Which good lights do you have to use with Alexa?
Category: smart lights
Most dependable low-cost Philips Hue offers out there for August 2021
For several years, Philips Hue has set the standard for smart home lighting. Philips Hue smart light bulbs, lamps, and light fixtures serve an incredible range of purposes in homes. Whether you use light for security, convenience, navigation after dark indoors and outdoors, design, aesthetics, creative expression, or setting the mood, Philips Hue lights can do the job. We’ve found the best Philips Hue deals on individual lights and Philips Hue Starter Kits.
Best Philips Hue deals
Beginner’s guide to Philips Hue
Philips Hue doesn’t only make smart light bulbs. Philips Hue manufactures everything you need to set up a comprehensive home lighting systems in your home.
Hue smart bulb types and sizes
You can buy individual Hue lights in many shapes or styles, including candles, bulbs, spotlights, recessed lights, wall lights, ceiling lights, path lights, lightstrips, outdoor lights, and more. The bulbs are available in standard light bulb screw base sizes. Philips Hue Lightstrips are often used under counters, behind furniture or plants, or installed in shapes or patterns to set room moods or to create lighting designs or scenes.
Hue smart bulb colors
Many Philips Hue lights are available in Hue White, Hue White Ambiance, and Hue White Color Ambiance bulbs. Philips White lights are soft, dimmable warm white lights. With Hue White Ambiance bulbs, you can adjust the color temperature from warm white to cool daylight in addition to controlling the light brightness with dimmer control. Hue White Color Ambiance lights are dimmable and adjust from warm white to cool white light, but you can also select from 16 million colors via the Hue app and a Bluetooth smartphone connection or with a Hue Bridge.
What is a Philips Hue Starter Kit?
A Philips Hue Starter Kit includes everything you need to install Philips Hue smart lights in your home or office for a specific purpose. There are two advantages to buying a Hue Kit: Convenience and cost-savings.
For example, if you want to install your first Philips Hue smart lights, Hue Starter Kits include from one to four Hue light bulbs and a Hue Bridge at a total cost less than buying the bulbs and Bridge separately. One Bridge can control up to 50 Hue lights, so after you install the Starter Kit, you can add to your system by buying new bulbs separately.
Hue Dimmer Kits include a Hue Light bulb and a wireless dimmer switch for less than the total cost if purchased separately.
Does Philips Hue require a Smart Bridge?
The original Philips Hue smart lights required a Hue Bridge, also called a hub. In 2019, however, Philips added Bluetooth to many of its bulbs. When you pair a Bluetooth-equipped Philips Hue bulb with your smartphone, you can use the Hue app to control the light without a Hue Bridge. You can control up to 10 Philips Hue bulbs paired to your smartphone via Bluetooth.
All Philips Hue lights, including bulbs with Bluetooth built-in, work with the Philips Hue Bridge. Using the Bridge opens the full feature set. A single Philips Hue Bridge manages up to 50 bulbs.
Philips Hue Accessories
In addition to Hue lights and Starter Kits, Philips also makes a selection of lighting accessories.
Play HDMI Synch Box – Sync your Hue lights with your home theater by connecting up to four HDMI devices.
Hue Smart Plug – Plug in any light to the Bluetooth-equipped Hue Smart Plug and add it to your existing Hue system to control by voice or with the Hue app via Bluetooth.
Hue Smart button – Use the single control button to turn lights on or off and control brightness levels.
Hue Outdoor sensor – Place the battery-powered Hue-Outdoor Sensor outside, and its motion detector will turn on the lights via a connection to a Hue Bridge.
Hue Motion sensor – Use the battery-operated indoor motion detector to trigger your Hue lights when the sensor detects motion.
Hue Dimmer switch – Install the battery-operated Bluetooth and Hue Bridge compatible dimmer switch on any wall or remove it to use as a remote control for your lighting.
Does Philips Hue work with Google Assistant?
Philips Hue lighting works with Google Assistant voice commands. Just say “OK, Google” to control Hue lights throughout your home.
Does Philips Hue work with Apple HomeKit and Siri?
Philips Hue lighting works with Siri voice commands and with Apple HomeKit-enabled devices and accessories.
Does Philips Hue work with Amazon Alexa?
With an Amazon Alexa smart device, you can control Philips Hue lighting systems in your home with Alexa voice commands.
Does Philips Hue work with Microsoft Cortana?
Philips Hue lighting works with Microsoft Cortana so you can use Cortana voice commands to control your Hue lights.
Does Philips Hue work with IFTTT?
Philips Hue lighting works with If This, Then That, and many other connectivity standards, including the Logitech Harmony remote control, Samsung SmartThings, Xfinity Home, Vivint Smart Home, Lutron Aurora smart bulb dimmer, Razer Chroma equipment, and more.
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The most effective automations for sensible lights
Smart lighting is better than it’s ever been: There’s a myriad of smart lights and smart bulbs for every possible location or socket, all of them equipped with extra features that can be controlled with an app on your mobile device. But what exactly are you supposed to do with them?
We’re answering that question with this useful guide on the best automation options for your smart lighting, and pointers about how to set them up. Take a look to get some ideas!
Set up a “good night” routine
If you have a voice assistant, you have the ability to set up smart home routines, or a collection of smart device actions that will all trigger together with a single voice command. For Alexa, for example, you can literally set up an “Alexa, good night” routine that will easily turn off all the smart lights in your home, or set a particular bulb to a dim setting to serve as a nightlight or other function. For more information on creating Alexa routines, check out our guide here.
Routines aren’t limited to saying good night to the house, of course, but we’ve found this is one of the most useful ways to tie in smart lighting to a routine. You can also arrange morning routines that will turn on specific lights as you get ready for your day — this may be an effective way to encourage your kids to wake up, too!
Setting up daily schedules
Using your smart lighting app, it’s easy to schedule your lights to turn on at specific times during the day and turn off again — every smart app should have this capability. That’s useful if you want to save a little bit of time turning on and off every light in your house (especially if you have a predictable schedule), but homeowners may particularly enjoy this option when they are away on vacation. The scheduled light activity makes it look like the house is still occupied even if everyone is gone.
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Connecting lights to a motion sensor
This is a common tactic in offices across the world, but you can enjoy the benefits at home as well thanks to products like the Philips Hue Indoor Motion Sensor for Smart Lights. This allows you to put a motion sensor at a key spot in your house and connect it to a smart bulb so the bulb automatically turns on when someone approaches.
This is a very handy setup for areas where it’s difficult to fumble for the light switch, when it’s very dark, or when your hands are frequently full. Think about basement stairways, cupboards and pantries, garages, and other locations. You can also use this method on your porch if you don’t already have a smart security cam, as it will alert you when anyone approaches.
Mood lighting setups
Smart lighting also makes great accent lighting, and this allows you to try out another trick as well — changing shades to find the right mood lighting. One of the great things about smart lights is that many of them can be adjusted to very specific hues (some span millions of potential colors) so you can get just the shade you are looking for. From game rooms and playrooms to behind-the-TV background lighting, there are dozens of innovative ways to use smart lights like this.
Remember how we talked about setting up a good night routine? It’s also easy to create a “romantic night” routine that will automatically dim those accent lights and turn them to a sexier shade while starting a timely song playlist in the background. If your evening looks less like romance and more like corralling the kids to bed, think about setting up a color switch routine that announces it’s time to start cleaning — and that changes again when bedtime becomes mandatory.
Light alerts when alarms sound
There are many ways to set up this kind of connection, but IFTTT is one of the best examples. Let’s say you have a Nest Protect, which can detect smoke and carbon monoxide, then sound an alarm. The Nest Protect is compatible with IFTTT (If This, Then That), a platform that allows you to link smart devices and tie them to specific actions or responses. That means you can use IFTTT to connect your Nest Protect’s actions to your smart lights — when a smoke alarm sounds, you can have your lights flash, or turn red, or make some other sign that something is wrong.
Like the idea of light alerts? You can set them up for lots of other things too, such as creating blinking lights when a baby monitor detects noise in the baby’s room.
Slow illumination or fades
Many smart lights, including Philips Hue and Lifx lights, have dimming options so you can control the brightness (usually on a scale of 1 to 100). Their apps will allow you to add dimming options to your scheduling. One of the most popular ways to use this programmed brightening and dimming is to simulate the rising and setting of the sun throughout your house, something that your circadian rhythms may appreciate (it also looks cool). Or you could create a brightening timer that acts as a visual alarm when you want to take a nap.
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