Philips Hue Bridge, Unlock The Full Potential of Hue Bridge System, Multi-Room and Out-of-Home Control, Create Automations and Zones, Smart Lighting Hub, Works with Voice and Matter-Compatible

I didn’t want this but… was necessary
I didn’t even want to buy this since I don’t have much use for colored lights in the first place, and all of my smart devices are at the switch level anyway, but… I’m also impulsive and technologically silly, so I bought it in order for a computer to interact with them for a specific reason – watching Formula One races through the MultiViewer app. (See pic)The MultiViewer app allows you to watch Formula One races beyond just a single broadcast of the race – instead of just the television broadcast you can also see multiple driver cockpit cameras, track information, position of cars on the track, the leaderboard and tire information, track violations and penalties, and even tune into specific driver radios. Basically it gives you a fully immersive racing experience outside of “just watching the race on tv”.In addition to MultiViewer, there’s a companion app called F1MV Lights Integration – which is awesome – and well… I simply had to have it. The companion app will take the data being pushed through MultiViewer and use it to control smart lights, so the lights reflect the race conditions such as green flags, red flags, safety cars, fastest laps, chequered flags, etc. In my picture someone had just hit the fastest lap of the race so far, usually indicated with the color purple on the leaderboard. As such the Philips lights changed to purple. The same happens for red flags, yellow flags, etc.Is it necessary? Nah…Cool as hell though? You bet.I originally tried this with the cheaper Govee lights, but although they were wi-fi capable like the Philips, they didn’t have the API necessary to work correctly with the MultiViewer system. Those were returned and Philips lights were were purchased instead, and they require the hub to work with MultiViewer. It sucked that I also had to buy a hub to make it all work, but I’m silly and bought it anyway. Through the hub and the app, all it worked flawlessly and painlessly, connected easily, and does what I need it to do.All of it was generally easy to configure, and the app gives you quite a bit of control over a simple light. The lights dim from zero to 100 without issue, and the color range is everything I personally could ask for. (Although maybe others would be more demanding than myself.)All in all it was rather expensive, (compare to the Govee lights and you’ll see the price difference!), but I hope that the extra expense means all of it will last a long time with no problems. They were all purpose-bought and they serve their purpose excellently.

Motion Aware
I had a V2 bridge for about a month before the Pro came out and tbh I kind of felt dupped, but just because of my hopes with the motion aware I went ahead and ordered the pro on pre-order for the second batch (after they sold out) and I’m soo glad I did.The motion aware makes it worth it and saves you $200+ (if you already have alot of Hue bulbs) on not having to buy motion detectors for 4 areas.They limit it to 4 motion aware areas apparently because of the processing but it works pretty good.It’s not as fast as a dedicated motion sensor but give it a second or two and the lights come on they don’t randomly turn off then pop back on like some motion sensor controlled areas I have.I also have a dozen front yard lights that I ran animated Christmas scenes on that would fade in and out of colors and while I like to think the Pro bridge did better honestly the Hue V2 handled it all pretty well.So the real benifit is the motion aware with this one and being able to walk in a hall and have the lights turn on without having to see motion sensors is something to appreciate.Also just as a note: Hue suggests you have atleast 3 lights in a section and if you have like one lamp (lower height) and a ceiling light it works better because you walking the rough the path better so I was kind of concerned that all my bulbs are in the ceiling but I have it running on 6 kitchen ceiling lights, 3 main hall lights and a T shaped cluster of 3 in a small hall section and they are are working fine but you have to walk about half way into the areas before they trigger.Also great with the app for setting different light values for different times of the day, when a light pops on really low in the middle of the night you don’t really care about the few seconds it takes to do it.

More features and reliability
Needed a more reliable way to control smart bulbs outside my front door and garage. I migrated from a FEIT system to Philips. The setup took some work but I am happy with the greater features and more reliable connections and programming of this system. Yes, it costs more than other systems, but the value was worth it for me.

Me había llegado mal, hice la devolución y afortunadamente se arregló, lo compré de nuevo y ahora si llegó perfecto y en buen estado, lo configure tanto para Alexa como para Siri, Con Siri fue un poco más complicado, no fue posible configurarlo desde la app de Apple Home, pero si se pudo perfectamente desde la app de Philips Hue en Settings->Smart Home->Add->Apple Home y hi fue muy sencillo, lo reconoció muy rápido.

Buen upgradeVengo de usar el hue bridge 2, y tiene algunas mejoras, que a mi gusto no es imprescindible sin embargo mejora sustancialmente, vamos por partes:La instalación es muy simple, la app tiene una opción para migrar la configuración pasada, permitiendo utilizar luces, sensores y accesorios previos, sólo que en mi caso con HomeKit es necesario volver a indicar las acciones a realizar si se tienen automatizaciones, por ejemplo encender luces al amanecer, no es complicado sin embargo es un punto a considerar.En el aspecto técnico funciona con el wifi tanto 2.4ghz como 5ghz, es posible conectarlo con cable ethernet igual que la versión pasada para mejorar el tiempo de respuesta, lo cual recomiendo.En cuanto al funcionamiento, las luces responden más rápido y si se tienen 4 luces en el mismo cuarto a una distancia de hasta 2m cada una, es posible generar un campo el cual permite detectar personas e iluminar si se detectan, esto es algo que antes no ocurría y permite mejorar la experiencia, por ahora es la única funcionalidad adicional, en mi caso si tengo un cuarto con estas características y me parece útil en la madrugada.Por último el bridge soporta más dispositivos que la versión pasada y hasta ahora es todo lo adicional que ofrece, si trabajan remoto, y/o tienen un hogar inteligente notarán la mejora en el consumo de datos y el tiempo de respuesta. Si están por iniciar en este ecosistema de Philips lo recomiendo ampliamente por encima de la primera generación.