Philips Hue WiFi lighting set up - what do you have?

OU812

dendof wrote: »

Comes up as €59.74 delivered for me. Am I missing something in shipping?

DE site charges about €9 for delivery, so that & Irish VAT (don't know the German VAT rate), would account for the difference. I ended up cancelling my UK order which was supposed to be delivered today & ordered from here with an extension piece for an extra tenner.

dendof

OU812 wrote: »

DE site charges about €9 for delivery, so that & Irish VAT (don't know the German VAT rate), would account for the difference. I ended up cancelling my UK order which was supposed to be delivered today & ordered from here with an extension piece for an extra tenner.

Cool, yeah I figured that was the case. It was saying 49.95 with free shipping but that must be German addresses only. Still not a bad price I suppose. Hardly get much cheaper

TheTubes

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

Regarding the lightstrips how useful are they? I'd imagine its pretty hard to find a good location for them where the plug and wire is nicely hidden?

Where are some locations people are currently using these? Under kitchen cabinets? Behind TVs?

We are doing a new build at the moment. Am planning on putting hue strips over the kitchen cabinets and around the island.

Also toying with the idea of chasing out a channel in the skirting in the hall upstairs and putting a lightstrip in one of these


Would need to do some cutting/soldering and run wires under carpet at doorstops but pretty sure i can run it all along one wall unnoticed.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/products/lighting/floor-lamps/rutbo-floor-lamp-rectangular-white-art-00321591/

Here's what four of these guys look like in practice on a cold November morning. The room has two more behind the camera. BTW, it's surprisingly difficult to take photos which don't have the lights over-exposed, so bear in mind that that in realist, the lights aren't quite as prominent as they look here. An HDR image might do a better job.

BTW, that's a hue strip light in the lip around the room at the top of the vertical section of the wall. It's quite effective though it doesn't give an entirely smooth light - needs a better diffuser than the two ones I've tried.

ted1

TheTubes wrote: »

We are doing a new build at the moment. Am planning on putting hue strips over the kitchen cabinets and around the island.

Also toying with the idea of chasing out a channel in the skirting in the hall upstairs and putting a lightstrip in one of these


Would need to do some cutting/soldering and run wires under carpet at doorstops but pretty sure i can run it all along one wall unnoticed.

Wires under carpet are never good. They nearly always are noticeable. You only need bell wire so can tuck it under the saddle boards etc.

robindch

TheTubes wrote: »

Also toying with the idea of chasing out a channel in the skirting in the hall upstairs and putting a lightstrip in one of these

I discussed with my contractor putting in accent lighting at the bottom of a floating bookshelf - he recommended not to bother saying that he'd done something similar in somebody else's house and all it showed was how hard it is to keep a floor clean.

robindch

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

Regarding the lightstrips how useful are they? I'd imagine its pretty hard to find a good location for them where the plug and wire is nicely hidden?

See above photo for strip lights in a side extension - I'm happy with the way they turned out and the overall effect they have on the room. They're also installed as accent lighting in the kitchen - above the cupboards facing up, above the work surfaces facing down and also inside the two open shelves on either side of over the cooker extractor, also facing down. Have also installed one strip on top of each of the two bookshelves in the hallway, not only to highlight the bookshelves but also as low-output overnight nightlights in case myself or guests are staggering around at three in the morning looking for a light switch or the toilet.

Didn't take too much work to make the sockets, cables and power units mostly or completely invisible.

AndyBoBandy

That looks fantastic robindch, it's all hue yes?

Suddenly now I'm thinking I need a kitchen extension!!

BoardsMember

Looks great robindch, but surely more than just 4 of them, i.e. 4 x 2 metres, no?

AndyBoBandy

BoardsMember wrote: »

Looks great robindch, but surely more than just 4 of them, i.e. 4 x 2 metres, no?

you can add on 1m extensions to the 2m light strip plus (a maximum of 10 extensions can be added, giving a total length of 12m)

over my kitchen units, I have a 2m light strip plus, with 3 1m extensions, giving me 5m in total.

Optimus Prime

Can you see that strip and extensions all around your ceiling when it's switched off or do you have it hidden somehow ? Don't think I'd fancy a visible strip all the way around my ceiling. It looks great in the photos though.

AndyBoBandy

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Can you see that strip and extensions all around your ceiling when it's switched off or do you have it hidden somehow ? Don't think I'd fancy a visible strip all the way around my ceiling. It looks great in the photos though.

Looks to me like it's sitting on a nice little ledge, and given that the light is shining upwards, would tell me you'd only see the strip if you were very very tall!

Graham

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

you can add on 1m extensions to the 2m light strip plus (a maximum of 10 extensions can be added, giving a total length of 12m)

Doesn't the light output remain the same when adding the extensions, each one making the run progressively dimmer (or did I imagine reading that somewhere)?

AndyBoBandy

Graham wrote: »

Doesn't the light output remain the same when adding the extensions, each one making the run progressively dimmer (or did I imagine reading that somewhere)?

I think you might have imagined it, but I'd say thats why it's limited to 10 1m extensions, perhaps more would be too many for the power supply to run at full capacity.

Graham

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I think you might have imagined it, but I'd say thats why it's limited to 10 1m extensions, perhaps more would be too many for the power supply to run at full capacity.

TFFT, I'm not loosing the plot.

This is for the US version but I assume the same applies to UK/EU:

The LightStrip Plus output is consistent 1600lm at 4200K, if it's 2 meters or 10 meters. So each meter you add the maximum lumen output stays the same. This is limited by the power supply. Specifications of the LightStrip Plus can be found here: http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/productdetail/philips-hue-lightstrip-plus#specifications

We wouldn't recommend using another power supply due to warranty and any other unforseen issues it might bring.

Hue Developers Support - Niek

Unless I'm interpreting that incorrectly (which stands a good chance tbh).

The vanilla light strip plus is 800lm/metre (1600lm/2m). If you extended to 10 metres, that drops to 160lm/metre (1600lm/10m).

AndyBoBandy

Vanilla?

That quote above simply means you can have 12m total light strip (1 light strip plus & 10 extensions) and you will still have 1600lm output.

Graham

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Vanilla?

Bog standard out of the box Lightstrip starter kit thingy.

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

That quote above simply means you can have 12m total light strip (1 light strip plus & 10 extensions) and you will still have 1600lm output.

That's what I thought but won't that mean each metre of lightstrip puts out less light each time an extension is added.

E.g. a 2m lightstrip or a 10m light strip all output 1600lm. All you're doing is spreading the same output over a longer run.

robindch

BoardsMember wrote: »

Looks great robindch, but surely more than just 4 of them, i.e. 4 x 2 metres, no?

As Andy points out above, you can extend the basic 2m unit by adding one meter extensions up to a total overall length of I think 12 meters.

In the four-walled room above, the large window is on the east side of the room and above it, there's the basic two-meter light strip with two one meter extensions bringing it out to four meters in total. Same on the opposite west wall. The north and south walls are nine meters in length, so they get one two meter basic unit each, plus seven one meter extensions. Total outlay for the room comes to four two-meter units (powered by 240v lines chased up each corner from the floor, with the hue power units sitting in the corner at around 2.5 meters off the floor), plus sixteen one meter extension lines. To the hue app on the iPad/iPhone, they're addressable as four units within their own 'room' and usually turned on and off all in one go. There's a routine which switches them on in the early evening together with the IKEA light boxes. All's been working smoothly since installation in July. At some point, I'll hook it up to something more intelligent than the basic app so that the lights will go on according to daylight conditions rather than a fixed time.

In the kitchen, the contractor spent some time soldering lightstrip offcuts from the big room + elsewhere and recycling them for use in the kitchen so I think I saved a few quid here, but it was small beer in the overall scheme of things.

If you're tall, you can see the individual LED's reflecting off the ceiling if you're standing on the other side of both the kitchen and the big room. To deal with that, I've a few diffusers on the way from led-supplies.com in the UK and - fingers crossed - one or other of these will even things out properly and it'll all look smooth and uniform.

The contractor has also made a few base units for the IKEA light boxes as the boxes look a little crap with the black wires and foot switches dangling around randomly. Am hoping to get these from him in the next couple of weeks.

robindch

Graham wrote: »

Doesn't the light output remain the same when adding the extensions, each one making the run progressively dimmer (or did I imagine reading that somewhere)?

You must have imagined it In the big room above above, the luminosity of the four-meter runs is the same as the luminosity of the nine-meter runs - it would look a little weird, even if it's understandable, if the luminosity depended on the length.

Far as I remember these units are first-generation lightstrips, so they're 800L per meter. The second generation light strips are brighter, I think by around 60% or so.

Graham

robindch wrote: »

You must have imagined it In the big room above above, the luminosity of the four-meter runs is the same as the luminosity of the nine-meter runs - it would look a little weird, even if it's understandable, if the luminosity depended on the length.

Far as I remember these units are first-generation lightstrips, so they're 800L per meter. The second generation light strips are brighter, I think by around 60% or so.

Can't say I tested it so I won't argue, just going by the comments from Hue Developer Support which stated otherwise: http://www.developers.meethue.com/content/lightstrip-plus-power-supply-need-consistent-brightness

AndyBoBandy

robindch wrote: »

Far as I remember these units are first-generation lightstrips, so they're 800L per meter. The second generation light strips are brighter, I think by around 60% or so.

I think the light strip plus is second gen, as the original light strip wasn't extendable.

Shred

E27 2nd gen colour reduced to €44 on amazon.de today

BoardsMember

Excuse my ignorance, but are these for the "fatter" of the two standard types of screw in bulb fittings?

Atomic Pineapple

BoardsMember wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, but are these for the "fatter" of the two standard types of screw in bulb fittings?

Yes, E14 are the skinnier ones if I'm understanding your question correctly.

BoardsMember

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

BoardsMember wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance, but are these for the "fatter" of the two standard types of screw in bulb fittings?

Yes, E14 are the skinnier ones if I'm understanding your question correctly.

Thanks, you're understanding my question correctly yes.

AndyBoBandy

I've been successfully using these with E27 hue bulbs for the last 3 years or so in lamps that take E14 size bulbs, and they work just fine.
The only consideration to think of is the extra 3cm or so they add in length to the bulb.

I also use E27 - B22 adaptors for hue bulbs bought when only E27 was available, though nowadays isn't as much as an issue for people given hue comes in B22 & E27

BoardsMember

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

Yes, E14 are the skinnier ones if I'm understanding your question correctly.

Hi - just in case anyone makes the same mistake I nearly made, here's a good link for sizes:

https://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/article/fittings-caps-and-bases/

So E14 is the "candle" type skinny fitting I thought the E27 one was, E27 is roughly the equivalent of the "standard" 2 pin, which is called B22.

AndyBoBandy

BoardsMember wrote: »

So E14 is the "candle" type skinny fitting I thought the E27 one was, E27 is roughly the equivalent of the "standard" 2 pin, which is called B22.

Yes, the clue is in the name as well, E = Edison Screw, B = Bayonet

E14 = 14mm thread size/diameter, E27 = 27mm thread size/diameter.

B22 - 22mm diameter of the fitting (not including the 2 'lugs' on either side)

Shred

I ended up picking up three of the E27s and a lighstrip plus from Amazon.de; decent savings overall, certainly when compared to retail here!

TheTubes

Shred wrote: »

I ended up picking up three of the E27s and a lighstrip plus from Amazon.de; decent savings overall, certainly when compared to retail here!

I got a few of the lightstrips too. Am regretting not pulling the trigger on the gen2 e27 starter kit earlier in the week that was 119e. Will hopefully be another deal on a starter kit friday, i dont have a hub yet.