The revamped Philips Hue Lightguide range is perhaps the most stylist collection from the smart lighting specialist. Yes, they are expensive but they look and perform fantastically well, with numerous pairing modes on offer.
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Super stylish -
5 shapes to choose from -
Great performance -
Bluetooth and Zigbee connectivity
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Bulky base -
Expensive -
Pendants are extra cost
Philips Hue Lightguide: Introduction
- Lighting type: Smart light bulbs
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, Zigbee
- Ecosystems: Matter, Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings
Signify’s Philips Hue Lightguide range initially launched in 2022 but were plagued with issues, with some shapes and sizes ultimately discontinued. It was purported that there were problems with condensation in the glass spheres, which obviously isn’t great in a lightbulb.
Fast forward a couple of years and the Lightguide range is back, with tweaked versions of the original shapes – large globe, ellipse, and triangular – now joined by a smaller globe model and an Edison-style smart light too.
Perhaps the most stylish smart light bulb from the market leader yet, they don’t, as you’d expect from Hue, don’t come cheap, ranging from $75/£70 to $90/£90 a pop, but they are standout talking pieces rather than regular bulbs.
I’ve been living with a couple of Philips Hue Lightguide bulbs for the past few weeks, read my review to find out more.
Design and installation
The Lightguide range is consists of five handblown glass shapes: small globe, large globe, triangle and Edison.
For this review, I’ve had the two globe variants on test.
The smaller globe, which is technically a G95 shaped bulb, boasts a 95mm diameter and the G125, large globe has a 125mm diameter; so both are considerably bigger than a regular bulb.
The bulb itself isn’t actually the smart light – within it is an inner tube that diffuses light in the color of your choice, with the bulb then reflecting the light around while still displaying the striking line of light.
Philips Hue guides
It’s actually a dual-layered inner tube and eagle eyed readers may notice that this isn’t as transparent as the original 2022 models, but once they are powered on you can’t tell there’s a difference.
Whatever size and shape you go for, the base is big and black and again, is designed to be seen.
I used my test lights in a couple of regular light-shades in my house and it created a nice effect, particularly with a nice blue ceramic one we have in the dining room.
However, you may want to throw the official Hue Lightguide pendant cords (in black or white) into the mix too, to complete the look.
These are $50/£50 each.
Features
As with all modern Hue bulbs, you have a few options when it comes to making the Lightguide bulbs smart.
The easiest way is to simply pair to the Hue app using Bluetooth. This gets the Lightguide bulb singing and dancing in the Hue app with a pretty comprehensive feature set.
However, for full functionality and the complete set of Hue bells and whistles such as scenes, automations and more, you’ll want to pair with a Hue Bridge.
You can also now connect Hue bulbs directly to some Amazon smart speakers using Zigbee. The likes of the 3rd-gen Echo Show 8, Echo Hub and Echo Studio can work as Zigbee hubs so, if you’ve already got one of these Echo, the Hue Lightguide bulbs can be added through Alexa without the need for the Philips Hue skill.
I used the Bridge mode and added the Lightguide pair to my existing Hue system and it was simple enough to get them synced up with specific zones and rooms.
This gave me easy access to not only change the colors and brightness of the bulbs, but also use Hue effects such as Prism, which nicely blends continuously changing different colors and Sparkle, which creates a nice candle effect.
Performance
With a maximum brightness of 500 Lumens at 2,700 Kelvin, the value on paper is somewhat lower than that of classic Hue lamps but, given the large size you will find that the Lightguide bulbs are more than capable of filming a big room with plenty of white light.
In fact, the brightness punches higher than its rating so much so that, at 4%, I still found the brightness too much for ambient movie lighting in my living room.
Given that Hue has marketed the Lightguide range to work as a collection too, you will be able to achieve much more light if you team up some bulbs… if your bank balance allows for it.
The color specturm, at 2000K-6500K for more 16 million colors is, as you’d expect from Hue, superb and the big glass shapes allow for some fantastic color shades.
Final thoughts
Superb performance, stylish form factors and ease of use… the Philips Hue Lightguide bulbs are the top tier Hue standout smart lights that you’ve been waiting for.
How we test
When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.
Smart lights usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a connected light for a week and deliver a verdict.
Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular light compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.
Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.
Read our guide on how we test smart lights to learn more.
