![]() ![]() For instance, red is limited on how bright it can get, so the brightness of reds on both bulbs are pretty much the same. ![]() In the light bulb world, that’s a noticeable difference, but with the Hue lights, the bulbs actually only reach their max lumens at specific white color temperatures, and all the other colors are fairly the same on both bulbs, including the brightness levels. This means that the newer bulbs are 25% brighter. The newer bulbs shine at 800 lumens at their max, whereas the old bulbs can only get up to 600 lumens at their brightest. ![]() One of the most noticeable upgrades is that the 2nd-gen bulbs are 200 lumens brighter than 1st-gen Hue bulbs. The 2nd-gen Hue bulbs are slightly improved over the 1st-gen bulbs, but not significantly. Granted, if you’re going to spend $170, you might as well just get the 2nd-generation starter kit for $199, but we’d recommend waiting on a deal to show up for the 1st-generation kit, as they tend to go on sale much more often than 2nd-generation Hue products. On Amazon, you can get the 1st-gen starter kit for $170, but we’ve seen it for as low as $135 on Amazon. That’s half the price of the 2nd-generation starter kit. You can usually find a 1st-generation start kit on sale, and recently Philips discounted it down to just $99 (although it’s listed as sold out), which gets you the 1st-gen Hue Bridge and three 1st-gen color bulbs. In fact, that’s likely a big reason why 1st-generation Philips Hue products are still popular right now. If the new features of the 2nd-generation Hue lineup have you on the fence about either getting 1st-generation bulbs or 2nd-generation bulbs, then it’s likely the prices of the 1st-generation product lineup that will have you making a quick decision. At that point, there’s no harm in getting the 1st-generation Hue Bridge, especially considering that newer 2nd- and 3rd-generation Hue bulbs work just fine with the 1st-generation Hue Bridge. Of course, if you’re not big on HomeKit and Siri, or you’re an Android user, the new features in the 2nd-generation Hue Bridge are pretty much worthless. The first generation can’t do these things. With the 2nd-generation Hue Bridge, I can tell Siri to “turn on the living room lights”. However, the biggest feature of HomeKit is Siri support, which means that I can use the voice-controlled virtual assistant to control my compatible smarthome products. RELATED: How to Turn Your Philips Hue Lights On or Off on a Schedule For example, I could set up an automation rule that would turn on my Philips Hue lights whenever I turned on my ConnectSense Smart Outlet (which is HomeKit-enabled). HomeKit merely provides a way to integrate your smarthome products into iOS more seamlessly, and it also lets different HomeKit-supported products work with each other in a way that they normally wouldn’t be able to. The Hue Bridge is the Philips Hue hub, the central point that the Hue bulbs connect to. With the introduction of the 2nd-generation Hue Bridge, the device received an all-new design, as well as support for Apple’s HomeKit smarthome platform. So if you’re wondering whether you should stick with your 1st-generation bridge and bulbs or upgrade to the 2nd generation or even the 3rd generation, here are the big differences between them all. ![]()
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