Tag: philips

Beware Philips Hue lights from the states

I bought into the Philips Hue system a while ago by buying the part I needed and then the lights afterwards. There are a tons of people selling the wired zeegbee bridge for as low as 25 pounds (I paid 26 for mine) then you can get a bulbs afterwards for much cheaper than the starter kit at 170 pounds.

So this is what I did…

Philips Hue Bridge

However I hit a problem, the first Philips Hue Lux light came and I could see it on the app via the bridge but couldn’t control it. I tried a lot of things including upgrading the system and rebooting the bridge. But it just didn’t response to anything I did. I thought well maybe its a dodgy bulb from ebay. However the next bulb came and I couldn’t even see it via the bridge.

I also ordered some via Amazon and they worked straight away, as expected!  I looked into the differences and found some bad news…

Philips will void warranty if 110V bulbs are used with 220V power and vice versa. Closer look at the packaging shows there maybe a problem.

Philips Hue Lux lights American packaging
The American Hue Lux – E26 bulb

Philips Hue Lux lights Europe packaging
The Europe Hue Lux – E27 bulb

So it looks like I have 2 American bulbs which I’ll have to put back on ebay at a lost (if it works at all?)

The good news is I have replaced my Philips Light/Wakeup clock with a Hue light which slowly turns on when Sleep as Android thinks its time to wake up. Apartment therapy you are wrong, using your phone as an alarm makes perfect sense, when used in the right way.

Armin van Buuren and the Philips M1X

Well Armin Van Buuren launches a DJ device with Philips.

Its the M1X and on the face of it, it looks like a reasonable DJ device. 399 euros should mean about 299 pounds, which isn’t bad for a 100 watt boombox, with dj controller.

However, you must run it off an Apple ipad or iphone with lightning connection. This your suddenly talking upwards of 599 euros for something you can actually use (on the beach – as Armin said many times). The lightning connector slams the door on your Android devices. It also seems to only work with Algoriddim djay 2! So even if you invested in Traktor, Virtual DJ or what ever, your screwed? The only interesting feature is the ability to hook up multiple M1x’s to the same thing. How this works in practice is a massive question and I look forward to seeing people messing with this in time.

Armin said again and again, you can use it on the beach, but really? Are you going to carry that whole thing down on to the sand? A boombox with good speakers and amp is a lot cheaper that 399 euros. Plug in a Pacemaker and your laughing. Nope sorry its nice in concept but its not going to carve its way out of a tiny niche. That niche is smaller that the pacemaker and thats saying something!

Thumbs down sorry Armin… Either do something different like the Pacemaker guys or make the whole thing real cheap…

Its seems crazy that no one has a better device than the pacemaker, even with all the progression in memory, cpu speeds, display tech, etc.