FabianPhilips Hue is launching a whole range of new light strips this fall. The Hue Flux Lightstrip, its ultra-bright sibling, and the magnificent Hue Omniglow Lightstrip are already available. In December, two more light strips from the Hue Essential series will be added, which we still need to take a closer look at. Unfortunately, Philips Hue has not corrected a mistake from the past, at least in the case of Flux and Omniglow.
This refers to the distance between the Zigbee controller, which is the small white box, and the start of the light strip. This is just 15 centimeters. In practice, this means that the controller must also be placed in the immediate vicinity of the light strip.
As soon as the Flux accessories hit the market, Philips Hue will offer an option to increase the distance between the power supply and the controller. Incidentally, the existing extension cable for the Hue Play Lightbar is not compatible. However, this still does not solve the controller problem.
How to increase the distance between the controller and the light strip
I see this as particularly critical with the premium product, the Hue OmniGlow Lightstrip. This product is actually predestined for use in a visible location, rather than being hidden behind or inside a piece of furniture. Since no individual LEDs are visible, the light strip can also be placed in a clearly visible location for decorative purposes. The 15 centimeters to the significantly less stylish Zigbee box are quickly insufficient.
At least the connection between the light strip and the controller is not fixed and can be disconnected. And there are even already the first suppliers online offering extensions for exactly this area. For example, the British retailer Lightstrip Anonymous even offers different cable variants and cable lengths for all available Hue light strips. This may allow you to hide the Zigbee controller neatly after all. It’s just a shame that you have to buy additional accessories to do so and that Philips Hue hasn’t come up with its own solution.
Hue OmniGlow Gradient Lightstrip
from $139.99 / €139.99
Insane prices with shipping.
Great breakdown of the issue. It is surprising that Philips Hue keeps releasing premium light strips without fixing the short 15 cm controller distance. Products like the OmniGlow deserve cleaner setups without the Zigbee box showing. Good to know third party extensions are already available but it still feels like something Hue should have solved themselves by now.
This is my update on my recently purchased Omniglow (my original comments regarding described issue can be found in another post Fabian). I received 2m extension cable from LA company. Cable itself is ok and pretty much resemble Hue, unfortunately connector on the strip side is just 4-pins that you will stick in, so it is not very secure and should be taped. It’s working but for the price I wish a more robust solution. On the box end is fine.
But my real issue with Omniglow now is it’s very, very poor tape. I cleaned the smooth surface of ceiling moulding with rubbing alcohol very thoroughly, placed strip and was even pressing along for 15 minutes to ensure good bound but after a few hours strip fell. I quickly re- attached again adding at the both ends small strips of different tape – 3 days later strip fell again. Extremely disappointing and I even didn’t use the entire length but cut off about 50cm, so 2,5m attached. This is by far the worst Hue products and I have over 70 lights and accessories.