Philips Hue Discover White and Colour Ambiance LED Smart Garden Wall Light, Works with Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Homeki

We have been long term users of Philips Hue Lighting and whilst it is significantly more expensive, especially for colour, the functionality and flexibility, plus the overall quality really makes it worth while. We bought a number of these lights to both replace existing floodlights and in a couple of new areas and we are very pleased.

If you want them to function as security floodlights then you can pair them with a number of devices to act as motion sensors – the Philips Hue ones being the obvious choice, however they can quite happily function with other options via your home automation system of choice. The key thing here is that you can choose to have a very bright full strength floodlight feel to them, or you can have a much warmer white light or obviously a whole range of colours too. We actually have ours set up for a much more ‘friendly’ warm white at a lower intensity during the evening, switching to a much more security style bright white at night if something is detected.

In terms of the actual assembly, they are a good quality, although the IP rating is definitely not as good as it could be, they would need to be in a relatively sheltered location and I would worry if they were in an exposed location that was likely to see a lot of wind and rain. Personally, I like the frosted feel of the cover and that unlike most security floodlights, the LEDs aren’t openly exposed. Likely also a design choice given the mix of colour options.

Not to the not so good stuff. These are a nightmare to actually put up – I was two storeys up a ladder, holding the unit to the wall fumbling with a tiny little grub screw that was going in to a hole I couldn’t see that if I let go would only be held by the electrical wiring. This is a major fail. Philips needs to provide some kind of clip or catch mechanism that will hold the unit whilst the screws go in to then keep it in place. This is something that other suppliers do as a matter of course.

As others have noted too, the cable entry is via the rear only which makes a massive assumption about how they will be installed – although to be fair that appears standard across the Philips outdoor range. If you will be using a cable that is running along a wall or coming in from another angle like I was mostly, I used the following ABS spacers to lift the unit off the wall by a centimetre or so to allow the cable to come in via the rear. Obviously I then just used slightly longer screws than those provided, but I am delighted with the result, very secure and much easier. I also added a blob of silicone to where the cable came in given it was slightly more exposed.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B4236GR8?

Overall, very happy and so far they have been very effective.

Looks great and light is OK. If you’re looking for something really really bright this isn’t for you, however if you just need something to light an area well rather than land an airplane, this does the job.

This is an odd product I have here. I actually quite like it, does the job I need it to and so far has been reliable. However, the price of it is hard to swallow. It is reasonably bright in white mode, although the light is diffused so lights a nice big area and isn’t as harsh as a normal floodlight, which is what I was looking for. Colour modes are nice but won’t really light a garden effectively but nice to have for mood lighting. Would I recommend this to someone as a floodlight, probably not, unless …. they have the full smart home.

As this is Hue, it ties in nicely with my HomeKit setup. I have cameras which are programmed to control this light in the night so it comes on when they need it, it automatically comes on at sunset and off at sunrise and I have manual override at any point too. This is where the light comes into it’s own, works well via the Hue bridge ie is fast and reliable plus the light can be varied by app etc.

Installation is a little fiddly as it looked like it is designed to replace an existing floodlight which is flush against a wall and fed straight from the back. I made a small stand off to get the cable in behind but so far it has been fine. It connected into the smart home in seconds and no bother to set up that way.

There are better floodlights for the price but if you’re after control, then this is probably the best there is. Unfortunately, Hue prices are a little steep but I struggled to find an alternative.

It’s easy to install and connect to the hub. However it’s less bright than I thought.

Love our new flood light for the back garden. Easily installed and just the right ambience. So practical to be able to adjust the colours/timings etc from the app.

Another nice product from the Hue range – installed and worked exactly as advertised and integrated very well with the rest of my Hue system. Powerful light that suits my needs very well. Pricey – but you get what you pay for.

I replaced an existing flood light so I found this really easily to install, the white concentrate light etc is very bright but colours not so bright, does everything I want, works a treat with motion sensor I bought separately and can add other lights in the hue range to sensor too

Has to be rear cable entry which is a pity as in certain scenarios would be a pain. The unit is beautifully engineered however unlike mist rubbish you buy . Colours are great and integrated perfectly into my hue system . Very bright for the wattage particularly in the white spectrum.

Great Hue light to add to the range. Our garden is about 30ft long and the light is bright enough. Plus the colours add some style and flair. Motion sensor not fully set up and running yet but from initial inspection looks the business. Style might not be everyone’s taste but it’s clean and works well

A few things could be improved. As other buyers have mentioned the bracket on the spotlight has been moulded just off straight – annoying to have a wonky light but not so noticeable when mounted high. Also cable entry is from the back only – side entry would be good addition.

All that aside I now have a funky pink garden or blue or whatever. It gives off a nice diffused light that’s not dazzling on the eyes.

Lovely light. The electrician who fitted it said how nice the fixings and positioning was, and how well made it was. Control it all via Alexa (via the Hue hub), and works grea

Perhaps a little better than expected with tones of white but a little less powerful than I’d have liked with colours.

As far as ‘flood lights’ go, this actually looks very nice. It sits there, smiling it’s light down on you and works a treat in terms of nice light distribution. The well made diffuser is vasty better than the cheap, high wattage, flood lights that you seen on cheap houses that hurt your eyes and cast impenetrable shadows over everything. This lights up things in a usable and sensible way.

My only tiny gripe; the cable is rear entry only. This makes for a very neat and secure installation – if you can get the cable through a wall. Else you’ll have to mount on a box/plate or channel the wall out to make room for the cable. Otherwise, I really like this.

Note this is just the light and you’ll need both the Hue Bridge and an outdoor sensor to make this into a security light.

The motion sensor is sold separately but you can have it anywhere in the garden so it triggers light as soon as its walked past. You can also have more than one and you just sync them via the hue app. The sensor is definitely worth the purchase and only takes batteries so no hard wiring.

Purchased these for outside side garden, after sunset we have no street lighting so our garden is very dark. They were dead easy to put up. The instructions are good and very informative But common sense overrides the instructions because they’re that easy to put up. I have the Philips hue hub so I have linked these up to our google smart home network and a perfect addition to our forever growing Philips hue smart bulbs.

I opted to get the colour ambience flood lights to bring mood and atmosphere to the garden. Your instantly transformed into a warm glow with a few short words or via the Philips hue app or the google home app. You can set it so they are on from sunset to sunrise which might be good for those who have cctv and limited lighting in their garden. Giving all round protection.

I’m in the process of linking these to my Yale smart home alarm so should my home
Alarm go off these would flash red outside my house.

I know they’re seem a bit expensive but having Philips hue already you know what your purchasing and quality products they are. Our plug socket is above our kitchen cupboards and we can now leave this on and switch it on and off via google or the app. No more climbing on the chairs.

Definitely one of my more sensible purchases

Excellent lights for our garden which work great with the outdoor motion sensor. Only docking a star as they are a tad expensive like all Hue lights.

Bought this to replace an old broken light. I’d read a lot about it before hand, and my only real concerns in the end were the price and the brightness, but all the Philips Hue products are a little pricey.
It’s a defused light, unlike my previous one. The ability to change the colours will probably not get used much, but better to have and not use it. Brightness wise, it’s about what I expected I think, I generally have it at about 60%. I would say it’s bright enough for what I need. Don’t expect this to light up a 100′ garden though.
Quality wise it’s good. Feels sturdy even though the base it screws to is plastic.
As others have said, the wire is routed through the rear and not the side, but due to where I’ve fitted it I’ve been able to make a channel in the wall to accommodate this, so no drama.
Set up was easy through the app, I use other apps as well and they were easy too.
Overall very happy.

We had old halogen floodlights in our garden that were consuming 500W. Since we had installed a Hue system with internal and external LED lighting over the last year, integrated with our Alexa devices, we decided to replace the old halogens with two of the Philips floodlights. They are not as bright as the halogens they replaced but easily bright enough for our garden, with the benefits of much lower energy costs and the ability to fine-tune the lighting to whatever shade of white or any colour one would wish; the halogens were always too stark in their glare whereas the Hue floodlights are more acceptable to the eye. They also look great, despite being mostly made from plastic, whereas the halogens were almost entirely metal (and hence recyclable!).
They have two big design faults: the cable entry is right through the middle of the back of the light fitting so you cannot lead the cable in along the wall of your house of from under the eaves; also the screws securing the fitting to its bracket are tiny and have to be screwed in vertically from above and below. That makes them very awkward to fit without dropping them to the ground many metres below, never to be found. Clearly Philips did not try fitting these lights themselves high up a wall, whilst standing on a ladder!
That said, they connected to our Philips Hue Hub in seconds and were added to our system via the Hue app on a smartphone. After that, our Alexa system detected them and added them to the rest of our Alexa and Hue devices via the Hue skill.
Note that these floodlights are mains-powered, unlike the other Hue outdoor lights, and therefore need to be installed and certified by a qualified electrician.

I replaced my standard IR Sensor lamp on the rear of my house with this, at present I can;t automatically turn it on of off as I’m about to order the Outdoor Hue Sensor to control it, however using the Hue App or Alexa is just as good right now. To be honest my old one used to come on easier for my next door neighbour than it did for me so it’s easily saving me money by not only being LED but having me determine when it comes on and goes off.

With the fact that Hue are huge player with external companies such as IFTTT I have now configured it that ALL of my Hue lights inside the house and outside will Flash (and flat red if it’s a colour ambience bulb) when my smart house alarm is triggered. This allows you to take home protection to the next level. Not only is there a loud siren but a house flashing and glowing red in the street is sure to make itself known to others where the issue is.

I did have to modify where the wall was drilled when I took the old one off the wall, I simply flipped all the fuses in the fuse box just in case someone had wired it to a ring main different to that of what it should be on, removed the old one, drilled the we all where required, connected the appropriate cables to the old style UK wiring colours and with a little twiddling of the Hue light fixings it was all done. Now Alexa does the hard work of turning it on and off as it’s effectively always on because where it is located is not on a light switch as such.

Another good way to use the smart technology of Hue is to configure it to come on when a member of home comes home, that is if it’s at the front of your house, simply use Life360 and when it senses you’re about to arrive it will put the lights on for you, when you leave home have it turn all of them off to make sure you’re not wasting money :0) Been using Hue for 18 months and I’m a complete convert.

Simplicity of installing, quality of the product and support from Philips is second to none.