I first began seriously considering purchasing a smart home device last Halloween and wrote about it here. At the end of my review of all the various Alexa capable devices, my conclusion was clear. Yes, I do want one of these. But, it didn’t happen then or anytime soon. One tiny thing stopped me from making the leap. Alexa and the Echos
But please, don’t let my fierce loyalty to the house that Steve Jobs built keep you from embracing Alexa and all her charms. I believe that both sets of products and their corresponding services are quite comparable. As a matter of fact, Amazon comes out ahead in several key areas. The biggest reason to go with an Amazon Echo or similar, is definitely the price. As of today, the Apple HomePod is selling for a robust $349.
Enough about the smart home hub options. What I really want to talk about are the lights. When I first bought the HomePod, it was with the idea of using it strictly for music. I was pretty intimidated by all the lighting choices, plugs, and door lock options. I figured I would just live with the main device for awhile and not jump into anything right away. You know, maybe check out some reviews to see what works well and what is most compatible with my system.
To get my feet wet, I started out with this set of two regular lightbulbs with the included Philips bridge
More on the colors in a bit, but please note that there are three different types of Philips Hue lights (aside from the shapes and bulb sizes). They have white, white ambiance and white & color ambiance. I made the mistake of getting a pack of regular white for my dining room. I did not understand the distinction of white versus white ambiance at the time. These bulbs are fine if you merely want to turn them off and on and dim them using the app or smart device. However, you can not adjust the particular quality or shade of the white light. If you want to do that with Philips bulbs, the key word to look for when buying them is “ambiance”.
Okay, so why do we want to adjust the shade of white light? It all depends on what you are doing in the room at that particular time.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your lighting conducive to different activities in the same space at different times without changing out the light bulbs every single time? If you want to have a softer light for reading or watching tv, you can do that. If you are done with that and now want to concentrate and see more detail in the room, make the light whiter or possibly closer to the blue spectrum. Not sure what type of lighting is right for what you want to do? Select the option for “recipes” and you’ll find automatic settings for: relax, read, concentrate, energize, bright, dimmed and nightlight. Each of these change the shade of white light and also the dimmer level as necessary. Another great feature is you can add your own favorite settings too.
How about those sixteen million colors though? It’s really impressive and lots of fun, but good luck distinguishing each specific color. 😂 The first thing I wanted to do using the color ambiance bulbs was set a really cool mood for watching movies. I’ve seen some pretty amazing home theater setups that have blue or red lighting projected out from behind the TV (you can do that too with Philips
You have several more options in the Philips Hue app under “Recipes” when you are using one of these white & color ambiance bulbs too. This is especially nice when you combine several bulbs in one room and select one of the available color themes.
For example, select “Arctic Aurora” and the room is bathed in pleasant hues of blue and green. Tropical twilight will give you orange and blue to simulate a beautiful Caribbean sunset. And, the more bulbs you have in the room, the cooler the effect will be. With these too, you have the option to create your own recipes based on whatever your current settings may be. In addition, you can select any photo you have on your phone or tablet and the app will come up with a matching color scheme. My favorite so far, is what it created based on a picture of an M&M cake I had in my camera roll. With this many colors, the options are limitless.
The real fun though, begins when you add some of the additional Hue lighting apps. With Hue Disco, the lights that you select will change colors, brightness and even flash to go along with whatever music you are listening to. My daughters absolutely love this one. I’m sure you’d love it too at your next house party.
My personal favorite is the thunderstorm app. With it, the lights flash and change so as to simulate an actual storm. The effects are astonishing when combined with the sound of rain and thunder emanating from you phone, tablet or connected speaker. On a related note, is the simulated fireworks display. The dynamic light show, paired with booming sound is quite realistic. So much so, that it made my youngest child cry the first time we tried it out using the HomePod for sound…oops.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from those, is the Hue Body & Soul app. It provides you with soothing music and calm, comfortable lighting to help you relax. It seriously helped me get through a very stressful time in my life. My go to selection is the “lonely desert” that adds a gently crackling fire to the reddish tones which surround you.
At my house, the lights we already had were so helpful and so much fun that we ended up adding recessed lighting to nearly every single room. All of these new fixtures have either the white ambiance flood light bulbs or the White and Color Ambiance floods
Now, who can tell me what to do with all these dumb bulbs?
Chico
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