Philips’ amazing colour lighting enters a bright new phase

PHILIPS’ automated colour bulbs are impressive but costly.

PHILIPS’ geeky lighting product has entered a new phase.

Phase one let you control its special WiFi-enabled light bulbs with your smartphone or tablet, a rudimentary form of home automation. Phase two is about the company’s two new programmable colour bulbs — Hue LivingColors and Hue Lightstrips. You can encode events in life through millions of colour variations.

Having set up the lights at home and experienced simulated disco environments, fireworks displays with sound effects, and lights that intensify or blink at the sound of a voice, I’ve finally ­escaped the clutches of psyched­elic excess and can tell you about them.

The system technically is very clever. The different styles of Hue fittings, whether they be the original screw-in light bulbs or these new colour variants, contain ­radios that communicate with Philips’ special Hue bridge that links to your internet home network.

These light bulbs are ZigBee devices — their little in-built ­radios talk with one another, which works to extends the network range. A command to switch on a distant light bulb can be relayed from bulb to bulb until it gets there.

It’s called a mesh network and I found it fast and responsive when switching lights on and off, and dimming. There was next to no delay in responses.

Adding new bulbs to the system works a treat, too. You press the big button on top of the Hue bridge and they magically register.

You can then control the lights using Hue apps available for Apple and Android devices. If your pockets are deep enough to afford a fleet of Hue colour bulbs or LEDs (and they need to be deep), you can program “scenes” where each bulb’s colour reflects part of a photo supplied by you or Philips.

If you select a sunset photo, your bulbs might glow in oranges and reds. Snow scenes might invoke whites and frosty blues.

Having a penchant for pyrotechnics, I gravitated to HueFirework — one of the myriad of apps for the Hue ecosphere. It costs $2.49. The app simulates a whole fireworks, complete with explosive sound effects emanating from your phone’s speakers. There’s a rendition of Auld Lang Syne for New Year’s Eve, with lights blinking in harmony with the vocals.

There’s potential to create your own light-simulated fireworks event and light spectaculars.

More fun comes when you couple the coloured lights with other network-connected services. The website ifttt.com. (If This Then That) lets you create dependencies between two events so the colour of the lights can be linked to all kind of activities.

You could program the lights to turn blue, warning you of impending rain forecast on IFTTT’s linked weather service. Or your lights could switch on when you press the button on your Jawbone Up activity bracelet when you wake up.

Lights could turn bright red if your internet-connected Withings scale registers an increase in your weight.

It’s up to you what kind of events you couple.

Is this the future of home automation? There are certainly cheaper ways of automating light switching and dimming effects.

To get going with Hue, you first need to buy the Hue starter kit. It consists of three white lights and the bridge, and costs $249. ­Additional screw-in bulbs cost $69. They’re expensive because every bulb includes a network radio. You can then add colour bulbs.

Each Friends of Hue LivingColors Bloom globe costs $99.98 while the LED LightStrip costs $124.95. If you’re starting from scratch and want both these bulbs, you’re up for $474 at least. That’s my biggest reservation about the Hue system — the cost.

The second is the idea of having the network radio in the bulb. It just makes the system more expensive. If you’re interested just in a networked lighting system, there are options coming to market such as VoccaLight, a small circular radio you screw into the light fitting. You then screw a regular bulb into the Vocca. In the Vocca system, you literally speak to the light to switch it on or off.

Thirdly, we’re arriving at the conclusion that the smartphone is not the most efficient device for controlling home networks. In fact it’s turning out to be a lousy option. You need to unlock a phone, flick to the app that controls the lighting, open it, then ­select options to turn lights on, off or whatever. It’s easier just to get up and flick the light switch.

On the other hand, controlling lights from your Jawbone Up wristband or by tapping your Fitbit may have a future. Someone needs to invent a programmable remote for your wrist.

To be fair, the Philips system offers more than automated lighting. To read a child a story and have lights change colour to match the plot’s mood is ­enchanting.

And if you’re into hosting disco nights at home, or like the idea of a psychedelic karaoke party with lights that blink or intensify with pitch and volume, or want to ­create your own fireworks extravaganza for a birthday party, Friends of Hue may be for you.

If you can afford it, Philips’ ­solution certainly offers imagination — with flare.

Rating: 7.5/10

Price: Starter pack: $249-plus: Friends of Hue LivingColors Bloom $99.98; Friends of Hue LightStrips $124.95.