before making this video i watched lots of phillips hue installation videos and the one
thing missing from them was there wasn't actually very much installation in them lots of unboxing
lots of technical setup but in this video we're going to
show you how to turn this rather dull room into this or this or this or this
uh that's rick by the fire by the way this is the concentration scene but before we get to the fancy
stuff let's remind ourselves about the hue product it started out as the original smart lighting
system as a color-changing lamp you could retrofit to your existing installation but since then
the range has grown enormously and we think it's certainly worth another look particularly for
electricians who may get asked to install it by the clients but also for first fix installation
so stick around because we've got some top tips on how you can save money in any installation using
this hue system which now includes everything from the lamps itself traditional filament lamps
fixtures and our always popular lead tape now when it comes to wireless lighting control there is one
major advantage and ironically it is the wires all of the fixtures that we've installed here are
wired on one lighting circuit that simply looped between the different fixtures now this might not
sound groundbreaking but think of a traditional lighting installation when you want to control a
group of fixtures or an individual lamp that has to be wired individually back to its own switch
or if you want to add dimming then have to add a dimmer to that panel as well so you end up with
raws of switches probably not very well labeled that people don't remember what they do and that's
all unnecessary expense when you move to this system now let's just unpack that a little bit
more with these pendants behind us now i know what you're thinking yes we've spent years trying to
hide uh filament lamps but now we celebrate them in their led form and this smart example from the
hue range is part of that now we've built these decorative pendants with some e-fix themed red and
black flexible cable and these rather nice brass lamp holders but the important bit is imagine that
custom customer now customers i'm not saying they change their mind but they may not know exactly
what they want at the start of a project so naturally you'd think all of these pendants would
be controlled together they are all certainly wired together but with the hue system if i
wanted to make some changes i could switch each one individually or i could even bring in some of
the really smart features and get them to flicker like a candle and that level of controllability
extends to all of the fixtures in the hue range now the centrist fixture above me has a linear
panel in the middle and three spotlights each individual element can be controlled for its
white light output and also those dynamic color change features so i might want to add a red
hue to the room using the linear element of the fixture but then highlight some things on the wall
with some white spotlights or perhaps go back into tokyo mode and just go completely dynamic
we've also added this hubris pendant so we get some nice white light on the table when we want it
but we can also use the uplight element of this fixture to match the cove lighting that we've
installed behind us hopefully we'll show them that wireless control is great for new projects to
simplify the wiring it can also be really useful when it comes to refurbishment programs as well
imagine you've got an installation where the switching positions are all over the place perhaps
the lights are controlled on different circuits well that's another advantage of wireless control
because what you can do is bring them all together into one central location and obviously add
that app in that we'll come to in another video what we've also done here as well is managed to
integrate some existing lighting that we already had into our control scheme so we've brought in
the neon sign behind us and some existing shelf lighting using the smart plugs that are also
part of the hue system to further demonstrate the flexibility of the system we've used this philips
wall switch module to create what i believe is the world's biggest wireless switch
now i'm not suggesting your home light switches look like this but if you want to repurpose an
existing light switch and make them part of the hue system this product is the one for you perhaps
your switch matches your decor and you don't want to change them and it also prevents that
other problem of the switch itself disconnecting the power to the smart lights the electrical
installation for the hue pendants is incredibly simple it's just like any other domestic light
fitting you would install you just need to bring a line neutral and the protective conductor to them
bags of wiring room in there these are designed to go against the flat ceiling so you'd have
typically a plasterboard above there we've made some modifications to work with our open plan
ceiling and the cable basket that we've installed here i'll leave a link in the description and in
the eye above my head that shows you how we went through our installation process and conversion to
make that happen i'll also leave a link for the video that showed me how we made our filament
pendants as well but perhaps you're going to leave all of the controls to the customer so
they can set up their desired scene the good news about these products is they all come out
of the box pre-programmed to operate in this warm white color as soon as you power them up so you
don't need to do any programming to leave the job with everything looking the same if you're using
the hue product as part of a complete lighting installation it's probably the white that's going
to be the most important element of it because that's still what we like to work under most of
the time and this hue product really delivers that in the terms of the quality of the white light it
produces a lot of rgb systems may have a white channel tacked on there but really i'm impressed
with the depth you can go from between the warm and the cool white with this system and we can see
that in this led strip here with the rgb chip and the dedicated channels for cool and warm
white so five channels of control and again that's mirrored across all of the products in this range
one of the main features in our lighting scheme here are these core features here that we've
formed out of timber at the top and the bottom of the walls just to give a wash of light up the wall
and across onto the ceiling or down onto the floor when you're looking at features like
this we always recommend that you do some trials a little bit of a mock-up to check
that you're going to get the desired lighting effect because after all it's something you
a lot of work goes into building it you wouldn't want it to be in the wrong place then when it
comes to actually placing the led strip within the curve there's a few options there as well
we've gone and fixed it straight down under the surface here so we get maximum wash up the wall
and across the ceiling that makes installation a little bit more complex because we have to cut
and turn the corners because you can't bend the strip in in this direction an easier option would
have been just to stick the strip to the back of the wall section there onto the front up stand
but we found that didn't quite give us enough light distribution up the wall so that's why
we went for that option core features like this are a great solution for rooms where possibly the
ceiling height is lower and you want to increase the apparent height of a room a lot of time people
rush for down lights and you know down lights don't put any light on the ceiling and very
little light on the walls but by and then almost like you're going to crouch when you go into a
room they really effectively bring that ceiling it makes it look like it's a lower ceiling by doing
this with a carve lighting feature it's a great way to light a room i don't really like spending
my life upside down on the dusty floor trying to install led strip into this feature some top tips
from us and how to make your life incredibly easy is instead of trying to do those connections under
here and the sticking uh sticking the tape from the led strip to the the feature itself is do as
much as possible on the bench so for us that means putting it out to an aluminium profile so that we
bring it in or fully tested so we just have to put in the final screws and make the final connection
in this project as well what we've also done is put some clear adhesive lined heat shrink at the
end of the profiles because that's where they tend to the peel away so just add some extra resilience
to the the led strip before installation we've also used the light strip plus to create a glow
around this tv screen we use the similar assembly approach we assembled everything on the bench
carefully marking our cut points and our bend positions so that we can assemble it and just
bring it already pre-assembled on the led profile and drop it onto the timber frame that we built
behind us we've used the standard version there is another version that plugs into your hdmi port on
the television so you can match the colors around the screen to what's happening on the screen
and to do that you'll need to add one of these hue sync boxes another top tip when it comes to
creating the kind of curve section we've installed here you will notice that the depth of the channel
we've created is a much bigger than the actual strip itself this allows us to create room for
the light inside there to diffuse so you can't see the spots from any individual led and also
allows us to mask any shadows that might occur where we've created joins in the led strip itself
those dimensions as well also allow us to include the small driver that comes with each of the
light strip plus kits the kit comes with the driver and two meters of strip of which you
can then extend in one meter intervals up to a maximum of 10 meters so we've used three
driver sections here or three lead strip plus kits one for the strip at the top of the wall one for
the cove section at the bottom and another one for around the tv so we can then control each one of
those independently and have different colors and effects on each part of the set now at this stage
you're probably thinking this doesn't look like an ordinary room and regular viewers to the channel
will of course recognize it as our set that we use for our regular youtube live streams and one
of the reasons behind using this hue system is we're really looking forward to harnessing the
dynamic features where you too can also interact with the lighting system but the techniques we've
shown here can be applied in almost any type of installation and we traditionally think of the
hue product as suitable for residential and where we started from those retrofit applications but
having done this installation here i can think of loads of applications that probably electricians
deal with on a daily basis so i'm thinking small retail shops or restaurants where you could use
it as the main lighting but think of what you can do different times of the year to go those
flagpole events so halloween valentine's day christmas certain changing colors with
seasons all can be incorporated into a lighting scheme and with that single power supply that
goes around all the fixtures it means the actual setup in terms of fixed wiring is really simple
and when it comes to control people still prefer the trusty light switch by the door that you could
just flick on and the lights come on as you'd expect you don't want to be grappling around
in the dark to open up an apple when you've got your hands full of plates and cups
and as part of the hue system we've installed this smart dimmer switch which offers a lot of
functionality beyond just the switch and it can be a switch but it's also a remote control because of
course as you'd expect it is wireless and battery powered as well so i can switch the lights off
and back on again i can dim them up and down and i can also trigger the scenes that we've
programmed as part of the setup just by pushing the hue button at the bottom now all of this is
fully customizable within the app and that's what we're going to look at in our next video
how we set this system up and how you can integrate with other control systems beyond
the light switch yes it is important but you can also bring in things like voice assistance
and even tie it to other things happening in the room and other smart systems
you