Features:

  • VOICE ACTIVATED: The Philips Hue White and Color Starter Kit works with Alexa for voice control (smart hub required and included, Alexa device sold separately).
  • LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES: Choose from 16 million colors and shades of white to turn your everyday smart lighting into an extraordinary experience. Hue color lights are controlled remotely with your smartphone or tablet, create custom scenes and unleash your creativity.
  • TAKE CONTROL: Voice control for your smart home: Control your Philips Hue lights with your voice using Alexa, Apple HomeKit, or Google Assistant. Pair it for home automation with your existing Nest or Samsung SmartThings system.
  • LASTS A LIFETIME: 25000 hours of life. To install, simply screw in the smart bulbs into your desired light location, download the Hue mobile app and pair your Hue hub. Control smart-bulb-equipped lamps and overhead hue lights via the Philips Hue App. Ideal for your favorite ceiling fan lights, floor lamps, table lamps, pendant lights, and more throughout your smart home.
  • EXPAND YOUR SMART HOME: Easily expand your smart lighting system with accessories (sold separately), such as a Hue Dimmer Switch, Hue Tap, or Hue Motion Sensor.
Lots of fun things you never thought of doing with magic voice controlled lights!

So much fun! Warning: you need to have a little bit of patience if these don't hook up to your WiFi immidiately. They WILL work. Do yourself a favor, write down serial numbers before you plug them into lamps and get started. If they're not found automatically, use the serial number trick and it will work. Take your time. Remember to use the Hue app for setup, then let the Alexa app discover all your new bulbs, and soon you'll be sitting on the couch barking out colors and lights to Alexa! Very pricey to get the whole house up and running, but worth it in the end!

Love. We paired these up with our Alexa and ...

I. Am. So. In. Love. We paired these up with our Alexa and alternate between utilizing it through voice commands and the Philips Hue app. The color ambiance lights are MUCH more useful than the white ones. We like to adjust the lighting in the room to red if we're working on things at night, but I've found it works best on 10% brightness when we're watching a horror film so we can see, without damaging out night vision, around the room if we have to grab a drink or something. Typically we would put the white filter on at 3%. That's the joy of these lights, you can pick whatever color and intensity in addition to setting up routines. I wake up easily to lights, so the bedroom lamp is set to gradually illuminate until it reaches full intensity by 8 am to help me wake up without an alarm. They also can be set to routines while you're on travel or remotely activated through either the Alexa app or the Hue app to maintain the illusion of someone being home. These are much better than the wall plugin timers that activate your lamps or tv while you're gone. You have the ability to also utilize the Google Assistant App, though I have not used it. Instead, I've used Apple's Home Kit to set up scenarios for how the lights should respond to my presence. Keep in mind, this does not work well for multiple people, there seems to be an issue with it. Therefore, we use the Alexa or Hue app most.

OK, I'm hooked!

So I bought this starter kit to put my "toes in the water" of the smart lighting pool and I am now all in! I love adding playing with different colors to suit my mood and I'm totally hooked on controlling the lights with my voice (via Alexa). I am now adding more lights throughout the house but have to budget a little every month because the cost of these things can get out of control. I have tried the white ambiance as well but wouldn't recommend those unless you have a table lamp or floor lamp on a timer. Replacing that timer with a Hue bulb is a great option because there is just so much more flexibility. Set up was super easy for me. The app works great and I even use Siri to control my favorite scenes using HomeKit. I'm a huge fan!

Just rad.

The most advanced colored and white light system ever, and it does impress! Sure, there's a little bit of learning curve in setting it up and configuring. Usually it's a breeze. Just plug the hub into the router, press the button and then wait for the thing to connect to all of your lights. Using the Phillips app you then assign lights and rooms. All that went exactly as planned. Once I tried to add the Phillips plug-in to my Google Home Mini, it adds perfectly fine, but then still wasn't working with voice commands at first. So I dug around the internet and found that people were having the same problem. They said that they figured out that if you have somebody else sharing and linked to your Google Home Mini, they too must have their Phillips app linked properly with their Google Home app on their Android device. So just repeat the process as you did for yourself and voila! Lights on presto! The system is imperfect and prone to minor issues such as occasional linking imperfections, and occasionally the Google Home won't work seldomly. But really, this thing is pretty damn awesome! You can watch Star Wars in red and blue for example! It works both with the Phillips app and using voice commands partnered with the Google Home and Amazon Alexa devices. But it's not necessary to work, if you just want to use it without voice commands. But if you do decide to, it's a very inexpensive addition considering the Google Home Mini's and Amazon Echo's are going for $29. The beautiful thing is that there's barely any configuration involved, and not a lot of training for it to work well with turning on and off the lights, changing colors, etc. If you got some disposable income or just a strong love of changing the mood, I'd say it's a fun investment. Lights are rated for 15000 hours or up to 15 years, whichever comes first, and I even read it can help some people who get winter blahs and SAD. So check them out, we're having a ball! I hear you can sync it with music and movies as well. I'm going to go learn more about that! Have a nice day!

LIFE CHANGING

These are a Win! Win! I can't say enough about this product. 1. I can set different colors in different rooms/lamps. 2. I can sync it with my Google Home. 3. I can download an app to control it from outside of my home/ kids forget to turn off the lights, Boom I turn them off from another state! 4. I can set it up to know my routine, I walk in/out of the house the lights turn on/off or turn on/off with sunset / sunrise. 5. I can have the lights wake me and/or slowly turn off at night to remind me it's bedtime. 6. Instead of fighting with the kids, you tell them they have 20 minutes left to reading and set the light timer, the light slowly starts to dim. I love Philips Hue!! Seriously If I could work for them and tell everyone how much this product has changed my household I would do it for free!

Easy setup with Apple HomeKit

Figuring out that I needed to order the “California Residents” version of Hue Lightbulbs was totally confusing. I had NO idea there was a special version for California - and that California Residents are NOT allowed to buy the version of these bulbs everyone else seems to be able to buy (This is an Amazon criticism, not a criticism of the seller). Once I realized I needed to search for “Philips Hue California Resident” things made more sense. I got the bulbs (and hub) very quickly. All performed as expected. Setup was a breeze and I now have them working with Apple Homekit.

Skip the cheaper bulbs and splurge on these - worth every penny

These light bulbs are life-changing. I was having a hard time waking up in the morning and my boyfriend introduced me to these bulbs and the sunrise feature. I loved them, but since they were pricey, I went for a cheaper version (Flux bulbs). Don't make that mistake! The Flux app has similar features but is clunky and not intuitive, the bulbs have connectivity issues and sometimes didn't work, and the bulbs weren't very "smart" - if I turned them off/on outside of their programmed times to turn off/on, they would do weird things and not work properly. For those reasons, the Hue bulbs are worth every penny. I have them set to turn on when I come home and turn off when I leave or at my bedtime - I don't even think about turning lights on/off anymore. They sunrise *every* morning without fail. If I wake up early and turn them on before the sunrise starts, they just skip the sunrise. (The flux bulbs wouldn't know what to do and would turn off, then back on, instead of skipping the sunrise.) And the scenes are really fun! I don't have great lighting in my apartment and it's never felt very home-y, but these bulbs give it some warm light and the ability to dim them to the level of light you need makes my place feel really cozy and inviting. I can't wait to buy more and I will definitely be giving these out as Christmas gifts - everyone needs them!

Addicted

Love the Hue system. Often this starter pack is the best deal on 4 bulbs. Go color when you can afford it. It's great. The single bulbs sometimes are on sale, but I find the 4-pack a better deal usually per bulb even though I don't need the extra hub. Keep it saved in your amazon cart and you can watch for the price to change. That's what I do, then buy when they're on sale. Warning: can be addicting. I started with 4, then moved up to 8, now waiting the next sale to go to 12. honestly, I just love being able to change the color. But if you're a white light only person, save the money and buy the white started pack for about a 1/3 the price. If you do that though, treat yourself and buy one colored bulb. I think you'll like it. Placed in a small lamp in a strategic location, it can be a night light or mood light. Yes, these will screw right into your standard lamps. Once you have one hue bridge installed, you don't need more (up to about 50 bulbs they claim). Download the Hue app. It has some quirks, but it works. Or partner with Alexa (I did so via a $30 echo dot and am enjoying it). Relatively intuitive. Though I did by some for my mom, and I walked her through the process over the phone. So it may not be as intuitive for all.

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