Philips Hue Safe Floodlight assessment: Nice mild, common digital camera

Philips Hue is arguably the most important title in good lighting. The corporate has been producing glorious good lighting merchandise for a few years. And although Philips Hue merchandise aren’t the most affordable possibility, they’re nonetheless very fashionable due to their prime quality.

The corporate is not resting on its laurels, nevertheless. In 2023, Philips Hue expanded its product range to include security cameras, and now in 2024 it is including a brand new safety product. The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight is a mix floodlight and safety digital camera that is designed to guard your private home from the skin.

Associated

What is a Philips Hue Bridge, and do you need one?

This central hub controls your Philips Hue good lighting system with ease, if you understand how to make use of it.

There are already good floodlight cameras in the marketplace, such because the Google Nest Cam with Floodlight, so what does the brand new Philips Hue product have to supply? We put the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight by its paces to search out out.

Philips Hue Safe Floodlight

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight has the standard you count on from a Philips Hue product, with a vivid floodlight that you could flip to any coloration you want. The included safety digital camera affords good high quality and options equivalent to package deal detection and exercise zones accessible with a subscription. Nevertheless, there’s at present no option to see the dwell feed exterior the Hue app, and no help for HomeKit Safe Video.

Execs

• Vibrant floodlight in any coloration
• Customizable movement activation
• Respectable digital camera

Cons

• Costly
• No dwell streaming to good shows
• No HomeKit Safe Video help

Value, specs and availability

The Safe Flood Mild Digital camera is that can be purchased now from the Philips Hue web site for $350.

Design

Philips Hue products normally have a glossy and trendy look, and the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight is not any exception. The mounting and floodlight look trendy sufficient that you simply will not cringe about mounting them to the outside of your private home. The digital camera sits under the floodlight and incorporates a glossy look as effectively. The one slight flaw within the seems to be division is that the facility cable and tether for the digital camera dangle down just a little under the digital camera, however this is not an enormous concern.

Set up

Pretty painless if in case you have exterior energy

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight must be hard-wired; there is no battery possibility accessible. This implies you may must mount it someplace the place you’ve got present exterior wiring. If you do not have anyplace acceptable, you might must get the assistance of an electrician, particularly in case you do not feel assured working with electrical wires.

In the event you do have present wiring (for instance, in case you’re changing an existing floodlight), then putting in the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight is not too onerous, and takes about ten to fifteen minutes to do.

The directions aren’t probably the most useful, consisting solely of photographs with no accompanying textual content, however they’re pretty easy to observe. The floodlight could be angled to level in a particular route, and the digital camera is connected by magnet, permitting you to level it at a 60-degree angle in any route.Annoyingly, as soon as the floodlight is in place, you may be requested to

scan QR codes
that are pretty inaccessible now that you have put in the system. Fortunately, copies of these codes are additionally on stickers on the entrance of the guide, so be sure to preserve them readily available.As soon as you have put in the floodlight and powered it up, you’ll be able to simply add the system utilizing the Hue app. You add the floodlight and digital camera individually because the Hue app sees them as particular person units. The directions within the app are easy to observe.You will want a


Hue Bridge
so as to arrange and management your Philips Hue Safe Floodlight, which is offered individually. Nevertheless, in case you already personal different Hue merchandise, you most likely have already got a Hue Bridge.

Efficiency

Respectable digital camera and nice lighting

The center of the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight is the highly effective 2,250 lumen floodlight. As with many different Hue merchandise, this floodlight would not simply provide vivid white mild, nevertheless. You may select from virtually any coloration you’ll be able to think about. This may be very helpful. Furthermore, the sunshine is greater than highly effective sufficient to light up a big space exterior your private home.

The connected digital camera affords 1080p seize with a 141.2-degree discipline of view, which I discovered broad sufficient for my wants. It additionally options two-way speak by the Hue app, and you may set off an alarm that can flash the floodlight and make a loud sound by the digital camera.

Image high quality is sweet, with sufficient element to make out faces even at a distance. You may zoom in on the dwell feed and recordings and the standard is sweet sufficient to get a superb take a look at the faces of any potential intruders.

Night time imaginative and prescient high quality is superb too; there’s little distinction within the image high quality when utilizing the digital camera’s evening imaginative and prescient with the floodlight off in comparison with the picture at evening when the floodlight is on. Yo simply see what is going on on exterior your private home even throughout the darkish of the evening.

Options

Extremely customizable movement activation

One of the vital widespread makes use of of a floodlight is to light up the skin of your private home when movement is detected. That is helpful for serving to you discover your method again into your private home when it is darkish and can also be a superb deterrent for potential intruders or undesirable guests of a furrier variety.

You need to use the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated mild, however it does require some setup. Because the digital camera and light-weight are handled as particular person units, you may want to enter the digital camera settings within the Hue app and activate the Set off Lights toggle. You may then select the sunshine you wish to activate when movement is detected. The intelligent half is that within the app you’ll be able to customise the conduct of the sunshine. You may have it activate in any coloration or scene that you really want, at any brightness you need, have it revert to the earlier state when it was final on, or have it do nothing.

It’s also possible to create a number of time slots and have totally different behaviors for every slot. For instance, I’ve arrange the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight to activate at medium brightness in a blue mild after 10 pm at evening. That is greater than sufficient mild to see by, with out turning on a blazing white mild each time a leaf blows previous the digital camera. The customization is basically helpful and units the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight aside from many different motion-activated floodlights. There may be additionally a daylight sensitivity setting that you could tweak in order that the sunshine will not come on when it is mild exterior.

The digital camera affords movement notifications that can seem in your telephone when movement is detected. You get commonplace movement notifications without spending a dime, however in case you join a paid Hue Secure plan, you additionally get individual, animal, car, and package deal detection. The individual notifications are stable; I’ve seen far fewer false positives than I get with my Ring video doorbell, and you may regulate the sensitivity in case you’re getting too many or too few notifications.

The Safe plans provide different options, too. You get live-streaming, commonplace movement notifications, end-to-end video encryption, blackout zones, and video snapshots without spending a dime. The Fundamental plan, which prices $40 per digital camera per 12 months, provides 30 days of video historical past, exercise zones, in addition to the superior movement detection options talked about above. The Plus plan, which prices $100 per 12 months for as many cameras as you want, ups the video historical past to 60 days.

Exercise zones is a characteristic that is solely accessible with a Safe plan, however it’s a helpful one. It permits you to create a number of zones which the digital camera will monitor for movement. Any movement exterior these zones is ignored. For instance, in case your digital camera is pointing at your entrance gate, and also you recurrently have automobiles driving previous it, you’ll be able to create an exercise zone that excludes the realm the place the automobiles go, in order that you do not get a continuous stream of movement detection alerts.

One other helpful safety measure is the Take Motion characteristic. In the event you discover something untoward in your digital camera, you’ll be able to faucet the Take Motion button. This offers you the choice to sound an alarm and flash the lights to discourage any undesirable guests. There are additionally fast motion buttons that assist you to name a pre-set emergency contact quantity, or straight name emergency providers.

Sensible residence integrations

Missing in video streaming

In the event you’re hoping so as to add the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight to your good residence setup, there’s some good and dangerous information. The excellent news is that the floodlight is appropriate with Alexa, and Google Assistant. It is also works with HomeKit over Matter. I used to be in a position so as to add the floodlight to Alexa and the Apple Dwelling app with little effort, permitting me to regulate the facility, brightness, and coloration by voice. The response is sort of instantaneous.

The dangerous information is that the safety digital camera shouldn’t be at present appropriate with Alexa, Google Assistant, or HomeKit. In the event you have been hoping to have the ability to view your digital camera feed in your Echo Show, for instance, then you definately’re out of luck. The one method to take action is thru the Hue app.

It additionally signifies that there is no help for HomeKit Secure Video; in order for you entry to your recordings, you may must pay the Hue subscription charge.

Help for viewing dwell footage on Alexa and Google Assistant units could also be added sooner or later, however it’s unlikely that we’ll see HomeKit help till safety cameras are added to the Matter commonplace.

Verdict

Hue has all the time had a fame for making nice lights and the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight is not any exception. It is a break from the norm to discover a motion-activated floodlight that may shine almost any coloration you’ll be able to think about. That is helpful for offering low-level lighting at evening, however you should utilize the floodlight for different makes use of too, equivalent to including a pop of coloration to your private home’s exterior throughout the holidays.

The safety digital camera additionally does a superb job, with respectable 1080p image high quality. It is a disgrace that, a minimum of for the second, there is no option to view the digital camera feed apart from by the Hue app. Help for good shows equivalent to an Amazon Echo Present or Google Nest Hub would make the digital camera extra helpful. The shortage of help for HomeKit Safe Video signifies that if you wish to save recordings, you are going to must pay for the privilege.

Philips Hue Safe Floodlight

Organising the sunshine to work as a motion-activated floodlight additionally takes just a little time, however as soon as you have performed so, you’ve got some spectacular customization choices to make your floodlight reply precisely the way you need it to.

Philips Hue merchandise have by no means been low cost, however the glorious high quality normally signifies that they’re definitely worth the worth. In the event you simply intend to make use of the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated mild in your residence, then it is a formidable, if barely costly, possibility. Nevertheless, the shortage of help for the digital camera is an actual disgrace; the flexibility to stream the digital camera feed to a wise show, or help for HomeKit Safe Video, would flip this product from a superb one into a superb one. Philips Hue will add a minimum of a few of these options sooner or later.