Philips Hue 468942 Single Premium BR30 Smart Bulb Downlight for 5-6 inch recessed cans, 16 million colors (Hue Hub Required, Works with Alexa), Old Version, White and Color Ambiance

Could have more lumens.

Love Hue lights. I was in need of automatic dawn to dusk lightning on my covered front porch. These are perfect. Now I have them programmed to change colors every other night to add ambiance and during holidays I use the routines. Had them flickering and changing during Halloween. No problem so far in cold weather down to 20 degrees so far and they are out of the rain. Again, a perfect night lighting solution for me instead of buying another system or re-wiring for a different type of light.

Fantastic

I didnt think that the 3rd generation would be that much better than the 2nd generation, but I was wrong. The colors are much better. Not that Im going to replace the 2nd gen lights that I have, but I do see a difference. Make sure you check the sizing. The bulb was too wide to fit in the original fixture I was planning to put it in.

Update: Also noticed, took a while because there’s often sound in the room, but at any usable brightness these lights are LOUD. Imagine some light on a pole outside that makes a very audible hum.. now imagine that in every recessed can, which only act to amplify the sound. Using a decibel meter, I register 36-37 dB with lights off and only ambient noise, in an acoustically treated room, making it all the more annoying (outside, rest of the house is 39-45). Turn on the lights, and it measures between 45-47, pretty much a 10 dB jump, if measuring near the light. That’s frankly terrible. No other LED lights make this sort or level of noise, including competing full-color options. My normal, $5 LEDs made 0 noticeable noise, so when you spend $200 for a 4-light room, it’s pretty bad when it sounds like there’s a fly buzzing around. It’s not a fan of anything either, it’s a distinctly electric buzz. How such a product gets through QA I don’t know, let alone it’s third generation. I haven’t found a downlight from a competitor, so maybe that’s the one thing they have. I’d rather put an A19 size that isn’t so loud rather than these, though, but since the hub does work with other accessories (strip works great), I guess I’ll keep these until the sound drives me nuts. If there’s another color downlighting option, take it, it can’t be worse than these. I can’t speak to the white-shade only bulbs, maybe they’re better.. but I don’t care that much about changing the color temp, everyone generally has a preference, and you can stick with that. Unless colors are a must, I’d do likd the rest of my house and get smart dimmer switches, that work with any dimmable LEDs. Overall cost will be slightly less, and none of Hue’s headaches. If color is a must, then just be aware of the issues. If you’re lighting a loud space, perhaps the noise will not be noticeable, but a quiet office or something, it will be blatant. I can see retail applications and other stuff where the color ambiance is key - then I guess this is your best bet, if you have BR30 cans. Really though, for most ambient lighting, I’d go with the Hue strips or spotlights, desk lights, etc... you can still make great looks with those, without using these, and be very happy with Hue. Also, the strips do colors like blue brighter and in a more ambient way - think like a T-mobile store’s pink glow. These don’t even make the room look that much like the set color. As well, blues / purples / greens etc. are all pretty dim at 100%. This does mean less noise, as it’s only loud when bright, but full blue at 100% is almost as dark as off. That means lighter blues only, which are louder and start to look like ultra cool white. Do yourself a favor - if you use Hue, don’t use these! You’ll start hating Philips and distrusting even the things that work okay. The regular A19s have the turn-off issue mentioned below also, and definitely some noise, perhaps a little less (or the can just amplifies). Original review: So, I like the Hue system a lot. I left a review on the Hub and it continues to work just fine. Unfortunately, these lights and the A19 lights (at least) have a major issue. They get hot quick, and once they’re too hot they start acting weird. Specifically, if you turn the lights off - via remote, via phone, via Alexa, etc. - they go off for a second and immediately come back on. This will occur as well when the lights are working on a schedule, meaning they’ll never turn off. The only way, besides flipping the original switch which defeats the whole purpose of the Hue ‘ecosystem’, is to turn the lights very low, especially it seems a low blue cools it down the quickest (plus if you aren’t worried about every last drop of electricity, 1-5% blue is basically off, you could easily sleep with it etc.), and once cooled it will go off when told. So you can program a fade down or just switch to low blues for an hour or so, but that’s a step in your schedule you shouldn’t need to add. The strip LED Hues and other Hue lights that aren’t these really hot bulbs where everything is crammed in aren’t effected, so I doubt anything but bulbs would be, given the cause. A quick search will show LOTS of people have this problem. If you also have smart switches it’s less of an issue, but that again defeats the purpose. Hue’s benefit is the integration of these downlights and A19 bulbs so you can easily convert most of your house if it has standard lighting, but this problem really negates that. If this were a $20 first gen light, I’d be understanding, but it seems that this had been a known issue sincegen 1, and this is gen 3, and it’s $50 a light. That’s fairly disappointing of Philips, considering it seems so well made, it’s a significant issue that should have been addressed. Perhaps they can do a firmware update to fix it, somehow catching this and not allowing the lights to turn right back on. Fixing it in another generation, idk if I’ll bother. Having colors in the ceiling is cool, but far from necessary. The strips also give you more bang for your buck in terms of adding ambiance, etc.. With this problem, these are my least favorite of the Hue lights, but unfortunately the most significant in a condo like mine (All recessed cans, I had one lamp that broke, so now it’s literally all ceiling lights. Tried these in the office.. will not be getting more for elsewhere, not the bulbs at least, unless they manage to fix it with an update, which I’m not holding my breath for.

These lights and this system is fantastic. Started off with 7 can lights for kitchen and 2 bulbs for living room. After a few days I added 2 strip lights for on top of the kitchen cabinets. Much better than rope lights. I also added 3 more bulbs to front rooms and 2 porch lights. Love these lights. 3rd party hue app activates the ability to have the lights change to music. Its awesome

the hue lights are perfect for home automation and color decorations. there are a few generations out there where the latest generations have more vibrant colors, youll notice that. so make sure you order the right generation as there is a price difference. this light automation system is much much better then smarthomes INSTEON/X11 as no wiring or electric skills are needed. although the bulbs ARE very pricy. also nice to be able to control the lights remotely with timers or through the app manually.

Gen 3 bulbs have great colors. I wish my other 200 bulbs were all gen 3.

Fantastic. Now do color.

Worthless junk! Have had to add the hub and lights three times now AFTER an ALL day update of each light. Im so sorry i wasted the money on these!