Philips Hue VS LIFX Review - What Are The BEST Smart Lights

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI love smart lights seriously I think I have a real addiction with each room in my house glowing with some form of colored light and it's all controlled via apps Alexa and Google home they add such a huge amount of new interest to all of my spaces including the gaming area you see behind me but if you are in the market for some new smart bulbs then chances are you're gonna be looking at two main brands philips hue and lifx both are actually pretty similar sharing a common design that's bigger than a traditional bulb and how is this a wireless module in the base of each unit both offer a range of sizes and mounts and they each offer strip lighting for use underneath beds kitchen units and sofas there is one main difference between the two though and that's with how they connect the lifx system works like any other wireless device connecting to your existing wireless router the advantage of this is that you don't need any other hardware to get started and the range of your lights will be dictated by your router so if you have a really powerful Network you're gonna have great range here on the other hand requires a bridge and this almost acts as its own mini light network for the smart home will plug into your router by Ethernet and then connect to the bulbs and form a mesh network to help extend the range between the different lights both the systems can be connected to the Internet and this will allow for complete control whenever you're away from the home very useful if you're always in a rush and sometimes forget to turn them off setting up the lights is pretty straightforward in both cases but it's actually Philips you that is that little bit quicker and easier simply install the bulb into a socket and then follow up the app hit the add new device icon and assuming you're nearby it should actually find it automatically you then need to link it to the bridge or route it depending on the system you're using give it a name and then save its location strip lights work in more or less the same way but you will of course need to actually mount them I'd highly advise that you clean down the surface thoroughly first and then hang the strip's at 90 degrees rather than directly underneath something because in my experience they always fall down eventually controlling the lights is done with an app and you always need to leave them switched on at the socket for them to actually work I've been using lifx the longest of the two I'd say that it is my favorite app as it's very cleanly designed and incredibly simple to use each of the lights are split into groups and you can fold away the categories for quicker access to the settings you frequently use scenes come in presets but you can make your own and then save the color and brightness is for different lights and different rooms and this is incredibly useful for creating a gaming zone or a cinema room the main weakness with the app in my experience is actually when it comes to updating the firmware of the bulbs as it says it will do it but it all frequently not and I'll have to sometimes switch between Android and iOS to actually get it to work it's not a huge deal but it's just a little bit odd use app on the other hand it's not quite as clean but I think that's being very nitpicky as it also works very well now it allows for lightning quick control of room lighting I really like that each room shows the color of each light on the wheel at the same time you can even drag them together to make subgroups a really nice touch sins' work in more or less the same way as lifx but here they're on a per room basis rather than for the whole home the thing you definitely get right though is with its third-party integration it's not only our hue adding new features via formulas all the time they allow for non Philip's apps to control the lighting in some really creative ways you can use this with your gaming PC for instance to sync lighting between hue and ASA Sora regardless of which you choose though they're both work with Google home and Amazon Alexa simply log into your account allocate the rooms and you set so they both work incredibly well but which is better and which should you buy quality wise there's not too much to separate the bulbs lifx larger units are slightly brighter at eleven hundred lumens but I think that they're a little bit too big to fit naturally in some lamps and fittings both lifx mini and philips hue top out at 800 lumens with very similar color reproduction I can't really pick between them but the mini is slightly cheaper slightly smaller and it won't require you to actually buy a starter kit to begin in the first place fundamentally I think you'd be very happy with either but the better app and easier point of entry is what made me opt for lifx in the first place if you've got one or two lamps and you want to color them up then it's a great choice but actually it's Phillips you that gets my vote as the better system and there are two reasons for this remember when I said that life x connects to your existing router well here lies the problem as I've got over ten lie fixed and then twenty to thirty others may all compete signal and range most of the time it works absolutely fine but I have had issues with range and more frequently dist Street dropouts now obviously this won't affect everyone and it won't be very frequent but Hugh has a real smoking gun it's ginormous product library life except mines but Philips has so many more and even switches and motion sensors to better increase usability lifx is great and I loved it over the last few years but at the end of the day the hue ecosystem is just that a little bit better I will leave links to both of these products down in the description below but let me know what is your favorite are you on team life X or team Hugh always interested to hear your thoughts as always but what do you think of this video hit the like button if you've enjoyed it get subscribed for more just like this if you want to see more setup e videos I leave those in the end screen a massive thank you to life x and philips hue that provided some of these lights over the various years it's much appreciated it's been good to do a final showdown I suppose it's been a long time in the making but yes thank you so much to you guys for watching I receive Linux\n"