Gabe: Hey, folks.
This is Gabe with Security Baron.
Spring time may be ending, but today, we're checking out the Philips Hue Bloom.
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Gabe: In today's review of the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp, we're going to be checking out
its design, its feature set, the installation experience, before diving into its mobile
application, the Philips Hue app, to make sure you have all the information you need
to make the right decision.
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Gabe: If you'd like to see a list of our favorite smart bulbs, google "Security Baron best smart
bulbs."
If you have a question about today's review, leave us a comment and I'll get back to you.
Let's kick off today's review of the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp checking out its design.
It's completely encased in a hard plastic.
The back is this white hard plastic, and the front is even encased in a clear hard plastic.
There is a Philips Hue logo right in the front, but you won't really be able to see that.
When I initially looked at it, I was wondering why is the cord coming out of the front and
not the back so you could more easily hide it.
Then I realized that you want to actually have this positioned towards the wall.
You're going to have your accent wall.
You're going to have your focal point.
This is to provide the light for that.
It's not supposed to provide the light for your apartment.
That's reflecting the fact that's it's only 120 lumens.
One thing to note about that 120 lumens is that it only uses eight watts of electricity,
which is great for your electric bill.
Overall, I don't think the design is anything that's going to win an award, but that's not
the point.
The point is it to be nondescript and just aesthetically integrate into your interior
of your apartment.
Those are my thoughts on the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
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Gabe: Moving into the feature set of the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp, you'll note that it comes
with a lot of what we've come to expect from the other bulbs in the Philips Hue ecosystem
in terms of providing 16 million colors.
This one does have fewer lumens.
It has 120 lumens, but that's because it's more of an accessory to the light in your
room.
One thing I want to talk about is that it does allow you to set up schedules and scenes.
If you want to wake up to it every morning, you can do so.
If you want it to come on at a certain type of party, you can also make that into a scene.
If you want to integrate it with the rest of your smart home system, you can do so.
It integrates not only with other smart home products, but also with smart home security
elements like Nest, Xfinity and even IFTTT.
One thing to note with this particular system is that it integrates with Apple HomeKit,
Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa.
It's really allowing you to integrate it no matter who you like to integrate with.
Overall, it has a very impressive feature set that essentially matches what we've come
to expect from the bulbs in the Philips Hue ecosystem.
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Gabe: Whoa, hold on.
I hope you're enjoying today's review of the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
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All right, let's get back to the video.
Now that we've gone over the design and feature set of the Philips Hue Bloom, I want to talk
about setting it up and that installation experience, which honestly is very straightforward
and easy.
If you've already set up your Philips Hue bridge for another Philips Hue product, you're
ready to go right off the bat.
Otherwise, you're going to need to take the Philips Hue bridge, plug it into your router,
and then you'll be able to search in the Philips Hue app for the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
We already have Philips Hue smart bulbs.
For us, setting up the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp was very simple.
It probably took us less than five minutes altogether.
We simply went into the Philips Hue mobile application, hit "Add light."
It immediately found the Philips Hue Bloom.
We renamed it the Baron Bloom, and we were ready to go.
We then added it to our room, began setting up scenes and schedules.
We found the entire process to be really convenient and straightforward.
That's the installation experience for the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
Now I want to dive into the mobile application for the Philips Hue Bloom, the Philips Hue
app.
This is where you're going to be doing the bulk of your interfacing with your Philips
Hue Bloom Lamp in terms of setting up geofencing, setting up scenes and schedules, and just
generally controlling the lamp.
One thing to note here that's pretty impressive is that it's moved from a 3.4 to a 3.6 in
the Google Play Store in the course of about a month.
That's impressive because with a product with such a huge install rate, it's hard to move
those numbers.
It's remained a 4.4, which is a pretty great score, in the Apple App Store.
Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone 7 Plus.
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Gabe: Here I am checking out the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp on my iPhone 7 Plus.
You'll see on the home page of the of the Philips Hue mobile application, there's a
lot going on.
I have the Candlelight Room, the Baron Hue Room, or the room that you can see here that
I've made for our Hue Bloom Lamp, the Bloom Room.
Immediately, I can just jump into that room, go to the colors, and just change the colors
on my Bloom Lamp.
You got green, blue, purple, red, yellow.
It's a lot of options.
If I wanted to set a scene specifically for this one, I could just go to "New scene."
Let's call it Bloom Boom.
We'll have it be green.
Now we've saved it.
Anytime we want to go to a green Bloom lamp, we would just go to that scene, click on Bloom
Boom, and we're ready to go.
Of course, an element of having the Bloom is having it work in conjunction with the
other bulbs in your Philips Hue ecosystem.
If I wanted to create an entire scene based in this room, I could go to main room, which
is the zone I've set up with all of my different lights.
Let's just go to a scene in which we have everything be a purplish reddish.
We're going to call this the BladeRunner Room.
Save that, and voila.
The BladeRunner Room sets all of my lights in this direction.
If you don't want to have a scene but rather a schedule, you can go into Routines in the
Philips Hue app.
In here, you have a lot of options.
Of course, there's the geofencing so you can turn the lights on and off based on your location.
There's Wake up, which has you wake up to a particular light, or Go to sleep, which
gives you a visual cue to hey, maybe you should get in bed.
I want to go to Other routines and create a custom routine for my Hue Bloom lamp.
Maybe I'm having a party on Friday, and I want it to have a particular accent on a wall.
I'm going to say 9:00 PM on Friday.
What to control, Rooms, Bloom Room, voila.
I can set Tropical Twilight, and I'm ready to go.
Overall, I'm really happy with the number of features available to me in the Philips
Hue app when working with my Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
Sometimes when you're at a party, you don't want to have to take out your mobile device
to change the vibe or the ambiance.
In that case, the Philips Hue Bloom integrations with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google
Assistant are really useful.
In that case, you can just speak directly like the following, "Alexa, change the Baron
Bloom to blue."
And voila.
Now I've been able to change the vibe, chill things out a little bit, just by using my
voice.
Overall, these types of integrations with the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp really bring a
lot more flexibility and functionality to your Philips ecosystem.
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Gabe: We've given you a lot of information regarding the Philips Hue Bloom Lamp, but
you want to know, "Gabe, is it the right piece for me?"
Right off the bat, I want to say that this is not a foundational piece of any smart home
lighting system, rather it just gives you a little bit of oomph to your ambiance or
in your party, let's you highlight or focus on an accent wall or particular piece of art
that you're proud of.
Of course, coming in at $59.99, it's a little bit of a spendy addition to your ecosystem,
but the things that the Philips Hue Bloom does, it does incredibly well.
It has a highly rated Android and iPhone app.
It integrates with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit.
It has the ability to give you 16 million colors, and integrate with your home security
system like Nest or Xfinity.
The Philips Hue Bloom is bringing a lot to the table when it comes to lighting.
If you're already in the Philips Hue ecosystem, it is a worthwhile addition.
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Gabe: That concludes our review of Philips Hue Bloom Lamp.
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As always, this is Gabe with Security Baron.
Be secure.