Philips Hue Bridge V2.0

I was gifed this to try and you really do get what you pay for. While this system is much more expensive than most, you really get such better quality than the cheap ones you can buy online. It's a whole new experience when it comes to family movie night. I can’t imagine not watching or listening without it. You won’t regret buying this as it will change your whole watching experience.

When hue first came out, I got it and loved it. Over time I have swapped more and more bulbs for hue bulbs. For the most part, things have improved, but there are many issues.Since many reviews exist for smaller installations, I will focus on the larger scale where more than one bridge is needed.1) You can connect up to 50 bulbs. My kitchen ceiling fan has 5 bulbs and there there are 8 spot lights around the perimeter and two light strips under my cabinets. That is 15 already! Getting past 50 may be easier than you think. All is not lost when you pass 50, but like gets much harder and less convenient. You add a second bridge and can get by, but at that point you are struggling. The Phillips app only works with one bridge at once, so you likely abandon that for ... MoreWhen hue first came out, I got it and loved it. Over time I have swapped more and more bulbs for hue bulbs. For the most part, things have improved, but there are many issues.Since many reviews exist for smaller installations, I will focus on the larger scale where more than one bridge is needed.1) You can connect up to 50 bulbs. My kitchen ceiling fan has 5 bulbs and there there are 8 spot lights around the perimeter and two light strips under my cabinets. That is 15 already! Getting past 50 may be easier than you think. All is not lost when you pass 50, but like gets much harder and less convenient. You add a second bridge and can get by, but at that point you are struggling. The Phillips app only works with one bridge at once, so you likely abandon that for regular control and switch to something like home kit. Home kit can work with all the lights at once, but is always out of sync with the Phillips app since it has only half the devices loaded at any one time. When it alerts you that things are out of sync, you best ignore it, otherwise it will remove the Home kit config for the rest of the rooms.2) Bulbs change over time. If you have a light with multiple bulbs and one needs to be replaced, you will probably want to either replace them all, or replace one but with the same revision. The reason is that the colors are quite different between say a gen 1 and a gen 3.3) Replacing a bulb may be much more complicated than you expect. You would think the app would have a facility to swap a bulb by now, but no. You have to register the bulb. Name the bulb. Add it to rooms, scenes, zones. And remove the old one.4) You have to push a button on the bridge to hook up apps to it. This seems like a process from the dark ages to me and its not always convenient to go down to the basement, and then run back up to the computer room, only to realize I pressed the button on the wrong hub. And I have to do it all twice. I really do not want to go past 100 bulbs!5) I ended up having to register two accounts as only one bridge can be associated with an account.I still love my Hue lights and have been patiently waiting for years for the kinks and qwerks to be figured out.

I've been a Hue user for quite a few years, with many hundreds invested, but I am no loner the happy customer I used to be. While the v2 bridge is a legitimate improvement, with noticeably better support for GE zigbee bulbs, Philips' decision to turn off support for v1 bridge users seems like a cold slap in the face from a company I once trusted. A big reason for spending a significant premium on Philips Hue years ago was environmental responsibility and lower energy bills. But now I am left with a prematurely obsolesced device that is most likely headed for the landfill. While I did appreciate the process put in place to upgrade the v1 bridge, copying all settings from it to the new v2 bridge, it still required the better part of a day to remove and re-create the ... MoreI've been a Hue user for quite a few years, with many hundreds invested, but I am no loner the happy customer I used to be. While the v2 bridge is a legitimate improvement, with noticeably better support for GE zigbee bulbs, Philips' decision to turn off support for v1 bridge users seems like a cold slap in the face from a company I once trusted. A big reason for spending a significant premium on Philips Hue years ago was environmental responsibility and lower energy bills. But now I am left with a prematurely obsolesced device that is most likely headed for the landfill. While I did appreciate the process put in place to upgrade the v1 bridge, copying all settings from it to the new v2 bridge, it still required the better part of a day to remove and re-create the devices and automations in the rest of the components in my smart home. This was not a minor inconvenience, and I am still tweaking things, all made necessary because Philips is too lazy to continue to support hardware they sold me 6 years ago. I get that this is the IOT, and there are no guarantees as to what products will evaporate over time. That is exactly why we spent the big bucks on Philips Hue… we trusted them. So, while we will continue to use our Hue gear going forward, I don't think we'll continue to invest in the system.