We are not very far from the day when we will be able to control almost anything in our household through a simple tap on our smartphones and thanks to Philips, the first item on the list could be your home lights. The Philips Hue is the first of its kind remote-controlled lighting system for your home, using standard screw-fit lightbulbs that can be adjusted from a smartphone app. While Philips is not the only one in the smart lighting business, it is currently the only brand selling such a product that you can easily get your hands on.
The Hue starter kit comes with three colour changing LED bulbs and a small receiver called the Hue Bridge. The Bridge essentially goes into your wireless router to enable communication between the smartphone and the bulbs over Wi-Fi, yes each bulb has a wireless receiver inside. The installation procedure is user-friendly as one has to only screw in the bulbs and plug in the bridge. If you want you can also add more ‘smart’ bulbs by buying them separately. Once you have setup your bulbs, the Hue Bridge and installed the free Hue app on your Android or iOS device, you are good to go. The app automatically recognises the bridge and the bulbs and lets you control the colour, brightness and even the white balance of a single unit or all of them together.There are also some pre-loaded preset light moods and ‘recipes’ including one where it optimises the light bulbs for reading. You can even create your own recipes and save them as a custom setting. The app is pretty simple to use and the bulbs respond almost instantly. In case you have an iOS device, you get some extra advanced features such as the ability to set timed alarms and also geofencing, which will turn on the lights when you reach home and turn them off once you leave. This feature relies on the location of your smartphone through GPS and it seems like a neat way to save energy.
Philips has also opened up the gates for developers to create their own Hue apps and quite a number of third party apps are already available on the Google Play Store and iTunes app store. Some of them bring in environment moods like thunderstorm, or bright sunshine and the ability to make the lights react and twitch on the beats of your favorite songs.
Each bulb in the starter kit rates at 8.5W and gives off 600 lumens of light which is similar to a standard 50W incandescent bulb. It consumes a similar amount of energy as a CFL so it doesn't put a toll on your electricity bills.
There are a few downsides. For example, if you switch a bulb off directly from the main switchboard, the bulb basically resets and once back on, you need to change it to your preference all over again. Also, there is no other way to control the smart lights, except through the app.
The product delivers what the company claims it to be, but at a high price. The Hue Starter Kit is priced at Rs 16,995 and an additional bulb will set you back at Rs 3,995 per unit. No doubt one of the coolest thing to have around your house, but that is a lot of money for a bunch of fancy lighting. Perhaps a more competitive price would lure in some smart home lovers.
(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 28-12-2015)
