase of a Hue Bridge or Hub?
In addition, the Philips Hue Hub (also known as the Hue Bridge) costs more than $50, and the newer generation of bulbs do not require it; you may manage the bulbs using the Bluetooth capabilities of your smartphone instead.
Isn’t it better to just skip the Hue Hub and save $50 in the process? Using the hub has a number of disadvantages, two of which are particularly noteworthy:
- While your phone can only control ten smart bulbs at a time, the hub can control up to fifty lights at the same time. As a result, if you only want to explore with smart lighting with a few bulbs, not having the bridge is OK; however, it is not ideal if you want to switch your entire home to intelligent lighting.
- This implies that if you are away from home and someone else (who doesn’t even have the app) wishes to change the bulbs, they will be unable to do so. You will also be unable to check or switch off the restroom light if you arrive at work and discover that you have left it on.
Last but not least, if you can get a good bargain on new style lights that have Bluetooth compatibility and are only interested in experimenting with smart lighting for a short period of time, they might be worthwhile. Furthermore, because the bulbs are compatible with Zigbee, you will be able to manage them with a Hub if you choose to purchase one in the future.
You should, however, invest in a Hue bridge – most likely as part of a beginning kit – because you’ll need it at some point, and you’ll essentially ‘unlock’ access to a wider selection of Hue deals by being able to purchase both the ‘old and the ‘new’ bulbs as part of your smart lighting setup.
In the long term, this will save you a significant amount of money.
What motivated me to turn the switch to smart lighting?
One of the four side lamps that I use every evening, which I turn on and off.
In order to brighten the room when it becomes too dark, we use side lamps with E14 bulbs rather than the main ceiling lights to provide illumination.
One is located in the living room, one is located in the corridor, one is located on the landing, and one is located in the master suite. There are a total of four of us.
Consequently, as it gets dark, I go around the home, turning on each light one by one.
In the evenings (a few hours later), I go around the home turning off all of the lights – and, because we have a small child, I also turn on a night light on the stairwell.
It has been increasingly unpleasant to spend 2-3 minutes each evening doing so, despite the fact that it is a “first-world problem.” This has become particularly true now that I am aware of a simple solution that can totally automate the procedure.
By replacing my current lights with smart ones, I’d save at least an hour per month because I wouldn’t have to climb up and down the stairs each evening to turn on and off many lights – which takes up a significant amount of time.
Aside from that, rather than spending $5 on a separate night light, I could simply dim a smart bulb, therefore saving money on a night light that I had already purchased; yet, I could have saved money by purchasing a smart bulb rather than a night light at the time of purchase.
So that’s my motivation for making the switch to smart lighting, and once you’ve purchased the Hue hub, you can simply purchase inexpensive Hue bulbs in the sales as and when you require them.
A Philips Hue smart lighthouse will cost you approximately $1,500 in total.
Linus has gone on a YouTube rant, but it’s a well-informed rant, thanks to careful research!
The video below shows him talking about smart Hue bulbs around 8:17 in the movie. He says that updating a typical house to smart Hue bulbs would cost $1,600:
It is possible to find Linus’ cost forecasts for a typical house at 8:17; however, are his predictions accurate?
Is Linus correct in this particular instance? Overall, his plan expects that he will purchase and install 40 Hue lights at the cost of approximately $40 for each bulb.
In addition, this figure is predicated on the purchase of color bulbs; however, after doing your study, you will most likely decide that you do not want color bulbs in every socket.
When the mood calls for it, a white ambiance is ideal, but, in most cases, a simple, dimmable white light would suffice in most situations. If you compare these white and white ambiance alternatives to the $40 price Linus cites in his calculations, you will find that they are less than half the cost.
What do you think about the second forecast, that you’ll need 40 bulbs to complete the task?
According to Energy Star data, the average American home has 50 light sockets, which is far fewer than the minimum requirement of 10 plugs.
Linus’ computation will be replicated with 50 lights, which will include 20 color bulbs, 20 white ambiance lighting, and the remaining 20 white Hue bulbs.
Color, white ambiance and white bulbs will be priced at $38, $20, and $10, respectively, for a total smart light conversion cost of $38, $20, and $10, respectively.
- The sum of 20 x $38 equals $760 in our example. (Color)
- The sum of $20 divided by 20 equals $400. (With a white background)
- When you multiply ten dollars by ten, you get one hundred dollars. (White)
- In exchange for the purchase of a beginning kit, you will receive a complementary color bridge.
- The total amount due is $1260. (for a total of 50 Philips Hue lights)
Ultimately, this is approximately 25% less expensive than Linus’ projection, which isn’t too shabby considering it has approximately 20% more bulbs.
You’ll spend more money on coffee over the course of a year if you spend $4 a day at Starbucks rather than converting your home’s lights to smart technology – and you’ll get more benefit as a coffee enthusiast, too!
The most essential question, though, is whether or not it is worthwhile for you.
So, after all, is the Philips Hue system a worthwhile investment?
It is possible that you have guessed that my general reaction is: it depends on the scenario.
Sorry if I’m a pain in the neck, but it’s necessary to state the obvious.
The cost of upgrading my kitchen and dining area to smart lighting was assessed, and I determined that it was not worth the money for me… at least not in that situation.
In order to avoid turning four sidelights on and off every evening, I looked for a decent deal on four E14 bulbs as well as the Hue hub, which came as part of a starter kit from Amazon.
The fact that it was a minor investment of less than $100 made me delighted since it relieved me of the burden of having to spend an hour every month running around the home turning these lights on and off.
In spite of this, I can see myself purchasing additional Philips Hue smart bulbs in the future, but only when it is rational and financially beneficial to do so.
For better or worse, I’ll only consider something if it has the potential to make a true difference in that space or in my family’s daily routines.
I believe this is the essence of intelligent lighting – and, more broadly speaking, intelligent homes.
Watch the video below to see how I set up my Hue system and integrated it with Alexa. If you’re interested in smart lights, you can learn more about them here: For those of you who are interested in smart lights, take a look at the video below to see how I set up my Hue system and connected it to Alexa in my own home:
