I invested in Philips Hue about a decade ago because, while pricy, they had far and away the best feature set. However today I have reached my breaking point when my 7th bulb has in some way died on me.
Background (can skip): Over the past decade I have bought 8 philips hue bulbs, 4 colour and 4 just temperature. As of this morning 7/8 of these bulbs have died or failed in some way. 3 have completely died, 1 is so dim so as to be useless, 2 have had one or more of their internal LEDs break so their colour is completely wrong (2 of the ones that died did this before dying), and 1 is inconsistent with its colour. Not to mention all my bulbs sometimes randomly shut off (or more often randomly turn back on when they are programmed to be off). While 4 of these bulbs did live in recessed fixtures for a few years, for the past 6 years they have been in single bulb wall mounted sconces with open tops for good ventilation, and yet this is where the majority of them have died.
I am beyond infuriated that these lights I paid $50/bulb for have caused so many issues and lasted for half the time I would expect a dollar store LED bulb to. So I need a recommendation for a solution.
My needs:
- Phone control from an app
- Ability to schedule on/off times
- Good colour reproduction and minimal flicker (the fact that Philips Hue bulbs flicker always drove me insane and was the first straw at regretting my purchase).
- A purchasable wireless remote to control them without using a phone.
- No subscriptions
- Bright lights (800l minimum, ideally more I have always found my philips hue bulbs to be dim)
Nice to haves:
- Full spectrum RGB
- A system that can integrate switchable plugs into it (I know I could just tie the bulbs into Google Home or similar but I really hate Google Home or any cloud based home automation).
- Affordable, <$20/bulb
I'm no home automation guru, I hate being reliant on third party servers and above all just want something that WORKS. My light figures were designed around using smart bulbs and as such are hard wired into power, they have no physical switch anywhere to turn them on and off, meaning I have to rely on software control.
Any and all suggestions are much appreciated, the world of smart bulbs has gotten so much more complex and vast with different players since I first bought philips hue in 2016.