Philips Hue Safe Floodlight evaluation: Nice gentle, common digital camera

Philips Hue is arguably the most important title in sensible lighting. The corporate has been producing wonderful sensible lighting merchandise for a few years. And although Philips Hue merchandise aren’t the most cost effective choice, they’re nonetheless very fashionable because of their prime quality.

The corporate is not resting on its laurels, nonetheless. 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 own home from the skin.

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 via its paces to search out out.

Philips Hue Safe Floodlight

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight has the standard you anticipate from a Philips Hue product, with a vibrant floodlight you could flip to any shade you want. The included safety digital camera affords good high quality and options akin to bundle detection and exercise zones accessible with a subscription. Nonetheless, there’s presently no method to see the stay feed outdoors the Hue app, and no assist for HomeKit Safe Video.

Professionals

• Vivid floodlight in any shade
• Customizable movement activation
• First rate digital camera

Cons

• Costly
• No stay streaming to sensible shows
• No HomeKit Safe Video assist

Worth, specs and availability

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

Design

Philips Hue products often have a modern and fashionable look, and the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight isn’t any exception. The mounting and floodlight look fashionable sufficient that you just will not cringe about mounting them to the outside of your own home. The digital camera sits beneath the floodlight and encompasses a modern look as effectively. The one slight flaw within the seems to be division is that the ability cable and tether for the digital camera dangle down a bit of beneath the digital camera, however this is not an enormous concern.

Set up

Pretty painless in case you have outdoors energy

The Philips Hue Safe Floodlight must be hard-wired; there isn’t any battery choice accessible. This implies you will have to mount it someplace the place you will have present exterior wiring. If you do not have wherever applicable, you could have to get the assistance of an electrician, particularly in case you do not feel assured working with electrical wires.

In case 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 essentially the most useful, consisting solely of photos with no accompanying textual content, however they’re pretty easy to comply with. The floodlight could be angled to level in a selected 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 will 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 you maintain them available.As soon as you’ve got 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 comply with.You may want a

Hue Bridge
with the intention to arrange and management your Philips Hue Safe Floodlight, which is bought individually. Nonetheless, in case you already personal different Hue merchandise, you most likely have already got a Hue Bridge.

Efficiency

First rate 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 vibrant white gentle, nonetheless. You’ll be able to select from virtually any shade 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 outdoors your own home.

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

Image high quality is nice, with sufficient element to make out faces even at a distance. You’ll be able to zoom in on the stay feed and recordings and the standard is nice sufficient to get an excellent have 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 outdoors your own home even in the course of the darkish of the evening.

Options

Extremely customizable movement activation

Some of the widespread makes use of of a floodlight is to light up the skin of your own home when movement is detected. That is helpful for serving to you discover your manner again into your own home when it is darkish and can also be an excellent deterrent for potential intruders or undesirable guests of a furrier form.

You need to use the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated gentle, but it surely does require some setup. For the reason that digital camera and light-weight are handled as particular person units, you will 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 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’ll be able to have it activate in any shade 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 gentle after 10 pm at evening. That is greater than sufficient gentle to see by, with out turning on a blazing white gentle each time a leaf blows previous the digital camera. The customization is de facto helpful and units the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight other than many different motion-activated floodlights. There may be additionally a daylight sensitivity setting you could tweak in order that the sunshine will not come on when it is gentle outdoors.

The digital camera affords movement notifications that may seem in your telephone when movement is detected. You get commonplace movement notifications without cost, however in case you join a paid Hue Secure plan, you additionally get particular person, animal, automobile, and bundle detection. The particular person 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 cost. The Primary plan, which prices $40 per digital camera per yr, 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 yr for as many cameras as you want, ups the video historical past to 60 days.

Exercise zones is a function that is solely accessible with a Safe plan, but it surely’s a helpful one. It permits you to create a number of zones which the digital camera will monitor for movement. Any movement outdoors these zones is ignored. For instance, in case your digital camera is pointing at your entrance gate, and also you repeatedly have vehicles driving previous it, you’ll be able to create an exercise zone that excludes the realm the place the vehicles go, in order that you aren’t getting a continuing stream of movement detection alerts.

One other helpful safety measure is the Take Motion function. In case 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 mean you can name a pre-set emergency contact quantity, or immediately name emergency companies.

Good dwelling integrations

Missing in video streaming

In case you’re hoping so as to add the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight to your sensible dwelling 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 ability, brightness, and shade by voice. The response is nearly instantaneous.

The unhealthy information is that the safety digital camera will not be presently appropriate with Alexa, Google Assistant, or HomeKit. In case you have been hoping to have the ability to view your digital camera feed in your Echo Show, for instance, then you definitely’re out of luck. The one manner to take action is thru the Hue app.

It additionally signifies that there isn’t any assist for HomeKit Secure Video; in order for you entry to your recordings, you will need to pay the Hue subscription charge.

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

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 almost any shade 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, akin to including a pop of shade to your own home’s exterior in the course of the holidays.

The safety digital camera additionally does an excellent job, with first rate 1080p image high quality. It is a disgrace that, at the very least for the second, there isn’t any method to view the digital camera feed aside from via the Hue app. Help for sensible shows akin to an Amazon Echo Present or Google Nest Hub would make the digital camera extra helpful. The shortage of assist for HomeKit Safe Video signifies that if you wish to save recordings, you are going to need to pay for the privilege.

Philips Hue Safe Floodlight

Organising the sunshine to work as a motion-activated floodlight additionally takes a bit of time, however as soon as you’ve got finished 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 wonderful high quality often signifies that they’re definitely worth the value. In case you simply intend to make use of the Philips Hue Safe Floodlight as a motion-activated gentle to your dwelling, then it is a powerful, if barely costly, choice. Nonetheless, the shortage of assist for the digital camera is an actual disgrace; the flexibility to stream the digital camera feed to a wise show, or assist for HomeKit Safe Video, would flip this product from an excellent one into a superb one. Philips Hue will add at the very least a few of these options sooner or later.