I am a dabbler in home automation and thinking about starting to get into lighting. I have heard mostly good things about the Philip Hue line and wanted to see what peoples thoughts are about it.
Our main current automation are a large number of Google Smart Speaker and Arlo video doorbells. Everything is working now on the Google ecosystem which I think Philip Hue will connect with. Our house is 100 years old which means that our possibilities to automate are lower than a new home since we have very few overhead lights, power outlets are at a premium (we have lots of power strips running through the house).
We are thinking about doing smart bulbs in some lamps which we can leave on and a chandalier. I think the biggest issue will leaving things always powered on.
Hue is excellent from a build quality standpoint but if you value privacy or respect for consumers know that Philips is forcing consumers into a cloud model and changing the terms of service after the fact, for some people well over a decade after purchase.
In general your IOT shit should be isolated to a virtual lan that does not have internet access. As of right now if you buy hue hardware it will do this but eventually this will not work as it will require you to sign in to “Philips security” to activate and utilize lighting (you will need to maintain an active cloud connection.
The bulbs do have zigbee so you can always bypass their bridge of course but this is more complicated to setup and in my experience leads to performance that as not as solid as using the bridge. Also, the ethics of financially supporting a company that will change the TOS after sale to fuck you so they can worsen the product solely to harvest data for sale. Yuck
All good reasons to stay away from the Hue/Wyse branded WiFi bulbs(nvm that their colors suck). Also why those are less than half the price of the ones that require a hub. When the internet goes out, I can still control my hub-connected Hue bulbs, and some(but not all) of the various Bluetooth bulbs I own.
Original Hue bulbs are good shit, the best softwhite, yellows, and/or orange color-tones you can get on the market, but everything else is hit-and-miss IME.
If you like to read/study, its original Hue or Dumb bulbs. The rest is usually party/mood lighting at best, and the best deals for that are on the standalone stuff that comes with crappy remotes.
Just fyi the Philips security thing does apply to the hub as well. If you care about local only access ensure your hub is on a vlan now with no internet access so it cannot capture the eventual update that will push a forced cloud connection. Philips has explicitly stated this is coming to all hue devices and that you must sign in with a “hue account”.
If you must buy them ideally buy them used so you do not directly financially support a company that is hostile to its customers