Philips Hue’s new outdoor smart lights will help make your garden an extension of your home | TechRadar
Philips Hue has expanded its range of outdoor smart lights, launching three new ranges that enable you to control the brightness and color of the light via the Hue app, just as you can for the brand’s indoor lights.
The Philips Hue Inara wall light combines a vintage-style black lantern housing and, for the first time in the Philips Hue range of outdoor smart lights, with a filament-style bulb for a stylish look.
The warm white filament bulb can be brightened or dimmed from the Hue app, while you can also set the color to an array of white tones, from stark, cool tones to warm, sunset-like shades.
Alternatively, for those who prefer a more modern look, the Philips Hue Lucca wall light comes in both white, and color options – which can be adjusted to illuminate any of 16 million shades, and has a monochrome cylindrical housing.
Philips Hue has also unveiled the Calla Bollard, which is a 25cm-tall pillar light that’s perfect for illuminating pathways or areas of your garden. All three of Hue’s latest smart light ranges are weatherproof.
The Philips Hue Lucca wall light is priced at $99.99 / £79.99 and is available now in the UK, and will launch in the US on March 1, while the Inara wall light, which costs $99.99 / £89.99 will be available from February 8. The Philips Hue Calla Bollard, which is initially only available in the UK, will set you back £119.99 and will also go on sale on February 8.
Opinion: turning the garden into a room you’ll use more often
The amount of time we’re spending outside – and in our gardens, if we’re lucky enough to have one – has risen thanks to the pandemic. Research by insurance firm LV, revealed 30% of Brits spent more time in their garden, either working or relaxing, than usual during lockdown.
With things starting to get back to normal, utilizing gardens as another room in the home is something many of us will stick with – that’s certainly the case for me. I love entertaining, and during lockdown, my small garden proved extremely handy when it came to seeing friends and family safely.
However, the more time I spent socializing outside, the more it became clear that my garden wasn’t quite as homely as I would have liked. Illuminating the garden as it got dark was one of the biggest issues for me, as I’d never really invested in any form of garden lighting for socializing – what outside lighting I did have was for security.
This meant I had no choice other than to use the floodlight on my Arlo Pro 3 security camera to illuminate the garden – although as this switches off automatically after 20 minutes, I was constantly being plunged into darkness and fumbling for my smartphone to switch the light back on.
Now that things are opening up, this year I’m planning to focus my DIY efforts on overhauling the garden, and it’s clear that I need some lighting that’s designed to be aesthetically pleasing rather than just functional.
Weatherproof smart lights, including Hue’s range, can be set to work with home security cameras and video doorbells so they illuminate when motion is detected in a bid to deter any would-be intruders. However, unlike the floodlight on my Arlo security camera, they can also be illuminated from the app for any length of time.
Philips Hue is currently the only smart lighting brand that offers weatherproof lights that look stylish as well as being functional – and for those of us using the garden as an extension of our home, this is also important.
I feel slightly embarrassed that my garden isn’t quite as pristine in terms of decoration as the rest of my house, and I welcome the expansion of Hue’s outdoor lighting range and hope other brands such as LIFX and Nanoleaf follow suit.
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