FabianPhilips Hue turned ten years old a few days ago and we have probably been waiting at least as long for string lights that can be connected to the Hue Bridge. Today the day has come when I can present the corresponding product to you: The Philips Hue Festavia.
First of all, let's get to the most important facts: The Philips Hue string lights will initially be available exclusively in the Philips Hue online shop from 11 November. The list price is 159.99 euros. At the start, there will only be an indoor version with 250 LEDs, which are spaced at 8 centimetre intervals over a total of 20 metres.
Philips Hue Festavia is not much more expensive than Twinkly string lights
For direct comparison: The Multicolor + White string lights by Twinkly with the exact same number of LEDs has a list price of 149.99 euros, so it is only slightly cheaper. But even though the price is almost identical, the two string lightss are very different from each other.
In contrast to Twinkly, the Philips Hue Festavia string lights can be connected to the Hue Bridge and used within the Hue app with all the familiar functions. Changing colour, dimming light, creating timers or controlling the string lights with a Hue switch, all this is no problem.
New diffuse mode provides bright colours
For the Festavia, however, the Philips Hue development team has come up with something special. There is not only a gradient mode in which, just like other products, three colours are selected and a colour gradient is created from them. In addition, the new string lights offers a so-called diffuse mode, in which five different colours can be selected and these are then distributed in a colourful mix over the entire light strip.
Philips Hue Festavia String Lights
from $219.99 / €119.99 / £109.99
But even if you like it more classic, the Philips Hue Festavia has something to offer. In addition to the candle and fireplace effects, the string lights offers a new sparkle effect, which makes the string lights sparkle festively.
I have collected first impressions of the Festavia for you in the following short video (german language). I will provide more answers about the product in the course of the day, and you are also welcome to write your questions in the comments.
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Is the power supply of your EU Festavia 120–240v or is it 240v only?
Twinkly’s power supply is usually 120–240v, but Hue products seem to be typically restricted to the voltage of the region where the product is sold.
From the specs, the 20m Festavia are 24V using up to 15W.
The bundled power adapter is 220-240V, 50-60Hz only.
But… that power adapter is rated at 40W, which is way oversized for the 20m Festavia…
Yesterday they had the Festavia page on the Swiss web site (now removed), and the power adapter in the picture along with the string lights actually had an IP55 outdoor plug that is more cumbersome and difficult to use indoor, exactly like the one they sell with outdoor “LowVolt” products.
Looking closer, it seems that adapter is in fact the existing 24V “LowVolt” adapter they use for outdoor low-voltage lights.
This makes sense when you consider all the different plugs in different countries, settling on a few standardized adapters is a good solution, and they already do that with the indoor 24V 20W adapter, which is used by almost all their recent products.
This leads me to believe you could just mix and match with their outdoor 24V “LowVolt” accessories, including extension cables, T-part adapters to connect two string lights to a single power adapter, … and of course, just use a north American power adapter to connect the Festavia string lights to 100-120V.
See: https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/p/hue-outdoor-40w-power-supply/1734830VN
This also means you can probably use the 95W “LowVolt” adapter (https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/p/hue-95w-power-supply-hue-nam/1748830VN) and T-part adapters if you want to connect up to 6 string lights to a single power adapter.
I just don’t really understand if the string lights are designed for indoor use only why they used the outdoor 40W adapter instead of the indoor 20W model.
Yes, you can use all the outdoor adapter and stuff. I also don’t know why they only rated it IP20. They have marketing images ready which show the outdoor use…
Just to clarify, 220-240V only is for the European Festavia. They also released it in the US with a 100-120V only power adapter. I only meant that the power adapter depends on the country and isn’t a global 100-240V.
For north American version, see: https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/p/hue-white-and-color-ambiance-festavia-string-light-250leds/046677580148
@Fabian, yeah, the only reason I see to use the more expensive 40W outdoor adapter is if they originally planned for that string lights to be sold for indoor+outdoor use, that everything was ready and production probably started, and they didn’t get the outdoor rating at the very end, forcing them to just change the writing on the packaging at the last minute.
At that point, it wouldn’t surprise me to see “indoor use only” as a sticker on top of “indoor+outdoor” on early boxes.