Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If nothing else from my review, remember my caution that this product is constantly evolving and improving over time. Therefore some of the complaints or limitations in the old post no longer exist, and what I describe now might change at a later date (though I plan to buy many more of these and update the review). I'll start with the issues which may prevent you from running an LED bulb at all. First - size and shape, as this is a major consideration if the bulbs are in an exposed fixture. These Hue are "A19" size, which is the same size classification as your "regular" US light bulb. These are slightly taller, by a half centimeter or 1/8 inch but they're still considered A19. They certainly look larger than that because of the cone shape. (I'm desperately waiting for Philips to offer GU10 sized bulbs in the US, as I have those, and some candelabra fixtures could easily convert to GU10 also) Another word on fixture applicability: most (maybe all) LED bulbs instruct you to not mount them upside down or in a totally enclosed fixture. LED bulbs generate less heat than incandescent, but they still need to _shed_ that heat because they are electronics. This is hard for some folks to understand, especially if they are new to CFL or LED. That said, you are _probably_ OK mounting upside down or in a closed fixture if you keep in mind that you're violating the warranty and taking a risk the product may break. These are indoor rated bulbs, Philips has stated they're safe outdoors if shielded from water (but outdoor is not covered by warrantee). You get a WIRED radio bridge which acts as the Hue controller. The bulbs themselves do not have Wi-Fi, but they do use a form of wireless networking (ZigBee, if you're curious). The controller accepts simple instructions from your smartphone (or the Hue website, if you configure that), which quickly relays those commands over the radio. By not having wifi in each bulb, the bulbs probably saved some cost, and also you can run up to 50 bulbs off one controller (using 1 IP address). The actual intelligence for light fading and scene control is contained in your smartphone app, which may send a series of instructions to cause the light to fade between colors. The point to take away here is that different apps offer different features, and while I might suggest "Hue Disco" from the Apple Store, it could be true that in a year from now there is a better app. So stay on the lookout for cool apps. Some folks have complained that the lights "forget" the color if you turn off the light switch then turn them back on. This is actually a deliberate safety feature, that someone without an app can use the light like it was a "normal" light. Remember, the controller apps are sending color information to the bulb. Once the bulb is powered off, the connection to the app os broken. If the bulb remembered the last color displayed, it could power on using dim-purple which has almost no visibility. The app I use to change bulbs with music will cycle through purple to dark to green, etc. Color - this is where these bulbs shine! The light quality on this far exceeds what you would get with some cheap $10 chinese color LED bulb you found online. The Hue bulbs have more than just simple red green blue and white LEDs; they use a combination of white and color. The Hue is capable of representing all the shades of white, including reddish white that you get with a classic bulb. The Hue can also represent MOST solid colors well (remember my comment, these are not typical red+green+blue+white LEDs). When trying for solid colors, the only color which did not represent very well is green, and the result was a greenish-yellow. Because the green color is weak, I could not convincingly emulate a "traffic light" with all colors on, which obviously isn't a showstopper but it's a limitation worth noting. Brightness - these equate to a 50-60 watt incandescent. I use 3 in a living room light stand, and that's my only living room lighting. Dimming - These bulbs do not automatically translate lower AC voltage into some instruction to dim the bulb (unlike say, the Philips 423491 warm white bulb). Just know that if you try to dim, you may underpower the bulb and it will simply shut off. Keep in mind that these bulbs contain radio transceivers and microprocessors not found in other LED bulbs, so there are likely some design challenges to getting those components stable under lower voltage (dimming). Additional bulbs can be introduced into your network using the Philips app. Before the latest Hue app update, this was difficult to do. Same thing with mixing bulbs from another Starter Pack (which you probably would only do if you were me, and wanted to take 1 bulb with the controller to work, and add the remaining bulbs to the home setup). Geofencing means you can set this for lights on when the bulbs sense your smartphone entering the driveway. That's really a function of your smartphone app (again, any limitations we have with it now could someday go away. There are a few quirks). I have not used the If This Then That (IFTTH) support, which is a cool technology for cause-effect relationships between different vendor products and websites. You could for example have a weather website control the color and intensity of your lights in the morning (to represent today's High Temp, Low Temp, and chance of rain). Blink if your favorite team scores, that kind of stuff. I expect someone will come out with a way to dim these lights using your TV remote (you need an infrared capable thing which can then talk to the bulbs... an Arduino could be assembled for this, though I'm not aware of anyone offering such a boxed product ready to use). The neat do-it-yourself tricks works best with novelty accent lighting installations, and right now I'm using these as primary lighting, so I'll wait for more bulbs before I try them out. There are some old complaints about these bulbs not supporting "grouping" (set different scenes for different groups). This is one of those software things which has improved. Philips have released a lot of free documentation and code for people to try out their own ideas and apps. Efficiency - These are not the most efficient LED light bulbs you can buy, but you knew that because they do a lot more than other LED bulbs. These are still more efficient than compact florescent and incandescent. (Somewhat related: If you want non-Hue bulbs which "match" bulb appearance, take a look at the Philips 423491 which is the bulb style same case but in a white bulb. Again, the 423491 has NOTHING in common with the Hue except for the shape. However if all your bulbs are exposed in clear fixtures, you might want all bulbs in a room to visually match.)