One of the first things that probably comes to mind when someone is lighting. But Philips Hue Starter Kit are the best in the business of providing smart home lighting automation and control. Get it from Amazon:. You can purchase a , which includes two white light bulbs and the bridge. This is what your Hue bridge looks like when you pull it out of the box. Notice some places to attach the power adapter and ethernet cable on the back of the bridge. Plug your ethernet cable included into an opening on your router. Assemble the power adapter by sliding the plug down into its case. Once assembled, plug in your power adapter to the outlet. Plug both the ethernet cable and power cord into your Hue bridge. It looked like this at the time of this writing. In your starter kit with the Hue bridge, you probably got at least one smart light bulb, white. Screw the bulb into an appropriate light fixture. Read in your starter kit literature to learn about other recommendations for optimum smart light bulb use. Make sure your is lit and running, as evidenced by its being lighted up. Now open up your Hue app. Note: You can also program and control your Philips Hue bulbs through your , and other compatible hubs, as well as with your voice with Amazon Alexa. This is recommended if you have more than one Hue light, so you can keep them straight in your programming and controlling. You can also set up entire rooms, if you have multiple smart light bulbs in one room. We set up two routines for the front porch light: one for the light to turn on at sunset everyday, and another for the light to turn off at a specified time at night, give or take 15 minutes. Outside of routines, however, you can also easily control the light manually. Touch the switch on the screen, and the light immediately turns on. The second Hue light bulb that came in the starter kit was destined for this favorite reading lamp in our living room. I removed the old LED bulb and screwed the new white Philips Hue bulb right in there. This lamp was constantly being left on because it was a pain to turn off. The bulb immediately lights up with this transition. The lights are a nice, pleasant, soft white while still shining brightly. So, the white Hue light bulbs are pretty straightforward and nice. But to really experience smart lighting, we wanted to try at least one color Philips Hue bulb to see which was better. It has a slimmer and slightly longer look than the white bulbs. The color bulbs are not recommended for exterior use. We chose to install ours in our dining room hanging pendant light, because the dining room is where the party happens around here. This fixture is neither recessed nor enclosed, which means the bridge and the light bulb will be able to communicate very well together. No surprises here — I removed our old LED light bulb from and screwed the color bulb into the drum shade. Go into Settings, then Light Setup, then touch the + button to add a new bulb. Just click on the name of the light, then type in a new name to help you identify it easily. But, still, Room control is an option. Once again, the app shows the light to be off, and the light is, indeed, off. Magically, turning the light on in your Hue app will shower your space in lovely light. Brightness is controllable via the Scenes tab top middle , along with various Scenes. You can play with routines, with formulas to fade through colors, with scheduling, and other fun automation. This is really too extensive to get into in this article, but just have fun with your exploration. Get it from Amazon:. You can also access Philips Hue Labs, with even more light-changing options, via your Explore tab along the bottom navigation bar. Good luck and enjoy!
