@ugm133a I am aware of what that means. Hope you realize that the light from a candle is yellowish and so is this bulb. Might have exaggerated slightly but it’s still very close to being that yellow.
@cengland0 I got these the last time these were on sale. Just installed two in my bedroom and can confirm they are bright as fuck. I use the app to turn them down to ~65% to emulate my older incandescent lights.
@dupart3 I wasn’t referring to brightness and I don’t know why anyone thought I was – especially after I put the color chart in a response.
A candle’s light is very yellow and so are these bulbs. That’s all I was trying to say. I never intended to say that this bulb is as bright as a single candle.
@cengland0 I understood what you meant since I’ve done work that required knowing what kelvin bulb temperatures mean, but I can see why most people didn’t get it. Usually if you’re referring to a light as “candle light” it means candle power.
@cengland0 2700k is the same color a standard incandescent bulb puts out. Good for people that don’t like the crazy daylight colored bulbs. 2700-3000k is good for relaxed spaces. 3500k, 4100k+ is good for work spaces.
Alternatively, you could buy a couple of regular old light bulbs and turn your lights on by just reaching over and flicking a switch, and have about $38 more in the bank.
@Steve7654 Meh, I like that these can be scheduled to turn on at a certain time. Helps me wake up in the morning way better than any alarm. Simulates “natural light” sunrise.
@Steve7654 I picked up a set of these for one purpose. When I’m getting ready for bed, sometimes I read. By that point, my cats all have settled in around me. Instead of leaning over the cat, I just use the Phone app to shut off the light when I’m done reading. Also, now I can control the light on the other side of the bed together or separately. One I’ve been too lazy to use for over a decade now.
@cutitdown Yeah, I’m kind of put off by having a cell phone that could be potentially recording anything I say, let alone having a device specially built to do just that.
@Steve7654 not everyone has light switches. shitty ceiling pull string lights + hardly any outlets + floor lamps with switches on the cord = can’t just flip a wall switch or easily acess a lamp switch. we have a few tp link/wemo switches we use with alexa and they’ve made a world of difference for us. we bought the last hue kit meh sold for our main living room lamp and we love it.
and for those concerned with brightness we almost never use it at 100%. it’s plenty bright.
@awk I’m getting tired of the hue and cry over these endlessly repeated refurb deals.
To be honest, isn’t Meh just a refurb of Woot? Why do I have such lofty expectations, only to have my dreams repeatedly crushed, every night at 11 (central)?
@jakeline I’m also in for 3: my wife loves these things; she has terrible night vision and can use voice activation instead of looking for a light switch (and ending up in the basement).
@fuzzmanmatt Advantages of this over smart outlets include dimmable lighting, color control (with the right bulbs), and preset lighting scenes. Disadvantage is that the consumable (bulb) is the special part of the system so when the bulb goes the smarts have to be replaced with it.
I have the older generation in lamps in my house, and it’s nice to be able to do things like set 10% light in the living room lamp as a night light when we have guests stay over. It sucks when someone doesn’t know and turns the lamp off by the physical switch.
The older bridge/kit Meh sold before doesn’t do color, but I don’t know how much of a deal breaker that is for most people.
@ruouttaurmind Directly through the Hue app they have what are called “routines” where you can schedule and set a gradual dim or brighten from 0 to 30 minutes in 5 minute increments. Add any other home automation like Wink or Smartthings and you’ll have additional options available.
@djslack So it’s more like a “stair step” than a curve? Or a curve averaged over 5 minute increments? My old (abandoned) X10 system frustrated me, thwarting my every attempt to achieve a 15 second curve. The closest I could come was a 15 second stair step with 15 steps. Not exactly the soothing effect I was hoping to create.
@fuzzmanmatt we have that same setup and added the hue last time meh sold it for our main living room lamp (most used light in our apt). we really like it for the dim feature & eventually want to get the color change bulbs. works great with alexa, easy to set up, and freed up a wemo switch for something else. (i strung a bunch of tiny led warm white xmas lights and use it for those :))
@ruouttaurmind No, it’s not a stairstep. It’s just that you can’t set it to fade over 7 and a half minutes (or two minutes). It’s an even, gradual fade, but only available in 5 minute increments. You can simulate sunrise (except for color temperature changes) with a 20 or 30 minute fade on. Fade timers run after your triggered time, so if you want full light at 7 am with a 20 minute fade, set the timer for 6:40.
I’ve never used that feature, just checked it out in the app to report on it for you. I have no trouble telling Alexa to set the living room lamp to any percentage at all, and the lights kind of gradually fade (over maybe 2 seconds?) to that setting. I can’t tell the difference between 16 and 17% brightness with my own eye, though, so it’s mostly just for my own amusement.
I’ll try to check and see if there’s a way to do a 15 second curve.
@djslack I appreciate your effort my friend. Unfortunately I missed the early release this morning, and likely won’t score at 4PM due to a meeting conflict.
@ruouttaurmind No easy way to do a 15 second fade in the Hue app. You can do it with additional work either through Wink or Smarthings or if you have a zigbee interface and software to write settings to the bulbs (fade time is a zigbee setting, measured in .1s increments).
@djslack I appreciate the info. I tried fussing with the API in X10, but their hardware just wasn’t capable of delivering a smooth curve. Even at .25s event intervals the fade was a herky jerky mess.
Sounds like Imma have to spend a little coin and get a “real” system to reach my desired effect. In my exosphere… prolly not worth it for a useless gee-wiz feature.
@ruouttaurmind You’re welcome. I believe that this plus $100 towards either wink or Smarthings will get you what you need. If you want to use any hue products i believe you need the hub, even with one of the aforementioned systems.
@droopus it doesn’t transmit anything unless it hears its wake word and the. It only transmits a short time.
If you’re going be paranoid you might as well start with the microphone connected to the internet in your phone or computer. That one probably has a gps and a camera too.
Been slowly converting my home to all-LED lighting over the past two years. I knew it was all over for squggle bulbs when I saw LED soft white 6-packs at Costco today for $9.95.
Am I the only person here who is trying to figure out what the fork they do to a lightbulb to refurbish it? (If so, that’s OK. My kitty loves me anyway. As long as I feed him.)
if i have several of the bulbs i can control with an app, and change their color, that are still un-opened, can anybody explain why i want to buy this?
i just yoinked out a cupla switches this weekend, one three watyand the other not, LEDs, dimmable, $20 each for switches, controlling 8+ lights now, oooooh yeaaaa
Careful. I got this the last time around, when it was the first gen refurb, thinking, “ehhh… I can’t see myself blowing money on color changing light bulbs, I’m a fiscally responsible adult. This’ll just be for fun.”
Turns out I was wrong on both counts; I’m at least 25 smart home devices in and have Meh to thank/blame for it. I roll out of bed, push a button on the dresser, boom, lights are on and set to a cooler white for a little energy boost, coffee maker is turned on, door is unlocked. I get to my car, hit another button clipped to the sun visor, lights back off, door locks, security system’s activated. I’ve got interior and exterior lighting color schemes for holidays, sports teams, and Plants vs. Zombies because the kids think it’s fun. My thermostat adjusts itself to match my temperature preferences due to weather and turns itself down when I cross a geofence outside of my local trips to stores, etc. The same fence turns on my exterior lighting and preheats the home when I head back, and a second one opens the garage door when I’m a few houses away. I’ve got burner door codes set up for the neighbor kids to feed our dogs when we’re away that cancel themselves automatically when we’re home. I lay in bed at night reading new SmartApp code in GitHub to find new ways to meet my questionable needs. I need help please don’t buy this it’ll ruin you forever aaaahhh
You guys are all enablers. Now get over here and check out this sweet and totally necessary light show I have synced up to my motion detector and front door lock.
I didn’t hook my first generation up yet. And today’s works fine alongside the old one? I have to read up on this a little bit more. Maybe I’m over complicating this.
(side note: my laptop is getting sicker by the hour. I’m worried that if something ‘interesting’ comes up April fool’s, I won’t be able to click fast enough )
So can you dim these do-dads in the app or with Google Home without using a dimmer switch on the wall? Or do you have to buy yet another do-dad to dim previously mentioned do-dad?
@bdorsch44 I have the first generation one from the last drop. You can definitely dim them from the app or your convenient talking robot friend without having a dimmer switch.
@rprussell as long as you unenroll the bulbs from the first hub you should have no problems, or enroll the new bulbs with old hub and then migrate everything to the new hub. The new bulbs should also work with the old hub; the only difference is the old hub does not support color. Bulbs can only be paired with one hub at a time.
@jareza good to know. I had in my head for some reason that my hub doesn’t do color. If it does I have zero reason to buy this too, as I don’t need Homekit (yet anyway).
Is $40 for a refurb enough of a discount vs $70 new? Or $45 vs $70 if you don’t have the now dieing VMP but do have the very common Prime. Not even half off?
90 day warranty vs (I think) 24 warranty new. Phillips product warranty pdf is confusing.
Phillips warranty registration page (plastered all over the Amazon page, promoting further warranty extension) does not recognize this model number.
Oddly, this kit qualifies for a further 20% discount under Amazon’s Subscribe & Save? Do they consider these to be so short lived as to be consumables?
I have all of the bulbs in my home changed to Hue. They work very well and I love using them with my Amazon Echo “Alexa”. I have about 50% refurbs, and refurbs really just seem to be customer returns. They have all worked great. I have 1 bulb that gave me some problems and it was from the brand new set. The gen 1 work fine with gen 2 and some people actually report the gen 1 hub works better for them (this was my experience with initial firmware as well). The only difference between gen 1 & 2 is that the gen 2 hub will work with HomeKit. The bulbs are backwards compatible. Also, if you are getting color bulbs the gen 2 bulbs have better greens. I love my Hue home setup combined with Amazon Echo. I can control almost everything in my home now with voice commands (of course additional hardware required to control other smarthome aspects like thermostats, doors, etc). I wouldn’t purchase these white only bulbs as half the fun is being able to change the colors!
Why are they called “Hue” if they have no hues? I bought a set of VERY CHEAP color-changing bulbs w/speaker here several months ago that do much more (change light strength, change color, play music - badly, but at least it does play music) than the fancy name-brand Philips I bought here last time. All they do is turn on, off and dim. I thought a name-brand would do more than a Chinese knock-off…
I pass. The world is better off as a whole if I walk the extra ten steps to switch off the light. This consumes 0.5W in stand by mode, plus 1.5W in the bridge. For four lights, stand by increases consumption by a factor of two for my typical usage pattern.
@steelopus I’ve been watching that. I’m guessing the VMP save is going to be basically phased out to a token number over time since they’re not trying to get people to sign up for it anymore.
I just received mine yesterday, and found a lamp to put one in. Setup was easy, and I rather liked waking up to the light slowly (un?)dimming when I was approaching alarm wakeup time. Echo integration was easy, HomeKit less so, but it finally worked. Now I want one of the multicolor ones to play with.
I got mine over the weekend and the base unit won’t even turn on. I called Phillips because there’s supposed to be a 90 day Phillips warranty on these. I talked to two different reps and a manager and they say that Phillips does not warrant refurbished units.
@tachijuan EXACTLY the same experience. In fact, Phillips is telling me Meh isn’t even authorized to sell these, says Phillps doesn’t refurbish products nor ever offer a warranty on refurbished products. In fact, I was told that this the 3rd time they’ve told Mew to STOP selling their stuff, that it isn’t authorized to do so, AND they have advised their legal department of this. Says they had sent an email around to their support staff that Meh is doing this sale again and to be aware. I’m incredibly disappointed and think I might be done with Meh.
@tachijuan@someRiverNoise The correct warranty procedure is in the package and it’s not actually through Hue support. The warranty is supported on this by Phillip’s exclusive refurb center. Link to this form is here
No, nothing in writing… I spoke to someone named “James” at Phillips at the phone number on their support page. I’m not concerned, if I’m being honest, with the ‘behind the scenes’ of this… I’d appreciate a simple refund processed at this point. It’s becoming a pretty big time and inconvenience for me.
The correct warranty procedure is in the package and it’s not actually through Hue support. The warranty is supported on this by Phillip’s exclusive refurb center. Link to this form is here.
Yeah, that wasn’t clear at all. The listing (originally, and at the top of this forum post) links directly to Phillips Support Page. I contacted the # on this form, who then asked me to send along an email describing the problem, providing sales receipt attachment… and I have to wait further… This has been a terrible process (and from the woman I just spoke to at this warranty location, I’m the 3rd call like this she’s received this week - that they’ve been asking Mediocre to update their documentation for product support, but that it hasn’t been done, so they, too, are getting angry calls).
@DJDan agreed, the warranty contact here was incorrect and that was our fault. It was correct in the packaging and correct on the previous 2 Hue events (this was our 3rd successful event), but it was listed incorrectly on this one.
Phillips customer support has no clue of the many thousands of units their own company is selling off to be refurbished, but that’s not your problem.
@snapster And so I called them (wasting more of my time) and they will do NOTHING unless I ship the whole thing back to them AT MY COST. And wait longer, to see IF they will replace it. This whole things a joke. I’d really appreciate a refund. If not, I’ll be happy to share my experience with others in hopes they don’t find themselves in a similiar situation.
@snapster Unbelievable. Used to check Meh daily. Every day. Had it booked mark, got daily emails. Made several purchases. Once had VMP for a while. Referred countless folks to check it out. Never once had a problem. And now over a $40 item, this is how it ends. Thanks.
Specs
What’s in the Box?
2x Philips Hue white light bulbs
1x bridge
1x Ethernet cable
1x power adapter
Pictures
The kit
A Bulb
Box
Price Comparison
$69.99 (New) at Amazon
Warranty
90 Day Refurbisher
Estimated Delivery
Monday, July 13th - Friday, July 17th
meh
“Watt” a bright idea
2700K, if you don’t mind getting around the house in candle light.
@cengland0 That’s just light temperature, not brightness - many people don’t like daylight temperature indoors …
@ugm133a I am aware of what that means. Hope you realize that the light from a candle is yellowish and so is this bulb. Might have exaggerated slightly but it’s still very close to being that yellow.
@cengland0 I got these the last time these were on sale. Just installed two in my bedroom and can confirm they are bright as fuck. I use the app to turn them down to ~65% to emulate my older incandescent lights.
@dupart3 I wasn’t referring to brightness and I don’t know why anyone thought I was – especially after I put the color chart in a response.
A candle’s light is very yellow and so are these bulbs. That’s all I was trying to say. I never intended to say that this bulb is as bright as a single candle.
@cengland0 I understood what you meant since I’ve done work that required knowing what kelvin bulb temperatures mean, but I can see why most people didn’t get it. Usually if you’re referring to a light as “candle light” it means candle power.
@cengland0 2700k is the same color a standard incandescent bulb puts out. Good for people that don’t like the crazy daylight colored bulbs. 2700-3000k is good for relaxed spaces. 3500k, 4100k+ is good for work spaces.
Everyone’s opinion is different on this.
Looks old to me, this technology is moving so fast I probably wouldn’t take a chance on some old gen stuff…
Hue oughta know
Reading that bitcoin link really confirmed that I don’t know anything about bitcoin.
How far can bulbs be away from the hub?
@stilesja 30m but the bulbs repeat. So with this set your farthest bulb can be 60m but one needs to be in the middle.
Alternatively, you could buy a couple of regular old light bulbs and turn your lights on by just reaching over and flicking a switch, and have about $38 more in the bank.
@Steve7654 Meh, I like that these can be scheduled to turn on at a certain time. Helps me wake up in the morning way better than any alarm. Simulates “natural light” sunrise.
@Steve7654 they’re nice for mood lighting during sexy time.
Yup. That’s why I never use my tv remoter, either.
@Steve7654 I picked up a set of these for one purpose. When I’m getting ready for bed, sometimes I read. By that point, my cats all have settled in around me. Instead of leaning over the cat, I just use the Phone app to shut off the light when I’m done reading. Also, now I can control the light on the other side of the bed together or separately. One I’ve been too lazy to use for over a decade now.
@woo545 It’s also awesome if you have a Home or Echo and can just use your voice to turn it on off or set the brightness.
@cutitdown Yeah, I’m kind of put off by having a cell phone that could be potentially recording anything I say, let alone having a device specially built to do just that.
@woo545 Haha – they’re certainly not for everyone. But for those that don’t mind, I just thought I’d mention it.
@cutitdown or turn it off with “the clapper”
@Steve7654 not everyone has light switches. shitty ceiling pull string lights + hardly any outlets + floor lamps with switches on the cord = can’t just flip a wall switch or easily acess a lamp switch. we have a few tp link/wemo switches we use with alexa and they’ve made a world of difference for us. we bought the last hue kit meh sold for our main living room lamp and we love it.
and for those concerned with brightness we almost never use it at 100%. it’s plenty bright.
@Steve7654 Aren’t you cute? It’s almost like people can buy things that they like and others don’t have to if they don’t. What a world
Getting tired of this Hugh Phillips guy.
@awk I’m getting tired of the hue and cry over these endlessly repeated refurb deals.
To be honest, isn’t Meh just a refurb of Woot? Why do I have such lofty expectations, only to have my dreams repeatedly crushed, every night at 11 (central)?
First!
@wootthereitis almost, KNOT
That bitcoin block is actually named “1d1b23d9c3814319d4552fef3674df54dcecd91f68673c1”. “455287” is just what his friends call him.
LOL
Have this, love this, bought it for my brother.
/giphy truthful-manageable-pizza
@jakeline I’m also in for 3: my wife loves these things; she has terrible night vision and can use voice activation instead of looking for a light switch (and ending up in the basement).
wealthy-pathetic-cat
@seraphimcaduto
/image wealthy pathetic cat
@narfcake
I have a bunch of TPLink smart outlets hooked up to Alexa, would this really be worth getting into anther product line just for lighting?
@fuzzmanmatt I dunno, something about always listening + connected to the net makes me a bit queasy…
@fuzzmanmatt Advantages of this over smart outlets include dimmable lighting, color control (with the right bulbs), and preset lighting scenes. Disadvantage is that the consumable (bulb) is the special part of the system so when the bulb goes the smarts have to be replaced with it.
I have the older generation in lamps in my house, and it’s nice to be able to do things like set 10% light in the living room lamp as a night light when we have guests stay over. It sucks when someone doesn’t know and turns the lamp off by the physical switch.
The older bridge/kit Meh sold before doesn’t do color, but I don’t know how much of a deal breaker that is for most people.
@djslack I know you can set “scenes” but can you do “theater dimming”? (Programmed gradual dim or brighten)
@ruouttaurmind Directly through the Hue app they have what are called “routines” where you can schedule and set a gradual dim or brighten from 0 to 30 minutes in 5 minute increments. Add any other home automation like Wink or Smartthings and you’ll have additional options available.
@djslack So it’s more like a “stair step” than a curve? Or a curve averaged over 5 minute increments? My old (abandoned) X10 system frustrated me, thwarting my every attempt to achieve a 15 second curve. The closest I could come was a 15 second stair step with 15 steps. Not exactly the soothing effect I was hoping to create.
@fuzzmanmatt we have that same setup and added the hue last time meh sold it for our main living room lamp (most used light in our apt). we really like it for the dim feature & eventually want to get the color change bulbs. works great with alexa, easy to set up, and freed up a wemo switch for something else. (i strung a bunch of tiny led warm white xmas lights and use it for those :))
@ruouttaurmind No, it’s not a stairstep. It’s just that you can’t set it to fade over 7 and a half minutes (or two minutes). It’s an even, gradual fade, but only available in 5 minute increments. You can simulate sunrise (except for color temperature changes) with a 20 or 30 minute fade on. Fade timers run after your triggered time, so if you want full light at 7 am with a 20 minute fade, set the timer for 6:40.
I’ve never used that feature, just checked it out in the app to report on it for you. I have no trouble telling Alexa to set the living room lamp to any percentage at all, and the lights kind of gradually fade (over maybe 2 seconds?) to that setting. I can’t tell the difference between 16 and 17% brightness with my own eye, though, so it’s mostly just for my own amusement.
I’ll try to check and see if there’s a way to do a 15 second curve.
@djslack I appreciate your effort my friend. Unfortunately I missed the early release this morning, and likely won’t score at 4PM due to a meeting conflict.
@ruouttaurmind No easy way to do a 15 second fade in the Hue app. You can do it with additional work either through Wink or Smarthings or if you have a zigbee interface and software to write settings to the bulbs (fade time is a zigbee setting, measured in .1s increments).
@djslack I appreciate the info. I tried fussing with the API in X10, but their hardware just wasn’t capable of delivering a smooth curve. Even at .25s event intervals the fade was a herky jerky mess.
Sounds like Imma have to spend a little coin and get a “real” system to reach my desired effect. In my exosphere… prolly not worth it for a useless gee-wiz feature.
Thanks for your effort and feedback on this, Sir.
@ruouttaurmind You’re welcome. I believe that this plus $100 towards either wink or Smarthings will get you what you need. If you want to use any hue products i believe you need the hub, even with one of the aforementioned systems.
@droopus it doesn’t transmit anything unless it hears its wake word and the. It only transmits a short time.
If you’re going be paranoid you might as well start with the microphone connected to the internet in your phone or computer. That one probably has a gps and a camera too.
Been slowly converting my home to all-LED lighting over the past two years. I knew it was all over for squggle bulbs when I saw LED soft white 6-packs at Costco today for $9.95.
@droopus I knew it was over for the CFL squiggles when our Costco stopped selling them at least 6-8 months ago.
@droopus They’ve got LED bulbs at my Dollar Store right now. You can bet I picked up some of those.
If these played music I would be tempted.
@andrewj. I have those. No, you wouldn’t.
Am I the only person here who is trying to figure out what the fork they do to a lightbulb to refurbish it? (If so, that’s OK. My kitty loves me anyway. As long as I feed him.)
@gertiestn It’s just a light refurbishing.
@mehcuda67 I see watt you did there
@gertiestn I imagine a lot of these are “I just didn’t want this present” or “I don’t feel like dealing with the app” returns.
if i have several of the bulbs i can control with an app, and change their color, that are still un-opened, can anybody explain why i want to buy this?
@Yoda_Daenerys Hipster. Street. Cred.
I’m in.
i just yoinked out a cupla switches this weekend, one three watyand the other not, LEDs, dimmable, $20 each for switches, controlling 8+ lights now, oooooh yeaaaa
/youtube happy dance
/giphy happy pants
/image slappy hands
Careful. I got this the last time around, when it was the first gen refurb, thinking, “ehhh… I can’t see myself blowing money on color changing light bulbs, I’m a fiscally responsible adult. This’ll just be for fun.”
Turns out I was wrong on both counts; I’m at least 25 smart home devices in and have Meh to thank/blame for it. I roll out of bed, push a button on the dresser, boom, lights are on and set to a cooler white for a little energy boost, coffee maker is turned on, door is unlocked. I get to my car, hit another button clipped to the sun visor, lights back off, door locks, security system’s activated. I’ve got interior and exterior lighting color schemes for holidays, sports teams, and Plants vs. Zombies because the kids think it’s fun. My thermostat adjusts itself to match my temperature preferences due to weather and turns itself down when I cross a geofence outside of my local trips to stores, etc. The same fence turns on my exterior lighting and preheats the home when I head back, and a second one opens the garage door when I’m a few houses away. I’ve got burner door codes set up for the neighbor kids to feed our dogs when we’re away that cancel themselves automatically when we’re home. I lay in bed at night reading new SmartApp code in GitHub to find new ways to meet my questionable needs. I need help please don’t buy this it’ll ruin you forever aaaahhh
@Rosstafari, you may just be my hero.
@haydesigner hooray!
@Rosstafari thanks for confirming that I, indeed, do need this in my life. Got one
@Rosstafari That’s Witchcraft!
@Rosstafari +1 for being my hero as well.
@Rosstafari Ahhhh, one down just another 213 million more to go before we control everyone.
/image you control nothing
@Rosstafari +2 you are my hero too. I read your post and laughed really hard. Thank you. BTW, yes you do need some help.
You guys are all enablers. Now get over here and check out this sweet and totally necessary light show I have synced up to my motion detector and front door lock.
/giphy abject-gorgeous-paper
Bought the gen one for my bro last time. He’s gonna be jelly haha
/giphy overt-sedentary-pizza
It’s like manna from heaven…
Zuckerberg’s home automation
I didn’t hook my first generation up yet. And today’s works fine alongside the old one? I have to read up on this a little bit more. Maybe I’m over complicating this.
(side note: my laptop is getting sicker by the hour. I’m worried that if something ‘interesting’ comes up April fool’s, I won’t be able to click fast enough
)
Paused the deal while I was updating my CC info
So can you dim these do-dads in the app or with Google Home without using a dimmer switch on the wall? Or do you have to buy yet another do-dad to dim previously mentioned do-dad?
@bdorsch44 I have the first generation one from the last drop. You can definitely dim them from the app or your convenient talking robot friend without having a dimmer switch.
I got this last time - one bulb didn’t work and after a month of eMails Philips still won’t honor the warranty.
/giphy active-gnarly-seal
Now I can add meaning to my life with home automation.
Can previous sale’s bulbs work with this sale’s controller?
(I have a hunch it wouldn’t go the other way around)
@rprussell read the second review on the Amazon page (Stephanie Sullivan). It might answer your concerns.
@RedOak
Thanks, that sounds like juuust enough of a headache for me to avoid it.
/image you’re my hero
@rprussell as long as you unenroll the bulbs from the first hub you should have no problems, or enroll the new bulbs with old hub and then migrate everything to the new hub. The new bulbs should also work with the old hub; the only difference is the old hub does not support color. Bulbs can only be paired with one hub at a time.
@djslack you are wrong my friend, 1st gen and 2nd gen support color… bridges one and two are the same except gen 2 hub supports apple HomeKit
@jareza good to know. I had in my head for some reason that my hub doesn’t do color. If it does I have zero reason to buy this too, as I don’t need Homekit (yet anyway).
Hmmm…
Is $40 for a refurb enough of a discount vs $70 new? Or $45 vs $70 if you don’t have the now dieing VMP but do have the very common Prime. Not even half off?
90 day warranty vs (I think) 24 warranty new. Phillips product warranty pdf is confusing.
Phillips warranty registration page (plastered all over the Amazon page, promoting further warranty extension) does not recognize this model number.
Oddly, this kit qualifies for a further 20% discount under Amazon’s Subscribe & Save? Do they consider these to be so short lived as to be consumables?
Hue thinks this is a good deal
I have all of the bulbs in my home changed to Hue. They work very well and I love using them with my Amazon Echo “Alexa”. I have about 50% refurbs, and refurbs really just seem to be customer returns. They have all worked great. I have 1 bulb that gave me some problems and it was from the brand new set. The gen 1 work fine with gen 2 and some people actually report the gen 1 hub works better for them (this was my experience with initial firmware as well). The only difference between gen 1 & 2 is that the gen 2 hub will work with HomeKit. The bulbs are backwards compatible. Also, if you are getting color bulbs the gen 2 bulbs have better greens. I love my Hue home setup combined with Amazon Echo. I can control almost everything in my home now with voice commands (of course additional hardware required to control other smarthome aspects like thermostats, doors, etc). I wouldn’t purchase these white only bulbs as half the fun is being able to change the colors!
Why are they called “Hue” if they have no hues? I bought a set of VERY CHEAP color-changing bulbs w/speaker here several months ago that do much more (change light strength, change color, play music - badly, but at least it does play music) than the fancy name-brand Philips I bought here last time. All they do is turn on, off and dim. I thought a name-brand would do more than a Chinese knock-off…
@comics360 It’s a product line…you can still buy color ones.
Not bad
/giphy taunting-feathery-print
I pass. The world is better off as a whole if I walk the extra ten steps to switch off the light. This consumes 0.5W in stand by mode, plus 1.5W in the bridge. For four lights, stand by increases consumption by a factor of two for my typical usage pattern.
Sometimes procrastination pays…
/giphy ample-hysterical-vase
“4pm - 4pm ET: 30 sold to VMP members”
30? You reserved a whole 30 of these for 4pm? THIRTY?
Generous.
@steelopus I’ve been watching that. I’m guessing the VMP save is going to be basically phased out to a token number over time since they’re not trying to get people to sign up for it anymore.
I just received mine yesterday, and found a lamp to put one in. Setup was easy, and I rather liked waking up to the light slowly (un?)dimming when I was approaching alarm wakeup time. Echo integration was easy, HomeKit less so, but it finally worked. Now I want one of the multicolor ones to play with.
I got mine over the weekend and the base unit won’t even turn on. I called Phillips because there’s supposed to be a 90 day Phillips warranty on these. I talked to two different reps and a manager and they say that Phillips does not warrant refurbished units.
@tachijuan EXACTLY the same experience. In fact, Phillips is telling me Meh isn’t even authorized to sell these, says Phillps doesn’t refurbish products nor ever offer a warranty on refurbished products. In fact, I was told that this the 3rd time they’ve told Mew to STOP selling their stuff, that it isn’t authorized to do so, AND they have advised their legal department of this. Says they had sent an email around to their support staff that Meh is doing this sale again and to be aware. I’m incredibly disappointed and think I might be done with Meh.
@Dave @snapster
ping
@DJDan @someRiverNoise thanks our team will be resolving asap. any chance they provided those comments in writing that we could use to resolve?
@tachijuan @someRiverNoise The correct warranty procedure is in the package and it’s not actually through Hue support. The warranty is supported on this by Phillip’s exclusive refurb center. Link to this form is here
No, nothing in writing… I spoke to someone named “James” at Phillips at the phone number on their support page. I’m not concerned, if I’m being honest, with the ‘behind the scenes’ of this… I’d appreciate a simple refund processed at this point. It’s becoming a pretty big time and inconvenience for me.
The correct warranty procedure is in the package and it’s not actually through Hue support. The warranty is supported on this by Phillip’s exclusive refurb center. Link to this form is here.
Yeah, that wasn’t clear at all. The listing (originally, and at the top of this forum post) links directly to Phillips Support Page. I contacted the # on this form, who then asked me to send along an email describing the problem, providing sales receipt attachment… and I have to wait further… This has been a terrible process (and from the woman I just spoke to at this warranty location, I’m the 3rd call like this she’s received this week - that they’ve been asking Mediocre to update their documentation for product support, but that it hasn’t been done, so they, too, are getting angry calls).
@DJDan agreed, the warranty contact here was incorrect and that was our fault. It was correct in the packaging and correct on the previous 2 Hue events (this was our 3rd successful event), but it was listed incorrectly on this one.
Phillips customer support has no clue of the many thousands of units their own company is selling off to be refurbished, but that’s not your problem.
Correction… I see you guys just changed the link on the top of this forum. Boy, that would have been nice to know originally.
@snapster I’ve now been waiting since Friday to hear from the warranty shop… This is crazy, folks.
@DJDan not hearing of any general trouble. Several thousand sold over 3 events. Check your spam filters or call them.
@snapster Well, that’s great for the thousands of others. Guess my terrible experience doesn’t matter much. Thanks.
@DJDan I treat our customers like family. My family isn’t that excited about it either.
@snapster And so I called them (wasting more of my time) and they will do NOTHING unless I ship the whole thing back to them AT MY COST. And wait longer, to see IF they will replace it. This whole things a joke. I’d really appreciate a refund. If not, I’ll be happy to share my experience with others in hopes they don’t find themselves in a similiar situation.
@DJDan great. This sounds resolved to me then. Stop wasting my time.
@snapster Unbelievable. Used to check Meh daily. Every day. Had it booked mark, got daily emails. Made several purchases. Once had VMP for a while. Referred countless folks to check it out. Never once had a problem. And now over a $40 item, this is how it ends. Thanks.