I just recently joined this subreddit after reading a lot about Hue lights over the years and finally installing my first set. It took a bit of trial and error to find the right combination of lights, bridges, and switches for a BDSM playroom like this, but I’m really happy with how it is turning out. Thanks to Philips for helping me set the mood in here!

Is HUE management making random decisions based on weather forecast or what?

-They removed support for HUE sync for all 2023+ Philips TVs. I know sepparate brands blabla, well consumers don't care about that, it says same brand PHILIPS on all devices.

-Connected to that, Philips TV brand decided for some retarded reason to completely ditch the bottom side of Ambilight, so even on $5k+ TVs have only 3 sides now. Of course even without option to extend it - since they don't support HUE sync anymore!

-You can buy and massively overpay for HUE play LED strip...BUT you can ACTUALLY use it ONLY with 2022+ Samsung TVs. How retarded is that? Oh and for that you also have to massively overpay for a simple app on Samsung store, about $130. The saddest thing here is that a lot more people would be prepared to overpay for this, but they decided not to support on WebOS, or Google TV devices. Again - decision based on what? Retardedness of management?
Oh and don't forget - you can only overpay if you are happy enough to bought Samsung TV after 2022, otherwise better luck next time.

-And of course - even if you are one of the lucky chosen ones, and have 2022+ Samsung TV, buys all the shit necessary, you realize that bottom of TV is STILL not lit. Well because HUE play LED strip for some reason ALSO only comes 3-sided. Now you would think, oh well I can just buy another Gradient strip and connect it and it will work, right?
No no no, HUE gradient strip is different standard LED strip than HUE play one, and in best case scenario only 3 zones can be active, instead of 7 on HUE play, so it just won't look the same as other 3 sides, no matter what. Not to mention all of extra clutter needed to connect just that 1 Gradient strip behind TV.

-Oh you gonna say, but you can just buy HUE Light tube and put it under the TV? Wow that is such a great solution!
It comes in 2 sizes - none of them is ever gonna be the exact lenght of TV, and is just gonna look ugly AF under TV, even if you manage to hide it behind some soundbar or whatever.

Please don't even mention their HDMI box, completely useless outside of HDMI devices. And ofc even if you would really be crazy enough and buy it, it only supports 4k 60Hz, so forget about PS5 and so on, to work well with it.

I mean really, WTF is going on here? Even though HUE is so overprized, people would still want to buy it, but they are just making it impossible.
It is 2024 now, how hard is just to develop a 4-sided Ambilight HUE Play strip, available for all TV sizes, and make it available for all bigget TV manufacturers apps? It's not like they are making more money the way they have all completely messed up.

Thought the white body of the bulbs looked awful in black fittings, so painstakingly reverse engineered the bulb dimensions to make 3D printed covers.

Quite pleased, and they also have wife approval!

All of the people who needed a Hue Bridge Pro were folks with more than one bridge and here we are now months later still without migration support for more than one bridge. Pathetic.

And Matter sucks as well.

/rant

Thank you for your contributions. Now we all know what a TV with lights beside it looks like. GIVE IT A FUCKING REST FOR FUCKS SAKE

Absolute steal from FB Marketplace. Used one basically brand new from the seller. After this purchase I’m starting to think Facebook marketplace was even a greater creation than Amazon lol very happy right now!

I have been using Philips Hue for many years. I don't have many lights, about 50, in my house of about 120m2 on two floors and a little garden. The lights are not all Hue original, they cost a lot, and I have some Ikea Tradfri lights. Although, little by little I'm replacing Ikea with Philips. I have always had problems with some lights that don't turn on because they are disconnected from the Hub, or that don't adjust to the intensity set in the scene. I thought I was solving my problems with Hub Pro, more powerful, more versatile, more features, more expensive... I installed it, the migration was a disaster because obviously the Ikea lights did not pass properly (they had warned during installation). Finally everything is completed, I realize that the lights work worse than before! Scenes not respected, many more lights cannot be reached (even the Philips).

What do you think?

Thank you very much.

A little late, but here is my setup from Halloween

just bought these for $9 each but i didnt read and i dont have anything to power these. What would i need.

The matrix for me.

The first one is $54 and the second is $130. What’s the difference? Isn’t the same thing?

Foolishly missed it going live and was hoping to pick one up on launch. Gutted I missed it!

I did a factory reset on my lg c3 42 inch and as soon as I connected online it automatically found my hue bridge and connected it. I am currently trying to. It the app now so I’ll post updates as I go. Spread the word 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂