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

Philips Hue is arguably the largest identify in sensible lighting. The corporate has been producing glorious sensible lighting merchandise for a few years. And although Philips Hue merchandise aren’t the most cost effective choice, they’re nonetheless highly regarded because of their top 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 mixture floodlight and safety digital camera that is designed to guard your property from the surface.

Associated

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

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

There are already sensible 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 way of its paces to seek out out.

Philips Hue Safe Floodlight

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight has the standard you count on from a Philips Hue product, with a shiny floodlight that you would be able to flip to any coloration you want. The included safety digital camera presents good high quality and options comparable to package deal detection and exercise zones obtainable with a subscription. Nevertheless, there’s at present no technique to see the dwell feed exterior the Hue app, and no help for HomeKit Safe Video.

Professionals

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

Cons

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

Value, specs and availability

The Safe Flood Mild Digicam is in the stores now from the Philips Hue web site for $350.

Design

Philips Hue products often have a smooth and fashionable look, and the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight isn’t any exception. The mounting and floodlight look fashionable sufficient that you simply will not cringe about mounting them to the outside of your property. The digital camera sits beneath the floodlight and contains a smooth look as effectively. The one slight flaw within the seems division is that the facility cable and tether for the digital camera dangle down a little bit beneath the digital camera, however this is not an enormous situation.

Set up

Pretty painless when you have exterior energy

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight must be hard-wired; there is not any battery choice obtainable. This implies you may have to mount it someplace the place you will have current exterior wiring. If you do not have wherever applicable, chances are you’ll have to get the assistance of an electrician, particularly should you do not feel assured working with electrical wires.

When you do have current wiring (for instance, should 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 essentially the most useful, consisting solely of photos with no accompanying textual content, however they’re pretty easy to observe. The floodlight will be angled to level in a particular path, and the digital camera is hooked up by magnet, permitting you to level it at a 60-degree angle in any path.Annoyingly, as soon as the floodlight is in place, you may be requested to

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


Hue Bridge
to be able to arrange and management your Philips Hue Safe Floodlight, which is offered individually. Nevertheless, should you already personal different Hue merchandise, you in all probability have already got a Hue Bridge.

Efficiency

Respectable digital camera and nice lighting

The guts 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 shiny white mild, nevertheless. You’ll be able to 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 major space exterior your property.

The hooked up digital camera presents 1080p seize with a 141.2-degree subject of view, which I discovered huge sufficient for my wants. It additionally options two-way discuss by way of the Hue app, and you’ll set off an alarm that may flash the floodlight and make a loud sound by way of the digital camera.

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

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

Options

Extremely customizable movement activation

One of the crucial widespread makes use of of a floodlight is to light up the surface of your property when movement is detected. That is helpful for serving to you discover your method again into your property when it is darkish and can be deterrent for potential intruders or undesirable guests of a furrier form.

You should use the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated mild, however it does require some setup. For the reason that digital camera and lightweight are handled as particular person gadgets, you may want to enter the digital camera settings within the Hue app and activate the Set off Lights toggle. You’ll be able to then select the sunshine you need to activate when movement is detected. The intelligent half is that within the app you’ll be able to customise the habits of the sunshine. You’ll be able to 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.

You can too 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 night time. 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 actually helpful and units the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight aside from many different motion-activated floodlights. There’s additionally a daylight sensitivity setting that you would be able to tweak in order that the sunshine will not come on when it is mild exterior.

The digital camera presents movement notifications that may seem in your cellphone when movement is detected. You get customary movement notifications totally free, however should you join a paid Hue Secure plan, you additionally get particular person, animal, car, and package deal detection. The particular person notifications are strong; I’ve seen far fewer false positives than I get with my Ring video doorbell, and you’ll regulate the sensitivity should you’re getting too many or too few notifications.

The Safe plans provide different options, too. You get live-streaming, customary movement notifications, end-to-end video encryption, blackout zones, and video snapshots totally free. 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 obtainable with a Safe plan, however it’s a helpful one. It lets you 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 often have vehicles driving previous it, you’ll be able to create an exercise zone that excludes the world the place the vehicles cross, in order that you aren’t getting a continuous stream of movement detection alerts.

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

Good house integrations

Missing in video streaming

When you’re hoping so as to add the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight to your sensible house setup, there’s some good and unhealthy 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 ready so as to add the floodlight to Alexa and the Apple House app with little effort, permitting me to regulate the facility, brightness, and coloration by voice. The response is nearly instantaneous.

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

It additionally signifies that there is not any help for HomeKit Secure Video; if you would like entry to your recordings, you may must pay the Hue subscription charge.

Help for viewing dwell footage on Alexa and Google Assistant gadgets 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 customary.

Verdict

Hue has at all times had a repute for making nice lights and the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight isn’t any exception. It is a break from the norm to discover a motion-activated floodlight that may shine practically any coloration you’ll be able to think about. That is helpful for offering low-level lighting at night time, however you need to use the floodlight for different makes use of too, comparable to including a pop of coloration to your property’s exterior throughout the holidays.

The safety digital camera additionally does job, with first rate 1080p image high quality. It is a disgrace that, no less than for the second, there is not any technique to view the digital camera feed aside from by way of the Hue app. Help for sensible shows comparable to an Amazon Echo Present or Google Nest Hub would make the digital camera extra helpful. The dearth 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 a little bit time, however as soon as you’ve got accomplished so, you will have 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 often signifies that they’re definitely worth the value. When you simply intend to make use of the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated mild in your house, then it is a formidable, if barely costly, choice. 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 one into a superb one. Philips Hue will add no less than a few of these options sooner or later.