Gadgetory

hey guys I'm hearing the CNET smart-home testing out the second generation of Phillips Hughes color-changing smart lighting kit now that starter kit still sells for $200 and still comes with a Philips eBridge and three bulbs all that hardware is new though those bulbs are a little brighter than before and that bridge features support for apple homekit the set of smart home protocols built right into iOS that means that you'll be able to control your existing hue lights and the new ones using spoken Siri commands like this turn all the lights red so that's what's good here but what might be disappointing is that the hardware itself isn't much of an improvement over generation one check out these color comparison shots that's the old original philips hue bulb on the left the new philips hue bulb in the middle and then the lifx color-changing bulb on the right there and you can see that the lifx bulb is much better in a lot of these tests the colors look a lot brighter and more vivid and overall just kind of has better specs now the reason for those weak blue tones and that yellowy green tone is that the philips hue bulbs don't have a lot of blue diodes in them take a look at this old Philip t bulb we've taken the top off of you can see that it's got five yellow diodes four red diodes but only two blue diodes they're in the middle and taking a look at the new bulb I've got here you can see it's got a lot more yellow diodes there but still only that one blue diode in the middle so it's different that's still not strong on blue now with all those extra yellow diodes it can put out brighter light at some parts of the spectrum but not the default 2700 K setting at that normal yellowy tone you're still gonna be down under 600 lumens and not at the 800 lumens this bulb is promising you'll only get that bright at the hot white daylight tones another disappointment in my opinion if you haven't bought in yet I don't know that this new kit is enough of an upgrade to get you to buy it now especially if all you're buying into is the novelty of those colors thanks for watching check out the full review at cnet.com here to see that smart house I'm right Chris you