Despite my affinity for adding smart home accessories whenever I can in my home, there is an area or rather a company that I haven't had in my life in a few years. When Philips Hue first came on stage, I was right there for the trip, adding light bulbs, bright and bright strips to the company, wherever I could.

However, as my smart destination needs evolved, I ended up leaving the Hue ecosystem, not because of problems or problems, but rather, because I wanted smart lighting switches to be the ultimate lighting solution for my home. . So, needless to say, I lost a little color in my life when I made the transition.

I recently started thinking about adding some accent or partition lighting to my office setup, and despite the multitude of options available on the market today, I couldn't resist returning to Philips Hue. We ended up choosing a Hue Play Bar starter kit, which also included the most important piece of the puzzle, Hue Hub. While I was expecting outstanding performance and reliability from the lights, I did not expect how much I would enjoy the simple pleasure of having colored light and effects again in the house.

Versatility in a bar

Philips Hue Play Bar: features

The Philips Hue Play Bar offers a quite different configuration, including starter kits, standalone light bars and extension packages, all in addition to the white and color variants. The Play Bar itself has a sleek, slim profile, which is made of a lightweight solid plastic frame with an opaque speaker on the side that covers the internal LED. For the longest time, the Play Bar is about 10 inches long and stands at about 1.7 inches wide, making it easy to fit in most spaces without support.

Several mounting options are included in the box, including: a stand for a table and a TV stand for fixing them directly on the back of a TV. For tablets, the Play Bar can operate both vertically and horizontally, using the included stands or just by setting them. Attaching the table stand to the light requires the use of an allen key, which is included.

If you want to go through the biased lighting path for your TV or PC monitor, you can attach the back bar using the supplied mounting clips that use the double-sided tape. You can also attach the playback bar directly to a wall using the same mount, but it should be noted that they are rated for indoor use only. The wiring for the Play Bar is in the form of a single 80-inch cable (previously lighted), which is attached to a power source.

Each game bar is capable of producing up to 530 lumens of brightness, which is enough for accent and bias installations, but not enough to light an entire room. Of course, being a Philips Hue product, the Play Bar accepts the company's gold standard of up to 16 million shades of color and white, along with darkening capabilities.

Color for days

Philips Hue Play Bar: What I like

As I have already alluded to, I was absolutely delighted to see the area around my office bright in bright, bright colors throughout the day. At first, I associated Play Bars with a HomeKit remote control and had the setting to simply change it into one color. Finally, I came to try out some of the scenes available through the Philips Hue app and installed using the Colorloop formula in the Hue Labs section.

Speaking of pairing, the entire configuration process with the hub and the application was quick and quite painless. The Hub was instantly found by the Hue app, and after a quick update, Play Bars were also found within seconds. Once everything was ready to go, I immediately added it to HomeKit, which is my smart platform of choice, and again, the process was pretty straightforward. I will also note that the Play Bar, like everything else Philips Hue, works with all three major voice assistants, Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit.

All of this adds to the Philips Hue line, with solid reliability and extremely fast response times, which I see with the Play Bar.

Since I went with the lights to complete the room lighting and the office setup, I used the included stands to place both lights upright on each side of the monitor. The simple, slim design makes the lights look like speakers on my desk and doesn't scream "smart lighting connected", which I was just trying to avoid. The lights "face" the wall behind my desk and, when illuminated, they emit only the right amount of light and do not cause any visual distraction.

One of the main reasons I went with Play Bars was for performance and reliability. The Philips Hue Hub connects to accessories through a ZigBee wireless radio, which not only keeps things off your Wi-Fi network, but can extend its reach through the network. All of this adds to the Philips Hue line, with solid reliability and extremely fast response times, which I see with the Play Bar.

Ropes attached

Philips Hue Play Bar: What I do not like

Even though the Play Bar has a fairly generous cable length with room for extension, I didn't like that one power supply was included in the box. This means that both lights included in the kit I purchased were connected to the same socket, which was fine for my setup, but might limit the placement depending on the situation. Also, the cables attached to the Play Bar cannot be removed, although they can be removed from the power supply.

As with the entire Philips Hue line, along with all color lighting in general, the Play Bar strives to be one color, especially green. Sure the lights are capable of displaying bright green cereals, however, a darker hue seems to be the only color that manages to be fun, sad to see even after all the progress in the area over the years. .

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the Play Bar is that it requires the Philips Hue Hub for almost everything. The hub requirement applies not only to the intelligent side of things, but also to the simple turning on and off of the lights without pulling the plug. There are no physical switches or buttons to be found on the device, which is understandable for bias lighting, but it would still be nice to be able to manually switch colors or power if needed.

Lifting the bar

Philips Hue Play Bar Bottom line

4
out of 5

If you are looking for a simple and clean way to add party lighting or accent around your home, then the Philips Hue Play Bar is one of the best options around. The compact and versatile design allows it to fit almost anywhere, including on a table top, mounted on a wall or neatly tucked behind the TV. Yes, there are light tapes available that can work for many applications, however, the polished nature of the Play Play bar simplifies things and can be reused for other purposes in the future.

The Philips Hue Play Bar offers some of the best color reproductions around (less green-dark) and is bright enough for most scenarios. Response times and reliability are top notch, and the Hue line plays beautifully with all smart home platforms, keeping things lit even if you decide to change things in the future. Of course, the Play Bar requires Philips Hue Hub for things like activating and stopping them, darkening and changing colors, but if you are in the market for colored lighting then you should already look in the direction of Hue. .

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