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<\/p>\n Tyler Lizenby\/CNET<\/p>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n \t \tThinking about smartening up the lights in your home?\u00a0 is one of the first names you should consider.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Among all of today’s smart lighting platforms, Hue is the most <\/span>, the most <\/span> and the most well-connected<\/span>, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re an <\/span>, an , an <\/span>, a <\/span>, a <\/span>, a <\/span>, a <\/span>\u00a0or about a bajillion other examples I could list — Philips Hue’s lights work with all of it. <\/p>\n If you barely understand what any of that last sentence means, don’t worry: Philips Hue is a great pick for smart lighting newbies, too. And hey, maybe that’s why you’re here. You want to know more about the platform before you buy in — especially because a lot of these lights don’t come cheap. <\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong> <\/p>\n Well, we’re here to help, with everything you need to know about Philips Hue in one place: What it is, how it works, how to put it to use in your home, which bulbs to buy first — and yep, which ones are overpriced duds, too. And please note that I’ve included links to Amazon where appropriate, as well as a few of our top picks here at, well, the top — CNET may get a share of revenue from purchases made through those links. Gotta keep the lights on, right? <\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Philips<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The most important thing to know if you’ve decided to invest in Philips Hue’s ecosystem is that you’ll need the Hue Bridge plugged into your router in order to take full control of your lights (it’s the square-shaped hub in the middle there). can use Bluetooth to pair directly with your phone without need for a Hue Bridge, but you’ll miss out on most all of Hue’s advanced features and integrations.<\/p>\n You can buy that Hue Bridge on its own, but the best way to get it is to buy a starter kit that packages it with a couple of bulbs — and the best value among those starter kits is the Philips Hue White starter kit. The newest version comes with three white-light bulbs and a wall-mountable smart button that you can program to control them for $99. It’s a great way to test the platform out and learn the basics of automating your lights with the Hue app, and you can build upon it over time, adding new lights to your system whenever the ones you want go on sale. And since it includes the Hue Bridge, you’ll be able to connect your bulbs with whatever third-party platforms and services you like.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Chris Monroe\/CNET<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe it’s controversial to pick Hue’s light bars over the classic Hue bulbs, but if color-changing bulbs are all you want, you’ve got . And besides, the Hue Play fixtures are perfect to hide behind a monitor or to mount beneath a shelf or on the back of a TV — sneaky smart places for color-changing accent light, and places where bulbs can’t traditionally go. They’re also handy if you have even a casual interest in photography — a nice kick of color can really help that Instagram shot stand out.<\/p>\n If you’re interested in , which syncs the colors with whatever’s on your TV screen, then these lights come with some extra entertainment appeal. I also love that you can power up to three of them with a single plug, but I wish that they unplugged for battery-powered portability. And yeah, I wish that they cost slightly less, too — but waiting for a sale is par for the course with Philips Hue at this point.<\/p>\n Just make sure you buy a base kit that includes the lights and the power supply. A base kit that includes one light bar will cost you $70, while a two-pack costs $130. One you’ve got the power supply, you can add a second or third light as a standalone extension for $60.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For $50, the Philips Hue Tap is a wireless four-button remote that can control your Philips Hue lights. The coolest thing about it is that it powers itself whenever you press a button, so you’ll never need to recharge it or replace its batteries.<\/p>\n Like the rest of the Hue lineup, the Tap also works with Apple HomeKit, which means that you can use it to trigger HomeKit-compatible gadgets from other brands, too. We’ve been using one to control the lights at the CNET Smart Apartment for a few years now, and it’s never failed us. Seriously, what’s not to like about this thing?<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Philips Hue is a line of smart LED light bulbs and fixtures. Each one communicates wirelessly with the Hue Bridge, a little modem-looking thing that you keep plugged into your home’s router. That connection to the cloud lets you control Hue’s lights from your phone, with a voice command via Siri, Alexa or the Google Assistant, or by automating them to turn on and off at specific times or when other devices trigger them. <\/p>\n Many of Philips Hue’s bulbs and fixtures can change colors upon request (hence the “Hue” branding), but some are just basic bulbs that put out plain ol’ white light and nothing else. Prices range from $15 a piece for bulbs like those to $250 for a 58-inch tall <\/span> color-changing floor lamp (spoiler alert: that’s one of the overpriced duds you can definitely skip). <\/p>\n To get started with Philips Hue, you plug in the Hue Bridge and connect it to your router via an Ethernet cable. Then you’ll screw in your Hue bulbs or turn on your Hue fixtures. Download the Philips Hue app to your Android or iOS device and open it up — it’ll walk you through the rest of the setup process. <\/p>\n Once you’ve paired your lights with the app, you sort them by room and give each one a unique name. The app (and if you’re using them, the Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant voice controls) will let you control entire rooms at once by saying, for example, “turn on the living room.” You can control individual lights, too, which is where naming everything is important. “Turn on the desk lamp” is a lot less clunky than, say, “turn on Hue White Ambiance Bulb 4” <\/p>\n The Hue app comes with a number of preset “scenes” that, when activated, will automatically change all of the lights in the room. Along with basic scenes for normal, soft white and daylight-toned white light, there are multicolor scenes that will randomly apply colors from a preselected palette across all of a room’s lights. For instance, a Spring Blossom-themed scene will randomly assign shades of pink, red and white across your lights, while a Northern Lights-themed scene will go live with shades of green and blue. You can make and save your own scenes in the Hue app, too, which lets you return to a custom mix of colors that you like with a single tap or voice command. <\/p>\n The Hue Bridge plugs into your router and sends Zigbee commands to your Hue lights. Unless you’ve got an Amazon Echo Plus, you can’t use Hue bulbs and fixtures without it.<\/p>\n Tyler Lizenby\/CNET<\/p>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In a word? Zigbee. <\/p>\n …Oh, right, I should probably be a little more specific. Zigbee is a wireless communication technology like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You can think of it as a language that lets smart lights talk to each other and to their control hub. All of Hue’s bulbs and fixtures have their own built-in Zigbee radios, as does the Hue Bridge, which you keep plugged into your router. Its job is to act like a Zigbee-to-Wi-Fi translator for your home network and your lights. <\/p>\n For instance, you send a signal to your router whenever you turn a Hue bulb on using the app. From there, the Hue Bridge translates that command into a Zigbee signal and sends it out to the bulb. All of this happens in a fraction of a second, and since the connection to your router keeps your Hue Bridge connected to the cloud, it means you can control your lights from anywhere in the world where your phone can connect to the internet. <\/p>\n One quick note: You’ll need the square-shaped, second-gen Hue Bridge pictured above for all of that. The circular, first-gen Hue Bridge is <\/span>. <\/p>\n Nope, you don’t need a Zigbee provider or a Zigbee subscription or anything like that. Zigbee isn’t like Wi-Fi in that sense. It’s more like Bluetooth. It’s a local wireless network for your home — specifically for your smart home gadgets. Once you plug the Hue Bridge into your router, screw in a Hue bulb, and pair the two together via the Hue app, the two will start using Zigbee to communicate like two kids playing with walkie-talkies. You don’t have to sign up for Zigbee service or pay a monthly Zigbee bill or anything like that. <\/p>\n Yes. Since Zigbee is a local network, none of Hue’s bulbs connect directly to the cloud, and all of their Zigbee transmissions back and forth to each other and to the Hue Bridge follow standard encryption practices, which the Philips Hue team has been developing and refining with regular firmware updates for several years now. <\/p>\n Speaking of the Hue Bridge, you have to connect it directly to your router with an Ethernet cable. While that’s a little less convenient than hubs that connect to the router wirelessly, <\/span> that this approach ensures that your home’s Wi-Fi credentials are never transmitted wirelessly, which would make it easier for someone to intercept them. Hue also requires you to tap the button on the top of Bridge during the initial pairing process and during setup for most third-party connections, which is an excellent common-sense means of keeping someone from taking over your system from outside of your home. On top of that, each Hue Bridge has a unique verification key, which means that if one were to be compromised, the hacker couldn’t use it as a way to take over any others. <\/p>\n Connecting anything to the internet comes with risks, obviously, but Philips Hue has a long, solid track record of keeping its platform secure and <\/span>, which is what you want from a smart home brand. There’s no reason to think that connecting your lights to the internet poses any more risk than connecting, say, your laptop, your phone or your TV. As always, just be sure to keep your Wi-Fi network protected with a strong password. Better yet, make a habit of updating that password every now and then. <\/p>\n Hue’s newest bulbs add in Bluetooth to let you try them out without need for a Hue Bridge. Other than that, they’re the same bulbs as before. The only new one is this $20 Hue White floodlight.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Chris Monroe\/CNET<\/p>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The new Philips Hue bulbs with Bluetooth are currently rolling out at retail. If you want them, look for packaging with the little Bluetooth icon in the upper right corner.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Ry Crist\/CNET<\/p>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Hue’s newest bulbs are the same basic thing as before, but they now include Bluetooth radios in addition to the Zigbee receivers. That lets you pair them directly with your phone without need for a Hue Bridge. <\/p>\n To do so, you’ll need to use a separate, Bluetooth-based version of the Hue app on your Android or iOS device. It’s a much more basic experience than what you’ll get if you use the full-fledged Hue app powered by the Hue Bridge. You can still turn your lights on and off from your phone, dim them up and down, and group them according to room, but you won’t be able to control them from beyond Bluetooth range without a hub, and you won’t be able to take advantage of advanced features like wake-up fades or Hue Entertainment (more on both in the next section). You also won’t be able to sync them up with most outside services, including Apple HomeKit and IFTTT. <\/p>\n You can, however, connect them directly with current-gen Amazon Echo speakers and with Google Home speakers and Google Nest smart displays. Once you do, you’ll control them via the Alexa or Google Home apps, and turn them on and off using Alexa and Google Assistant commands. <\/p>\n That makes them pretty appealing for people who just want smart bulbs that their voice assistant of choice can control, and who aren’t interested in plugging a hub into their router to unlock any advanced features (and you can always add a Hue Bridge later if you decide you want it). For most, I think the Hue Bridge is worth it from the start — especially since you can typically get it packaged in one of Hue’s starter kits for very little additional expense. <\/p>\n On a basic level, smart lights like the ones from Philips Hue let you control and dim your lights using your phone, using voice commands or using automations that you set up in the Hue app or with a compatible third-party automation service like .\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/b><\/p>\n\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/b><\/p>\n\n<\/u><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n \tAll right, so what is Philips Hue? <\/h2>\n
\t \tHow do I use these lights? <\/h2>\n
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<\/span><\/p>\n \t \tAnd how does Philips Hue work? <\/h2>\n
\t \tWait, does Zigbee cost anything? <\/h2>\n
\t \tAre those Zigbee signals secure? <\/h2>\n
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\tWhat about the new Bluetooth bulbs? Can I skip the Hue Bridge? <\/h2>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div> \t \tWhat else can these lights do? <\/h2>\n