A glance at the calendar reveals that the time until Christmas is now shorter than the time since Christmas. In less than half a year, we'll be putting up Christmas trees in our living rooms again. And of course, the right lighting can't be missing. Last November, Philips Hue launched its smart Festavia string lights at the very last minute.
Christmas is over and by now almost all Christmas trees have disappeared from our living rooms. We also took everything down a week ago – and first of all, the Festavia light chain disappeared back into the box. My second Philips Hue Festavia is still hanging outside on the tree and has survived two months in the wild without any damage, although officially no outdoor use is intended.
Only a few days after the major update to version 4.14, developer Stefan Göhler delivers the next update for his app iConnectHue. Version 4.15 is released shortly before Christmas, and not without reason: It contains animations for the new Philips Hue Festavia. The string light is probably already hanging on the Christmas tree of one or the other of you.
If you were flirting with buying the new Philips Hue Festavia before Christmas, there's bad news for you: Nothing left. Apart from one small country surrounded by big mountains, the string lights are currently out of stock. In Switzerland, there is still a remaining contingent available. According to my information, it is almost impossible that there will be a possibility to order the Festavia light chain via the Philips Hue Shop before Christmas.
You have to hand it to Philips Hue: After they have made a mess of one or the other product launch in the past and the availability in the in-house online shop was often very poor, it worked out wonderfully with the Festavia string light despite the tight schedule. On 11 November, which was a Friday, it was possible to order the string light in the Philips Hue online shop, and the first orders were already delivered on the following Monday.
In version 4.31 of the Philips Hue App there is a new mode for the Hue Festavia string light. This allows you to display not only three but five colours as a gradient in gradient mode. In addition to the normal gradient mode, which is also available for other products such as the Philips Hue Gradient Signe, the Festavia already mastered the new and previously exclusive “Diffuse” mode “out of the box”.
I actually haven't written about the new Philips Hue Festavia string light for two weeks, so let's change that today. I couldn't bring myself to do an ultimate test yet, also because I don't know yet how exactly to evaluate the product. But I can already answer one question: I like the fairy lights very much.
At the weekend, I wanted to find out for you how much electricity the new Philips Hue Festavia string light consumes. The result really surprised me, especially with regard to other Hue light sources. But first things first. With Philips Hue lights, it has always been the case that colours have consumed significantly less energy than, for example, bright and cool white tones.
Since the announcement of the new Philips Hue string light Festavia on Thursday, more and more details have come to light. Among other things, I have already compared the new release with the well-known Twinkly string light. One point that bothered me a lot: Philips Hue Festavia (Online-Shop) is only suitable for indoor use.
Yesterday, Philips Hue introduced its first light chain, and as of today, Festavia can be ordered directly from Philips Hue's online store for 159.99 euros. In the smart home market, there is one competitor in particular that specialized in fairy lights years ago: Twinkly. Today, I would like to take a look with you at the advantages and disadvantages of the two products and who might come out on top in the end.
Fabian