Philips Hue Surimu: Trying out the small ceiling light

In June, Philips Hue introduced two new variants of the Surimu LED panel. After there were previously only two large ceiling lights, the Hue Surimu is now also available as a square variant with an edge length of 30 centimetres for 229.99 euros and as a round variant with a diameter of 39.5 centimetres for 239.99 euros.

I received the small square Surimu as a test unit and have been thinking hard about where to mount it for the past few weeks. Until my wife approached me yesterday with the following words: “So here in the guest bathroom I desperately want a brighter light. Can you take care of that?”

This is what you can expect with the Hue Surimu

She hadn't quite finished her sentence before I had the Hue box and tools in my hand. In no time at all, the old ceiling light was unscrewed; it couldn't do much more than look good anyway. At least not shine brightly, but that's another story.

The way the Hue Surimu is packaged is also praiseworthy. Philips Hue does it without plastic completely, instead the ceiling light is fixed by cardboard and is also protected from scratches and damages by a fabric cover.

The simple assembly in a quick run

The assembly itself is not a big hurdle. First, a bracket is attached to the ceiling with two screws, the necessary material is not included and should be chosen by you according to the material of the ceiling. A small challenge compared to the round version is the straight alignment in the room, I measured the distance of the two drill holes to the wall for this. The rectangular holes in the bracket also give you a little leeway.

As soon as the bracket is mounted on the ceiling, the Hue Surimu can be hung up with two carabiners. This makes connecting the power lines much easier. As soon as the power supply is established, the LED panel is simply hooked into the bracket, fortunately no further screws are used.

The LED panel with the lowest brightness so far

The 30 x 30 centimetre Hue Surimu has a maximum brightness of 1,760 lumens at 4,000 Kelvin. This makes it by far the “darkest” variant of the series, but it is still about twice as bright as two regular E27 bulbs. White tones from 2,000 to 6,500 Kelvin are covered, and all 16 million colours can be displayed.

For the guest bathroom (without shower or bathtub), a Hue Aurelle with the simpler White Ambiance technology would certainly have sufficed. In general, however, the Hue Surimu can be installed in all rooms of your choice, only in damp bathrooms it officially has no place. I might also see the small Surimu in rooms with several lighting points on the ceiling, as you can see at the official product photo on the top of this article.

This model is still quite new on the market, so sooner or later the price will probably drop below 200 euros. Paulmann offers a significantly cheaper version, but only with White Ambiance technology, with the Velora ZigBee ceiling light for less than 100 euros.