Philips Hue White Ambiance Single Smart Spotlight LED [GU10 Spot] with Bluetooth. Works with Alexa and Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit

These are awesome, pretty expensive but worth the investment. We have them setup so that they slowly change temperature based on sunrise/sunset which works well for us. Seamlessly integrates with Alexa, you’ll need a Hue hub to control a large amount of lights, I use a RaspberryPi running Hassio with a Conbee USB adaptor so I can maintain local control without the need for a Hub, but the Hub works well too. As these are individually addressable if you have a load of ceiling lights you can use the Hue app to set up scenes and only turn on selected lights at the touch of a button even when they are all in the same circuit.

Although our house is very much a “smart” home, I was relatively late to the smart bulb party but I was an immediate convert though. Over the last year I have slowly been changing as many of the bulbs in the house that I can with Philips Hue bulbs. Hue bulbs are usually available in three flavours. White, White Ambience and Colour. The White bulbs are basically just a dimmable bulb, the White Ambience adds a huge range of temperature to your light which can really alter the mood of the room. The Colour bulbs have everything that the White Ambience have, but an almost infinite variation of colours. I do see the Colours more of a gimmick that you’ll rarely use, but if you get creative there are some funky things you can do with them. They’ve also improved with the latest generation so if you do buy a Colour bulb do make sure it’s the latest ones (the ones with Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi) as they have a greater range of colours and fit into a standard GU10 bulb holder whereas the older ones don’t. They’re much more expensive though, so I’d generally recommend the Philips Hue White Ambiance bulbs as they give the best combination of lighting options against cost. If your budget stretches though, you can have some fun with the Colour bulbs. Currently I have 11 White Ambiance GU10s and 3 Colour GU10s, 4 White Ambiance B22s and 1 Colour B22, 4 E27 bulbs and 6 E14 bulbs dotted around the house and have space for several more in the coming months. The elephant in the room with these bulbs is the cost. There’s no getting away from the fact that they are expensive, even if you manage to pick them up on a Lightning Deal. That said, you’re paying for much more than a way of lighting your room. Smart homes are only limited by your imagination, and you can implement some pretty funky routines through the Alexa app if you’re brave enough to delve deeply. Beyond the Hue bulbs I have 12 TP Link smart sockets controlling things like the lights on my two fish tanks, I have 7 Echo dots, 2 Sonos Ones, a Logitech Harmony, Nest thermostat and two Nest smoke detectors. My Denon amp is connected by its HEOS app, and I have a couple of LG TVs with Alexa built in plus another with a Fire HD stick. Five internal IP cameras and 8 external cameras plus my recent addition of a Ring door camera. If thought through, all of these can be interlinked. For example, should the smoke detectors or doorbell go off, I can have the Hue light bulbs dim or light up. If a motion sensor is tripped on one of the IP cameras, I can have the Hue bulbs in the patio lights come on. Additionally, even without working with other smart devices, the Philips Hue bulbs offer plenty of things on their own. The ability to gradually lower the light as the night goes on, and likewise gradually bring the light up as your morning routine begins. You can have lights come on as the daylight begins to fade, and set them to many different shades to suit your mood such as reading or night light, through Savanna sunset and white brilliance. Your options are many and varied, and if you can look past the initial set-up costs, they can hugely enhance your home.

As with all things from Philips hue this is another great bulb. It doesn’t offer the full couloir spectrum as it’s the warm white bulb but it does give you a good range of cool whites to warm whites and is very bright. It was very easy to add to my existing hue setup with the bridge and works perfectly with Alexa and my iPhone.

Overall I'm very pleased - I use Alexa to control smart plugs, and as I only wanted one smart bulb, I didn't want to spend extra on a hub for just one bulb. The bluetooth solution sounded like a great option but at first I was skeptical about how well it would work. So far I'm very satisfied, however it can have moments where it can be temperamental with Alexa and I have to open the Hue app to control. I imagine it would be smoother with the hub, but it's a great solution for now - with the option to buy the hub for later if I decide to add more smart bulbs to my collection!

I got this to complement the Philips Hue White Filament bulb that I recently fitted to a bedroom pendant lamp (which I got an electrician to replace a recessed ceiling spot with). The existing 7W GU10 spot in the other ceiling fitting was just too harsh and bright even though "warm white", so this Hue Ambiance is a perfect replacement. Like many things on Amazon the price does seem to vary, so if you're willing to be patient you can get a good deal! I was pleased that by default it's a very warm white but in any case the power-on default can be set using the app, so I can match it to the (fixed) colour of the Hue filament bulb, and set the colour and brightness etc. I can't imagine setting it to "cool white" much (except perhaps when trying to find socks in the depths of the wardrobe!) but it would be great in a study or workroom. I'm only using these two bulbs with the BT app at the moment, and the main downside (as I mentioned in my review of the Hue filament bulb) is that it can take a good 5 seconds or more to reconnect to the bulbs each time when you bring your phone within range and/or open the app, even if your phone's blue-tooth is already on. Contrary to the suggestion in another review, once initially paired you don't need to go close to pair again each time after power off - you just need to be in the same room, as you'd expect with most BT devices. I guess a hub would resolve the connection delay anyway, so maybe that's next on the wish-list! Incidentally, the app suggested firmware updates, which worked fine with this GU10 Ambiance, but hung when trying to update the Hue filament :-( After an initial panic wondering whether I'd bricked the bulb, and some Googling, as advised I force-closed the app then re-tried the update, and fortunately it worked fine the second time round.

I previously wrote the below review but having discussed this issue with a colleague of mine, I took the following steps and now I am happy. I removed all 6 lights from the Alexa app and added them to the Hue App. I then added them back into a group in the Alexa app and now they respond almost simultaneously. I got 6 of these in total for my kitchen and while they work great and integrate well with Alexa there is a slight delay in getting them all on/off/color changed. Ok the delay is minimal but still slightly annoying my eyes.

Excellent product and integrated into hue app and alexa and google home. Easy to group and set up timers

Expensive to buy compared to other lights but good value for money as so low energy use and can change the colour brightness.