Philips Hue Lights: A Guide to What Each Does (and Costs)

Philips Hue is synonymous with smart lighting. The brand has taken the space to new heights over the years and offers one of the most extensive product ranges. From smart light bulb starter kits to whole-home light strip extension kits, Philips Hue produces some of the best smart lights we've tested.

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Not only are Philips Hue bulbs both responsive and feature-packed, but they can also function as some of the best Alexa compatible devices as well as the best Google Home compatible devices. One of their most useful features is how easy they are to add to your existing smart home setup.

Philips Hue is constantly adding more types of smart lights to its lineup and has expanded beyond the home into backyards and patios. While having more options to choose from can help you find the custom fit for your smart home, it can get a little overwhelming for first-time buyers. That&#;s why we&#;ve put together this Philips Hue lights guide to help. Below, we'll take you through the most popular options from the brand, as well as the latest releases while exploring the pros and cons of each.

Before you get started though, you will need a Philips Hue Bridge ($59, Amazon) if you plan to control all of the smart lights in your home through the company&#;s app. While newer Philips Hue lights only require Bluetooth, a bridge ensures both old and newer lights work well together without any problems.

Philips Hue lights: Starter kits

Philips Hue starter kits include both bulbs and the bridge that's required to connect the lights to your home Wi-Fi network. If you don't have any Philips Hue lights yet, a starter kit is probably the best way to begin. After testing hundreds of smart home products, we believe that the Philips Hue Starter Kits are among the best smart home devices.

The original Philips Hue Starter Pack (White and Color Ambiance) is designed to replace traditional A19 bulbs and can change to more than 16 million colors. The starter pack includes three lights plus a Hue bridge. Philips also sells a version of this kit with four lights.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Kit
The White Ambiance kit lets you adjust the color temperature of the bulbs, so you can go from intense blue-white to a soft yellow-white. There's also a newer version of the White Ambiance kit that includes two bulbs, a Hue bridge and a smart switch to control them.

Philips Hue Smart Bridge
If you don't buy a starter kit, which includes the smart bridge, you'll need to purchase one separately. It plugs into your Wi-Fi router and connects with the Hue lights in your home.

MORE: How to Connect Philips Hue Lights to Amazon Echo

Philips Hue light bulbs and light strips

(Image credit: Future)

You can expand your lighting options through a number of different Philips Hue bulbs. These include everything from plain white bulbs to multicolored light strips and other bulbs that fit smaller sockets.

In a recent announcement, all Philips Hue smart bulbs which are available in White, White ambiance, and White and colour ambiance, will now also be available in and lumen options. 

Philips Hue White A21, Lumens
This is one of Phillips Hue's newest and brightest bulbs. It works without a hub, meaning you can control it via Bluetooth in your home.

Philips Hue White Ambiance A19
This single Philips Hue White Ambiance bulb requires a hub, but it once it's connected you can control its brightness.

Philips Hue Filament Bulb
These dimmable Edison-style bulbs have recently become available in White ambience, which means they can produce any tone of white, from cool to warm. They can self-adjust throughout the day and look great when switched off too. 

Philips Hue Ambiance BR30 Floodlight
These LED bulbs, which can produce thousands of shades of white &#; from warm to cool &#; and color, and are designed for recessed ceiling fixtures.

Philips Hue E12 Candle
The Philips Hue E12 Candle is a smaller bulb, designed for chandeliers and light fixtures where a full-size A19 bulb won't fit. Each candle light bulb is a 40W equivalent. It comes in a White Ambiance and Color Ambiance, too.

Philips Hue Ambiance Gradient Light Strip
This 6-foot color LED strip has an adhesive backing, which lets you affix it underneath kitchen counters or shelving &#; or anywhere you&#;d like &#; to provide some nice accent lighting. 

Philips Hue entertainment lights

(Image credit: Best Buy)

Another category of Philips Hue lights is entertainment enhancers, like the play light below. The Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is the next evolution the light bar. It syncs your smart lights to your on-screen TV content, including games and movies.

Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box
Surround sound makes watching movies and video games in your home a more immersive experience, but what about surround lighting? The Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box sits between your TV and your cable box and gaming console, and analyzes the content going to your TV. The Play Sync Box cues your Hue lights, changing their color to match what's playing on screen. Philips has now also released a Hue Sync TV app that does the same thing without the need for an extra box in your entertainment center. However, it's almost just as expensive at $129 and is only compatible with Samsung's or newer QLED tvs.

Philips Hue Play Light Bar
The Philips Hue Play light bar is a 9-inch color-changing light bar that can sit horizontally or vertically next to your TV or computer monitor, or be mounted as a backlight.

Philips Hue standalone lamps

Standalone lights can be placed anywhere in your room, and are generally used to help create accent lighting, rather than as a primary light source. None of these come with a bridge, so you'll need that to sync, too. 

Philips Hue Bloom
This accent light measures about 5 inches in diameter, and can change to millions of colors. It&#;s best used to bounce light off a wall behind fixtures like a TV or plant to help set the mood.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Wellness
Inside this lamp is a single Philips Hue white ambiance bulbs, which can be changed from cool white to warm white. You can also replace the bulb with a color bulb if you like.

(Image credit: Philips)

Philips Hue Go Light
The Hue Go is a splendid accent-lighting piece, and glows from both its circular 4.7-inch base and its flat top. The 300-lumen Go has a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts up to 3 hours while unplugged. The newer Hue Go portable table lamp is available in either black or white and has a brightness of 370 lumens. It costs $159 and can be recharged using the included charger base.

(Image credit: Philips)

Philips Hue Twilight sleep and wake-up light 

Philips has also now released a Twilight table lamp that uses science-backed scenes for mood-boosting lighting. You can use it to create custom wake-up and sleep automations or simply recharge your room during the day.

Philips Hue light fixtures

While limited to a few options, Philips light fixtures have the bulbs built directly into them. That means that when the LEDs burn out&#;which should be at least 10 years, if not more&#;you'll have to replace the entire fixture. These also require a bridge (sold separately) to control them via Philips' app.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Fair
This ceiling light can either be flush-mounted, or purchased with a small or large extension to drop it down a few inches. It has a brushed aluminum finish, and the LEDs can be tuned to a cool or warm white light.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Being
The Being is similar to the Fair, but has a clear panel running around its midsection. It also can only be flush-mounted with the ceiling.

Philips Hue outdoor lights

(Image credit: Best Buy)

Philips has several large, weather-resistant outdoor lights for illuminating your garden, lawn, patio, and driveway. 

Philips Hue Single PAR38 Outdoor
These aren't just for Philips Hue products; you can screw them into any outdoor fixture that fits a PAR38 bulb and make it a "smart light." You' can control and schedule the bulb remotely.

Philips Hue Calla Outdoor Pathway
Place this LED-integrated bollard along your driveway or front walk to light your guests' way. The base pack includes one bollard and a power supply, and extension kits are $129.

Philips Hue Inara White Outdoor Lantern
The Philips Hue Inara is a traditional wall lantern for lighting your porch or the area outside your door. It uses a white bulb, meaning you can't change its color, but you can control it remotely.

Philips Hue Lucca Outdoor Wall Lantern
The Lucca wall lantern is very similar to the Inara, but it has a smaller, more modern design, and is $10 more expensive.

Philips Hue Ludere Outdoor Security Light
This floodlight contains two bulbs and is perfect for lighting your driveway or the area outside your garage. Like the Lucca and Inara, it doesn't change color, but it does deliver 1,350 lumens.

Philips Hue Lightstrip Outdoor

This outdoor lightstrip is available in either 80 or 197 inches and delivers 1,650 lumens. It also has an IP67 rating to help it withstand weather conditions throughout the year.

Philips Hue smart lights accessories

Philips also sells accessories which allow you to control your Hue lights without using the app. 

The Philips Hue Smart Dimmer Switch with Remote is one such accessory and is one of the best smart light switches for Philips Hue owners. Having said that, if you want routines and timers, everything will still need connecting through the Philips Hue Bridge. 

Philips Hue Smart Dimmer Switch with Remote
This product looks like a typical wall switch, but it connects directly to the Hue lights, meaning you don&#;t need to rewire. The switch can even be removed so it doubles up as a remote.  

Philips Hue Smart Tap Switch
This device can be preprogrammed to remember three different light settings. You can then activate each at the touch of a button, which is great for movie nights or entertaining guests.   

Philips Hue Smart Motion Sensor
This turns the lights on in a room when it senses movement. It detects varying levels of sensitivity, keeps lights on for a period after a person exits, and alters brightness based on the time of day.

Philips Hue Dusk-to-Dawn Outdoor Motion Sensor
The Philips Hue Dusk-to-Dawn Outdoor Motion Sensor is a wireless, battery-operated motion sensor light. It also keeps track of the light outside, and makes sure your inside lights don't switch on until nighttime.

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Philips Hue Sync app

Finally, Philips has an app, Philips Hue Sync, which allows users to synchronize their smart bulbs with multimedia content on their Mac or Windows PC. For example, you can set your lights to flash and change color in time with music, video, and movies being played on your computer. Hue Sync, which runs on your notebook or desktop, connects with the Hue app on your smartphone. Users can also modify the color schemes, brightness, and themes to suit their tastes.

Thinking about smartening up the lights in your home? Philips Hue is one of the first names you should consider. 

Among all of today's smart lighting platforms, Hue is the most well-established, the most well-developed and the most well-connected, too. It doesn't matter if you're an Alexa user, an Apple HomeKit fan, an IFTTT nerd, a Razer gamer, a Google Home devotee, a Logitech Harmony connoisseur, a Nest aficionado or about a bajillion other examples I could list -- Philips Hue's lights work with all of it.

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.

Read more: Philips Hue's new Bluetooth bulbs don't need the Hue Bridge at all

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?

Read more: The best LED light bulb for every room in your house in   

Philips

Best for beginners: Philips Hue White Starter Kit, $99

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). The newest Hue bulbs can use Bluetooth to pair directly with your without need for a Hue Bridge, but you'll miss out on most all of Hue's advanced features and integrations.

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.

Read Philips Hue White Starter Kit review.

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Best color-changer: Philips Hue Play, $129

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 options from other brands that cost less. 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.

If you're interested in the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box, 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.

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.

Read full review.

Best accessory: Philips Hue Tap, $49

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.

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?

Read full review.

All right, so what is Philips Hue?

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 , 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.

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 Philips Hue Signe color-changing floor lamp (spoiler alert: that's one of the overpriced duds you can definitely skip).

How do I use these lights?

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.

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"

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.

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And how does Philips Hue work?

In a word? Zigbee.

...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.

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 can connect to the internet.

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 no longer supported.

Wait, does Zigbee cost anything?

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.

Are those Zigbee signals secure?

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.

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, the Hue team tells us 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.

Connecting anything to the internet comes with risks, obviously, but Philips Hue has a long, solid track record of keeping its platform secure and addressing vulnerabilities whenever they pop up, 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 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.

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What about the new Bluetooth bulbs? Can I skip the Hue Bridge?

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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 without need for a Hue Bridge.

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 , 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.

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.

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.

What else can these lights do?

On a basic level, smart lights like the ones from Philips Hue let you control and dim your lights using your , using voice commands or using automations that you set up in the Hue app or with a compatible third-party automation service like IFTTT. 

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Basic automations like those let you do things like schedule your lights to turn on automatically in the morning or at sunset, or even more creative use cases, like lights that blink whenever you receive an from an important contact. You could also connect your lights with a motion sensor, then program them to turn on automatically whenever someone enters the room.

Other, more advanced features include automatic Google Assistant wake-up lighting that can slowly fade your bedroom lights up during the thirty minutes prior to your morning Google Assistant alarm. Another recent feature called Hue Entertainment lets you set your lights to mimic the color of whatever's playing on your computer screen in real time. Connect that computer to your living room TV for a color-coordinated movie night with the kids -- that is, if you don't find the feature too distracting.

Philips Hue parent company Signify expanded on Hue Entertainment in by introducing the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box, which costs $230 and supports voice control via Alexa, Siri or the Google Assistant. With multiple HDMI jacks, you plug all of your media streamers, set top boxes and gaming consoles into it, and then connect it to your TV. From there, it reads the incoming video signals, which lets your Hue Bridge match the color of your lights to whatever's on your TV screen. That brings all sorts of new content under Hue Entertainment's control.

What does Philips Hue work with?

Like I said before, it works with quite a lot. Most notable are the voice assistants -- in fact, Hue was the first smart lighting platform to hit the trifecta and sync up with Alexa, Siri and the Google Assistant (and hey, Hue works with Cortana, too). Make the connection, and you'll be able to turn your bulbs on and off, dim them up and down or trigger your scenes by asking your assistant of choice to do it.

On the Alexa front, Philips Hue also offers direct compatibility between its lights and the Amazon Echo Plus, an Alexa smart speaker with its own, built-in Zigbee radio. That means that Echo Plus owners don't need the Hue Bridge if they want to pair Hue bulbs with Alexa -- though they'll only be able to control those Hue lights in the Alexa app and by using Alexa voice commands. If they want to use the Hue app or any of Hue's other integrations, they'll still need the Hue Bridge plugged into their router.

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You can also add Philips Hue bulbs and fixtures to a whole lot of other smart home platforms, including Wink, Samsung SmartThings and security-minded automation systems like Comcast Xfinity Home and Vivint. Just know that for all of them, you'll still need the Hue Bridge.

Speaking of the Hue Bridge, it also supports third-party Zigbee lights that aren't made by Philips. That includes inexpensive smart bulbs from names like Cree and Sylvania that cost a few bucks less than Hue's white light bulbs at retail. Just make sure that those smart bulbs send their signals using the Zigbee wireless protocol.

Something else to watch for: A growing number of smart light switches designed to connect with Hue's light bulbs, making it so your automations and voice controls will continue to work even when things are off at the wall (with a regular light switch, cutting the power makes it so your bulbs can't receive signals from the Hue Bridge). We've already tested one such smart switch from RunLessWire, and came away impressed. Another, the Lutron Aurora, simply acts like a dimmer dial that covers the old switch, locking it into the on position.

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OK, so tell me about those bulbs. What are my options?

You've got lots! Hue sells both color-changing and white-light bulbs in a variety of shapes and sizes. They include:

Geez, that's a lot. And what about the fixtures?

There's a lot of those, too (and even more of them if you're shopping in Europe). Among the most notable:

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Man, OK. Is that it?

Nope! Philips Hue sells accessories for its system, too. These include:

• Philips Hue Tap: Probably 

  my favorite Philips Hue accessory

• Philips Hue Smart Dimmer Switch: A wireless remote that can pair with up to 10 Hue lights at once for quick dimming controls. You can also mount it to the wall with the included base plate. It's not self-powering like the Tap is, but it's well-priced at $25.
• Philips Hue Smart Button: Available for $20, Hue's smart button offers quick, physical controls for whatever Hue lights you pair it with in the Hue app. Along with mounting it to the wall, you can program it to turn the lights on to different color and brightness settings spending on what time of day it is.
• Philips Hue Motion Sensor: For $40, a wireless Zigbee motion sensor that can trigger your Hue lights automatically whenever you enter the room.
• Philips Hue Outdoor Sensor: For $50, a mountable, weather-proofed version of the Philips Hue Motion Sensor that also tracks temperature and ambient light.

• Click Smart Switch

  : A "Friends of Hue" partner accessory from a company called RunLessWire (and formerly known as the "Illumra"), the Click is a four-button Zigbee smart switch that pairs with your bulbs to turn things on and off, dim thing up and down or trigger scenes. What's really cool about it is that it uses the same energy-harvesting trick as the Hue Tap, so it powers itself with each button press. That means you can install without needing to wire anything in. It costs $60.

• Lutron Aurora

  : Available now for preorder at $40 each, the Lutron Aurora is another noteworthy Friends of Hue accessory that offers control over your Hue lights at the light switch itself. Instead of replacing your old light switch, the Aurora is a smart, battery-powered Zigbee dimmer knob that snaps over the light switch, locking it into the on position and preventing your kids and houseguests from cutting the power to your lights and rendering their voice controls, automations and app controls inoperable. From there, just tap it to turn whatever bulbs are paired to it on or off, or twist it to dim them up and down.

Cut to the chase. Which Philips Hue products are worth it?

Of all of these, I think most people will get the most value with a Philips Hue White starter kit, which includes the essential Hue Bridge and a couple of Hue White bulbs to get you going, complete with a smart button. It's enough to get your feet wet, and since it comes with the Hue Bridge included, you can build upon it, gradually expanding your setup, light by light.

The smart way to do this is to figure out which products appeal to you the most and then wait for a sale. You shouldn't have to wait long -- Philips Hue products are frequently marked down at major retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Home Depot. Good deals on days like Black Friday and Prime Day are pretty much a given at this point, too.

To each their own, but I tend to think color-changing bulbs are a bit frivolous in lamps and overhead lights you typically use as primary light sources for shared spaces (seriously, how often are you really going to want to be able to bathe your entire living room in purple?) Instead, I find that lights like these are best suited as accents that you aim at your walls wherever they might benefit from a pop of color. 

That's why I tend to like the Philips Hue Play light bars and the kid-friendly, battery-powered Philips Hue Go fixture a little bit better than the bulbs. At $60 and $80 per light respectively, they're each a little expensive, but they fit the bill as colorful accent lights for high-tech homes. Same goes for the Philips Hue Lightstrip -- though I wish that it was capable of putting out more than one color at once, like the Lifx Z Lightstrip is.

Philips Hue offers some solid accessories for its system, too. First among these in my mind is the self-powering Philips Hue Tap remote. With no need for batteries, it's a great little gadget at $50, and a nice Apple HomeKit accessory, too. 

I was also recently impressed when I tested out Philips Hue's Outdoor Sensor, which, like the Tap, costs $50. Mount it outside your home if you want your Hue lights to turn on automatically as you're fumbling for your keys at the front door after a long day at work. I like it for indoor use, too -- even more so than the standard Philips Hue Motion Sensor. Why? For $10 more, the Outdoor Sensor adds in sensors for temperature and ambient light.

What Philips Hue alternatives should I consider?

You've got plenty of options when it comes to color-changing lights, so it's smart to shop around. Just keep in mind that no other competitor has a smart lighting platform that's as steady or well-developed as Philips Hue.

Read more: The best color-changing smart bulbs that cost less than Philips Hue

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The closest is probably Lifx, a smart lighting startup out of Australia that caught fire in the crowdfunding scene several years ago. Lifx offers terrific app controls, it works with a great range of third parties, including Alexa, Siri, IFTTT and the Google Assistant, and it's done a good job of building out a wide product lineup. Lifx products communicate using Wi-Fi, not Zigbee, so they don't require a hub -- you can just buy a single color-changing Lifx Mini LED for $35, screw it in, pair it with the app and go.

Lifx also offers color-changing LED light panels called Lifx Tiles that you can stick to your walls, similar to the likable Nanoleaf Canvas Light Panels. Philips Hue doesn't offer anything like that for your walls.

If you just want a cheap color-changing bulb for your next party or for a game room, then a Philips Hue starter kit is probably overkill. You'd be better off with Wi-Fi alternatives that don't need a hub. 

Low-cost color-changing bulbs from names like Eufy (Anker's smart home brand) and Kasa (TP-Link's smart home brand) will do the job just fine, complete with Alexa and Google Assistant compatibility. For a hub-free color-changer that works with Apple HomeKit, consider the Sylvania Smart Plus LED, which costs $45 at full price, but often goes on sale (as of writing this in April of , it's marked down to $23 a piece on Amazon).

Recently, GE Lighting jumped into the color-changing category with RGB smart bulbs of its own. Those are worth keeping an eye out for, too -- especially if you're a Google Assistant user, since GE bulbs are "Made for Google" products. And, while Philips Hue offers a full lineup of its own outdoor lights, you might consider waiting for Ring's upcoming outdoor lighting lineup, which looks to have a good variety of fixtures with their own built-in motion sensors.

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