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Philips with its smart lighting solutions is doing what it does best. The experience of living in the Hue ecosystem is unparalleled and third-party integration makes it a cherry on the cake.
The company understands IoT and how it can leverage services already in the wild to enhance its Hue lineup. The competition it faces is on two fronts. The first one is from the traditional 'dumb’ bulbs which can be bought at a fraction of the cost. The other one is to get consumers to move to their Hue ecosystem and justify it at the same time.
We liked
Philips Hue lighting system is one marvel from a company having its heart in the right place. From the easy setup to daily usage, automation and integration with other apps, it will be fair to call the Hue as the most versatile range of smart bulbs available in the market.
That and it's quality of producing a slightly warmer tone of light that just feels better than traditional LED bulbs make it the best.
After a couple of key updates, the Philips Hue app is in a pretty good state. It’s quick and easy to turn your bulbs on and off and it’s also no trouble to set custom colors and scenes.
We disliked
Quite honestly and as mentioned earlier as well, it's the technology and industry that has to be blamed here. The Philips Hue system is expensive because the demand isn't that much. Then again, the prices of smart bulbs will never go down to the levels of normal LED bulbs.
Smart switches are too available rarely in India right now and one cannot just take the plunge and deploy each one of these things in their homes.
Final verdict
So then the question arises as to who will buy these lighting solution products. If you ask me, right now in India the home improvement marketplace is on the swell of a major overhaul where we are seeing Indian consumers take more and more interests in these customizations. Then again it's just for a room or two and not the full lighting system of the house.
People not on any kind of budget looking sincerely for home improvement systems, the Philips Hue colour bulbs should be on your list as it will give your home that edge you're looking for enhancing the functionality. Philips offers almost everything you could need to build a smart lighting system, and its integration with third-party services allows you to fill in any blanks. But if you’re hoping to get away with investing in a couple of bulbs and calling it a day then you might end up being disappointed.
For the rest of the folks, Philips Hue White Ambience is better if you want to experience first hand the connected lighting space until the time its ‘dumb’ counterparts are made redundant.
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