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My family and I moved into a new town house at the beginning of the year and I have to say we have never been a family that can host a house warming party. It takes us no less than three years minimum to fill a house and make it into our own. It’s not just the amount of furniture a bigger space requires, it’s also the look of the home we change by painting, changing light fixtures, adding ceiling fans and crown molding etc… In our current home, none of the bedrooms had lights when we moved in. The electrician simply runs two lines of power to the middle of the room for a ceiling fan with light and another to an outlet to control a lamp. I am not a fan (get it) of ceiling fans with lights so since there is an attic above us I decided to run can lights. The kids got LED lights built in to a can light trim but for the master bedroom I decided on the Phillips Hue white and color bulbs.

A lot of people have been speaking to me about how much they love these bulbs and since I was in need of LED bulbs the expense was worth it to me.

Another determining factor was that it is compatible with Apple’s Home kit, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Control4 and many other home automation system which was Smart of Phillips. They can just be purchased without the fear they will not work with an existing system.

I have to say we have really enjoyed Phillips Hue. My husband immediately attached it to his Google Home and began to tell the master bedroom lights to change colors. The lights flawlessly executed each command. There are two main reasons which finally pushed me to purchase Phillips Hue specifically.

1. Phillips has opened their API to developers so apps can be made by anyone with a good ideas for their bulbs. As usual, the internet did not disappoint. There are apps that change colors and follow the rhythm of your music, there are apps that change the colors of the bulbs to which ever sport team has just scored a point for the sport fans and there are apps change colors depending on the scene of the movie you are watching.

2. From a manual installation stand point there is nothing easier than to screw in a light bulb and plug in a hub to your router. From an app set up stand point it could be a little more user friendly but thankfully there are videos online that can help. More importantly this is a way for people to add dimming to their home without having to do any electrical work such as installing dimmers.

I do have a couple of grievances with the system but they are so minor they are negligible. Still, I would not be doing my self imposed job as a reviewer without sharing them.

1. I am unable to group my lights through the Phillips Hue app, I had to do so in another app which I feel should be a basic requirement. I have a tray ceiling in my bedroom and wanted the option to control the lights in the tray and on the perimeter separately. The app allows me control of all the lights in the room at the same time or each one individually. It’s a small annoyance but one I feel is important nonetheless.

2. My second issue is that I cannot use Phillips Hue bulbs in a room which uses a dimmer. Since the bulbs themselves do the dimming, attaching them to a room with a dimmer causes them to strobe, they should only be attached to on and off light switches. If you have dimmers already installed like me, that causes a real annoyance. If you have a home automation system like me that uses keypads to control several pieces of hardware in macro sequence, finding a work around involved quite a bit programming which not everyone has access to or the necessary skill set.

Due to the cost per color bulbs ($49.99) and the need to replace several dimmers in my home, I decided to only replace Hue bulbs in the three area’s that mattered the most to my family and I: the Master bedroom, the Living room and the Basement recreation area.

Overall this is a great purchase which has caused a couple of impromptu dance parties with my children. Anytime we are all happy and laughing together is a huge win for me. I purchased a set for my mom with some extra white bulbs to show her how much light control is a subtle way to improve the home and she is now constantly using it. We linked it to her Amazon echo and I hear her constantly asking Alexa to lower her bedroom lights to 20% or turn off all lights as she leaves the house. This is a purchase worth making.