A gentle splash of colour for your room
We can’t work out if Philips didn’t twig that Hue Go sounds like the name Hugo, or intended the pun to mean something, or didn’t care. It’s now the name of a little hemispherical ‘smart’ lamp that can be controlled from your phone or tablet as part of a ‘connected’ home. Ideal for a bedside table, it has a button on the bottom that switches its built-in LEDs to steady or shifting colours or a flickering flame effect. The bottom is identified by a bump that lets you angle Hue Go so that it casts its light on a wall; it can also lie flat, like a bowl.
You can leave Hue Go plugged in, but if you want to move it around, as the name proposes, it contains a rechargeable battery that’ll keep it going for three hours. It’s too small and dim to serve any practical purpose, but Hue Go is a lovely thing that makes the small area around it more pleasant to be in.
The price isn’t outrageous for a designer lamp, but you’re not getting the full benefit unless you also have a Hue Bridge. This £50 box is the brains of the Hue concept, connecting to your Wi-Fi network to enable all the Hue gadgets in your home to be controlled from your Apple or Android phone, tablet or watch. Hue lightbulbs fit in ordinary sockets, so you could control all the lights in your house from the Hue app, which supports so-called ‘recipes’ that let you switch from one lighting setup to another at preset times or on command. You’d need to spend quite a lot of money, though.
Hue also works with Apple HomeKit, so other compatible accessories can trigger lighting changes, and with Philips’ own Ambilight TVs, so all the lights in your living room can change colour in sync with what’s happening on screen.
Like other ‘internet of things’ devices, the Hue Bridge gets updates over the internet, which can add new features. In December, though, Philips used an update to prevent lights from other manufacturers working with it. Users weren’t happy, and we’re pleased to say Philips reversed the decision, so the Hue Bridge can still control a wider range of gadgets.
VERDICT
It’s pricey, but Hue Go is a nice home accessory by itself and a good way to dip a toe in the Hue ‘ecosystem’.
SPECIFICATIONS
240v PowerLED table lamp • 300 lumen output (dimmable) • Wi-Fi • 79x150x150mm (HxWxD) • 900g • Two-year warranty