Above the bedside tables of my wife and me there are currently three White Ambiance Filament Edison bulbs from Philips Hue. Compared to the White Filaments, the white tone is already much more pleasant, but unfortunately one other thing has not improved: The minimal brightness.
In normal everyday life, this is not a problem, whereby the emphasis here is clearly on the day. At night, however, in a dark bedroom, it looks different. If you switch on even one of the White Ambiance Filament lamps here, it feels like a floodlight right next to the bed. And that even at the minimum brightness of only one percent.
I was all the more curious to see how the new Philips Hue Lightguide bulbs would perform. After all, the LED light source sits in the base of the lamp and is first sent through a kind of light bulb to then break at the top of a prism. In addition, there are colours as well as white tones – and with the Play Lightbar at my son’s bedside, we use a red tone as a night light.
This is how dark the Philips Hue Lightguide can shine
But now I don’t want to keep you in suspense any longer. How little bright can the new Lightguide light bulbs shine? Just take a look at the two photos, you can clearly see the difference. With the naked eye it is even more obvious. In my opinion, the Lightguides are well suited as mood lighting in the bedroom, which, depending on its position, can also be used as a reading light and should also be a night light.
Only one other thing causes me a bit of a headache. The base of the Philips Hue Lightguide models is really big. Much bigger than the filament bulbs that have been available for a long time.
Here you should think carefully about where you want to use the Lightguide bulbs, after all, you don’t hide them behind a lampshade. They don’t necessarily look great in the pendant brackets of my URail system – and that’s putting it kindly. In any case, I’m not surprised that Philips Hue has launched its own pendant mount.
Philips Hue Lightguide
from $79.99 / £79.99 / 79,99€
They’re much larger than I thought making it seem like they’re made primarily for pendant fixtures. Does the “Nightlight” scene work with the Lightguide lamps? I imagine it should enable these lamps to appear much dimmer. I can hope they’re available as I find the Nightlight scene is plenty enough for me.