Philips Hue offers iPhone controlled LED lighting for your home

By chrisoldroyd
last updated

World renowned electronics manufacturer Philips has announced today that it will be exclusively launching its “Hue” web-enabled lighting system through the Apple Store starting from tomorrow. The new system from Philips offers energy saving LED lights that can replace your existing bulbs and they can then be controlled from your iPhone or iPad.

Building on its innovation capabilities, today Philips unveils hue, the world’s smartest web-enabled LED home lighting system. Philips hue signals a new era in home lighting both in the way we think about and experience light in our homes. It allows you to create and control the light using your smartphone or tablet. Bringing endless possibilities to help you get creative and help you personalize your lighting to suit yours and your family’s lifestyle, Philips hue is available exclusively from Apple stores from 30th October. A starter pack includes three bulbs that simply screw into your existing lamps, and a bridge that you plug into your home Wi-Fi router. Simply download the hue app to start experiencing light in a completely new way.

Once you have your system installed you can fire up the iPhone or iPad app and customize the lighting in your home to your hearts content. You can change the color of the light, control and monitor lighting of your home from anywhere in the world, set up timers and even use light as your wake up call.

The Philips Hue certainly looks like a very nice way to add some home lighting automation to your home. If you want to get hold of some, you can buy them exclusively through the Apple Store starting October 30th. They will come in a starter kit which includes three bulbs and the interface that needs to be connected to your home router; this starter kit will cost $199. Once you have the starter kit, you can add in extra bulbs at a cost of $59 per bulb. The system can currently support a maximum of 50 bulbs.

Can you see yourself fitting this sort of lighting automation system in your home?

Source: Philips

hue - Master Video (opens in new tab) from Philips Color Kinetics (opens in new tab) on Vimeo (opens in new tab).

chrisoldroyd
chrisoldroyd

UK editor at iMore, mobile technology lover and air conditioning design engineer.

18 Comments
  • $59 per bulb? How many years, er, decades, before the energy savings pay for this?
  • no joke, this is why i'm not a fan of this green silliness, it's costing far more than it will every be worth and has 0 impact on the environment.
  • While I don't disagree that this is quite expensive, green efficiency does have an impact on the environment. Don't make claims you clearly aren't qualified to make.
  • Well, sometimes in the effort to be "green", we create more problems than we solve. As an example- the process of fabricating solar panels uses more hazardous chemicals and is a bigger impact on the environment than burning coal ever could.
    Sometimes the effort to be "green" is just a charade. When you plug your electric car in to charge the battery, where do you think the energy comes from- magical elves?
    LED bulbs are not going to save this planet and definitely not at $59 each.
  • I live in Washington and have an electric car. When I plug in my car, most of the electricity I use comes from hydroelectric. In fact, Washington is the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the US (http://www.eia.gov/beta/state/?sid=wa). While you may be right that *most* areas use fossil fuels, that's not always true.
  • The person who is the least qualified to make any assumption about so called "green energy", because of his education background, and the way he lives his life, is Al Gore, and the leftist greenies just eat up all his lies and turn it into a religion of sorts. :(
  • Wonder where the bulbs are made. China? A country not known for the enviromental laws. And then the fuel oil burned by massive container ship to get it to the us. And then the diesel burned by the truck to get it to the store. The prius you drive it home in will help the enviroment though. Green is an illusion. We cause more damage worrying about being green then we would if we didnt worry at all.
  • I used to work in the pollution control industry. The amount of power that power plants have to produce is mandated by the federal government. When you consume less energy the only affect you have is increasing energy rates because the power plants aren't recouping enough to pay for the energy production plus profit. So clearly I'm more than qualified to make the correct comment that I made.
  • Energy savings? You think people are buying this for energy savings? LOL Wake up man. Energy savings is great, but people will be buying this for the coolness factor of A) being able to control all of their lights via an iOS app and B) being able to instantly change the color of individual lights to whatever they want. Energy savings, LOL Good one.
  • Absolutely! Engage coolness factor x1000!
  • exactly -- this isnt about saving energy, it's about bad-ass wifi lighting... duh. and the best (only) tech for that is LED. it's the future and these mouth-breathers can't stop it.
  • I was really interested right up until I got to the part that started with '$'........
  • It'll be interesting to see the energy savings on our monthly bills, but more interesting will be the enhanced convenience and fun of home automation at such a "low" entry price, to say nothing of its integration with our existing Airport base station and iPhones/iPads. I've seen and read about home automation systems for decades now. But each one seemed entirely too proprietary and expensive, to say nothing of the undesirable prospect of fumbling with yet more remotes. And the concept of being able to monitor and program the system remotely didn't even exist. So now for a mere $200 we can get into an expandable system from one of the most reputable manufacturers, AND be able to buy it from our nearby Apple store. That's a great fit, I say!
  • exactly. on every point.
  • Yes, this is expensive...but complaining about being green being expensive using this bulb is a poor argument. Find me another bulb that can be controlled from your phone, dimmed, changed color, set schedules etc in this price range. Each bulb I'm assuming basically has a small wifi antenna in it to connect to your network which means it is perfect for retrofitting existing setups. If you want to compare a green alternative at least compare it to a bulb that is similar in features. You can find many LED bulbs around $15 that provide light without the fancy other features.
  • Drop the price and I would be interested. $200 is a lot to ask for three light bulbs.
  • ...and the controller. its not about being as cheap as a normal light bulb, or even an LED lightbulb. its about CONTROLLING YOUR HOUSE LIGHTS FROM YOUR PHONE! (or tablet). its badass.
  • This is very interesting and good information about led controlled by the iPhone. I want to use it and want to see the result of it.
    http://www.greenexpressdirect.com/list.tpl?&MasterCategory=Energy&Catego...