UNBELIEVABLE: Philips hue review the smart lighting gold standard - The Untold Story

Philips Hue is arguably the market leader, having been around since 2012 and grown to include comprehensive lighting systems built to illuminate every corner of your home, inside and out. Hue products are not cheap – they never have been – but as the market has matured and rivals have emerged, its owner Signify has responded with a range of simpler, more affordable bulbs alongside the feature-packed flagships.

Read more: Everything to know about smart lighting, according to an expert

As well as bulbs, strips and chandeliers of all size and shape, Philips Hue makes switches, sensors and other accessories too. There’s even a system for having your lighting react to what’s on your TV, projector or gaming monitor, react to movement, and mimic presence to help deter burglars while you’re away.

More recently, Hue has expanded into smart home security too, with a video doorbell, door/window contact sensors, spotlights and outdoor security cameras. Is Philips Hue the right smart lighting system for you? Read on to find out.

Philips Hue

Rating: 4.5/5

Why we love it

• Huge breadth of products
• Excellent lighting
• Highly customisable

Take note

• Expensive
• Switches lack premium aesthetic
• Bridge Pro not worthwhile (yet)

Now well over a decade old, Philips Hue has become something of a gold standard for smart home lighting. Over the years the system has been expanded and upgraded through multiple generations, and most recently gained a new, more powerful control unit called the Hue Bridge Pro.

Hue products are sold individually or in bundled starter kits. Some bulbs and light strips can be set up and used on their own, although full functionality (and remote control away from home) is unlocked with the addition of a Hue Bridge or Bridge Pro.

The Hue product range is massive. It includes indoor and outdoor lighting, and a wide range of bulbs to fit numerous socket types.

Hue’s full-colour lights can be adjusted by temperature, brightness and colour, while its mid-range white ambience bulbs lose the option for different colours, but retain the ability to change brightness and shift from cool, bluish white through to warm, orange white. Entry-level Hue lights emit only soft, warm white light, but are still dimmable.

Buy now £199.99, Amazon

Bulbs

At the time of writing, in summer 2026, the Hue online store lists 98 different smart bulbs for sale. These are split across different abilities – full colour, temperature adjustable, plain white – and include several different socket types.

The most popular types of connection – B22 bayonet and E27 screw – are accounted for, along with the popular GU10 spotlight, candle-shaped E14 screw, Edison-style filament bulbs, tiny bulbs for bedside lighting, and more. Chances are, you’ll find several Hue bulbs that fit right into your existing bulb sockets.

I’ve owned several E27 and B22 Hue bulbs for years now, from both the full-colour and white ambience range, and they’ve performed flawlessly. Some, like the bulb in my office, are used all day, every day, and haven’t once failed, switched settings unexpectedly, or otherwise failed to work.

Philips Hue white and colour ambiance starter kit

Philips is the industry leader when it comes to energy saving LED smart bulbs. It offers a huge range of bulbs, with white, dimmable and colour changing lighting solutions designed to fit every room in the home. There are strip lights, sconces, lamps, bathroom lights and even garden lighting to choose from.

Our reviewer was impressed by the versatility of the Hue range, as well the option to keep using your traditional light switch if you prefer. “The bulbs are capable of 16 million colours, so you can choose exactly the shade you like,” they said. “The kit also comes with a battery-powered light switch that can be mounted on the wall, which is handy if you are away and someone in the house is not so tech literate. You can expand the range as you are ready, with dozens of bulbs able to talk to the same Hue bridge.”

Buy now £169.99, Philips-hue.com

Philips hue white and colour E27, twin pack

Buy now £69.88, Amazon.co.uk

Unlike previous models, the latest generation of Philips hue bulbs do not require a hub connected to your Wi-Fi router to function. They can still connect to a hub if you already own one, but they also now include Bluetooth for direct control from the Hue app on your smartphone.

The hue app is attractive and intuitive, making it easy to set up the bulbs, add them to your existing system (or create a new one from scratch) and control them in just a few taps. Several lighting presets demonstrate what the bulbs are capable of, switching from the cool, bright “concentrate” mode, to a warmer, softer mode dubbed “relax”.

It’s also easy to pick any colour you like, with LED bulbs capable of shining 16 million different shades. Sliders make it simple to adjust the brightness and temperature of each colour, and there’s an automation system for configuring schedules, like one that gradually brightens the bulb to wake you up each morning.

Read more: 8 best smart lights for your connected home

That said, hue’s gradual wake-up function, plus many other features, are only available if the bulbs are connected to the hub mentioned earlier, known as the hue bridge (£44.99, Amazon.co.uk), and sold separately. This increases the maximum number of lights on a system from 10 to 50, adds support for Apple HomeKit, enables timers, and lets you control the light from anywhere, inside or outside of the home. Without the Bridge, the lights can only be controlled when within Bluetooth range of your smartphone.

For simpler applications, such as a bedside light or desk lamp, a Bluetooth connection without buying the Bridge is fine. But for the full Philips hue experience the Bridge is required. Take this step and you’re looking at a significant initial outlay for a hue starter pack (£169.99, Philips-hue.com), which includes three colour bulbs, the Bridge and a configurable wireless dimmer switch.

But, once you have coughed up for some bulbs, a Bridge and a dimmer switch, the hue product range is the best out there. As well as regular bulbs, Philips hue offers light strips (£63.38, Amazon.co.uk), weatherproof outdoor lighting (£65.38, Amazon.co.uk), decorative Edison-style filament bulbs (£19.99, Amazon.co.uk), lamps, spotlights, chandeliers, and even lights that synchronise with what you’re watching on TV (£103, Amazon.co.uk). It’s a comprehensive system that integrates neatly with other smart home platforms, but every component carries a high price.

Buy now £69.88, Amazon.co.uk

Hue bulbs are frequently discounted, especially during sales events like Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, so look out for healthy discounts then. It’s also often cheaper to buy a multi-pack. Prices start at just £10 for a plain white E27 bulb, but can rise to almost £100 per bulb for Hue’s extravagant Ellipse models, or around £130 for a set of three full-colour E27 bulbs.

Starter kits bundling two soft white bulbs, a wireless button and the Hue Bridge hub costs from £40, while kits with three colour bulbs, a button and the new Bridge Pro cost around £170.

Light strips

There are more than 50 products in Hue’s strip lighting catalogue. These start at around £50 for the five-metre Essential strip light, and run through a broad range of lights for TV, movies, gaming and adding ambience to any room. There are light strips for outdoor use too, but I’ll come to those in the next section.

Smart LED light strips are a great way to add some ambient lighting to your home. Over the years I’ve installed them on the backs of televisions, under kitchen cabinets and behind desks to create pools of light behind and below furniture. They come with an adhesive back for easy installation (make sure the surface is perfectly clean for best results), are mains powered, and can be extended with additional strips bought separately.

Third-party mounts are also available, including those that wrap the strip in frosted plastic to help diffuse the light. These are great when installing light strips above a kitchen counter.

Hue’s older light strips displayed just one colour at a time, while newer versions can shine multiple colours at once. There are also sets of light strips designed specifically for gaming monitors and televisions of certain sizes, from 27in to 75in. Pair one of these with Hue’s Sync Box, which attaches between your television and devices like games consoles, and the light strip will react to what’s on the screen. Add two Hue Play Bar lights that project onto the walls, and suddenly your entire room is responding to the TV – it’s a lot of fun, but a full lighting kit like this can cost well over £500.

Outdoor lighting

Philips Hue sells dozens of outdoor lights. These include wall-mounted lights that use your property’s existing hardwiring, as well as plug-in spot lights that illuminate flowerbeds, pillar lights for paths and drives, and the Festavia range of multi-coloured string lights.

Most outdoor Hue lights are full-colour, so are somewhat more expensive than white-only alternatives you might find elsewhere. You’re looking at £100 for a single Lily garden spotlight, £140 for a bollard light, and over £300 for a whole house’s worth of festive string lights on a 40-metre cord. Extension cables of various lengths are available, along with weatherproof motion sensors.

I tested a three-pack of Lily spotlights on a five-metre cable for this review. They’re expensive, at £320 (reduced to £237 at the time of writing), but there’s no denying the quality of both the hardware and the light they produce. Made from aluminium, they are clearly built to last, and come with three mounting options, including for screwing to a flat surface, or fixing into the ground at two different heights.

Philips Hue Lily Outdoor Spotlights

Rating: 4.5/5

Best:

Light quantity: 3

Water resistance: IP65

Extendable: Yes

Full colour: Yes

Mains or hardwired: Mains, three-pin plug

Mounting options: Wall-mountable plates + ground stakes

Why we love it

• Quality hardware
• Excellent lighting
• Easy installation

Take note

• Expensive
• Extension cables may be required

Philips Hue Lily spotlights are weather-resistant, mains-powered and extendable lighting for your garden. Designed for illuminating flowerbeds, pathways, walls and potted plants, this kit includes three spotlights with full-colour bulbs, power cables and a mains plug. The cables are extendable (extensions sold separately) and there are two spotlight mounting options included in the box: plates for wall-mounting and stakes for fixing into the ground.

Buy now £241.82, Amazon

They draw power from a regular plug socket, so installation is easy if you already have a weather resistant outdoor socket, and they connect to the Hue app just like indoor lighting. The chunky cables are designed to be buried under soil and their connections screw together for a secure, weatherproof fit. They can be extended easily, with extra lights or a longer power cable. I purchased a five-metre extension cable (about £17 from Amazon) to improve the location of the lights in my garden, and it all works perfectly.

Accessories

Hue Bridge Pro

Many Hue lighting products can be controlled directly from the Hue app on your smartphone or tablet, no hub required. But to unlock full functionality you’ll need the Hue Bridge or newer Hue Bridge Pro.

I’ve used the former for years with no issues at all. The Hue Bridge plugs into your router with an Ethernet cable, then connects your whole system to the Hue app, where it can be controlled locally or while away from home. Adding new lights and accessories is as simple as scanning their QR code with the app and pressing the big, single button on the front of the Bridge.

Philips Hue Bridge Pro

Rating: 3.5/5

Connectivity: Wifi and Ethernet

Light limit: Over 150 lights

Accessory limit: Over 50

Matter compatible: Yes

Why we love it

• Much more powerful than standard Bridge
• Enables Hue MotionAware
• Enhanced connectivity
• Easy to add to existing systems

Take note

• Expensive
• Speed improvements hard to spot
• Little benefit over old Bridge (for now)

The new Bridge Pro is a major upgrade over the aging standard Hue Bridge...at least on paper. There’s more power and an ability to communicate with even more lights and switches, plus Wifi support for the first time, but for now only power-users are likely to spot the difference in performance.

The new MotionAware feature is a clever way of adding motion control – where walking into a room can turn the lights on – to your existing Hue bulbs, but for now the Bridge Pro feels like sensible future-proofing rather than delivering a huge upgrade.

Buy now £79.99, Amazon

But that Bridge has its limits. It can work with up to 50 lights and 12 accessories (like switches and sensors), meaning larger lighting systems require multiple Bridges. The new Hue Bridge Pro addresses this; it’s more powerful, faster to respond, and works with 186 lights and over 50 accessories. It also has wifi, so doesn’t rely on an Ethernet connection – handy if you’ve no free ports left on your router.

I switched my system to the Hue Bridge Pro in summer 2026. It’s a process that was simple enough, but took about 45 minutes for the app to complete. And, while I like how my system now has lots of headroom to expand, I haven’t really noticed any difference in performance. I wouldn’t recommend Hue Bridge owners upgrading to the Pro unless they’re reached the lighting and accessory limit, or need to switch their system from Ethernet to wifi.

Switches

Hue sells a range of switches, from singular buttons to wall-mountable dimmers and buttons that can enable several pre-programmed scenes with a press. These are all wireless and powered by coin-style batteries, but also come with magnetic mounting plates, which can be stuck or screwed to a wall. The switch then snaps into place magnetically for handy storage.

My home setup includes several Hue buttons and switches. I have wall-mounted dimmer switches in the bedrooms, plus a Hue Tap Dial for switching between several settings in the lounge – this tends to live on the sofa, side table or foot stool – and a Hue Smart Button, which is fitted to my bedside table and, with a press, turns off every Hue light in the house.

Read more: Can you use smart light bulbs with regular fixtures? An expert explains

App control

The Hue smartphone app is packed with features, but remains simple enough to use without becoming overly complicated as your system grows. It’s quick and easy to add new lights and accessories, give them names and organise them into zones and rooms. It’s also easy to adjust the brightness, temperature and colour of each light, save the settings you want, and browse the huge selection of pre-sets (known as scenes) created by Hue itself.

There’s a section for automations, such as the ‘mimic presence’ feature, where your lights will turn on and off to make your home look occupied while you’re away. Other automations include a sunrise simulation, which can be applied to any Hue lights and configured to last between five and 60 minutes. I really like being woken up in the winter by my bedroom lights gradually shifting from cool blue to warm orange and eventual daylight as they brighten.

The app can start to feel cluttered with larger homes, especially if you have Hue lighting in every room, and perhaps even several zones in one room – I have our bedside lights set as their own zone, for example.

Smart home integration

Philips Hue lighting can be controlled by a broad range of smart home platforms, including Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT. There’s also support for the Matter smart home standard, plus integration with Spotify and Sonos too.

All this means Hue lighting can be controlled by speaking to your voice assistant of choice, or via apps like Apple Home, and control hubs like Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays.

The verdict: Philips Hue smart lighting

There’s a reason why many consider Philips Hue to be the gold standard of smart home lighting. In fact, there are several reasons.

The company offers a huge breadth of products, from simple bulbs and buttons, to strips, ceiling lights, garden lighting, and even lighting that reacts to your television. The Hue system also works reliably, is quick and easy to set up, and really can be expanded to fill an entire home, no matter the size. The app works very well, the switches – although not particularly premium to look at – add plenty of extra functionality away from the app – and the outdoor lighting adds a whole new dimension to your garden design.

But Hue products are expensive. This isn’t as clear-cut a criticism as it used to be, since cheaper, simpler bulbs have arrived in recent years. But a single room very quickly becomes a three-figure outlay, and a whole-home system can easily stumble into the thousands if done properly.

That said, no one is forcing you to kit out an entire home with Hue. A few choice bulbs and strips can transform any room. Add in the quality hardware, feature-packed app – plus broad smart home compatibility, too – and Hue is hard to beat.

How we tested

I’ve owned a variety of Philips Hue products for over half a decade, and have reviewed plenty of others in that time too. These include bulbs and light strips, as well as switches, hubs, outdoor lighting and the company’s Play system, which works with televisions and gaming monitors.

For this article specifically, I took into account my own system at home, and also spent time with new products provided for review, including the Bridge Pro and Lily garden lights.

Why you can trust us

The Independent is committed to providing unbiased reviews and expert shopping advice across a range of home improvement products. Our team of experts has spent years testing and rating the latest smart home tech in our homes, gardens and under real-world conditions, so you can be sure our verdicts are authentic and based on personal experience with each product featured. When it comes to smart lighting, our expert testers consider everything from app features and installation, to smart home connectivity.

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