Philips Hue White Filament LED Bulb with Bluetooth

A Philips Hue filament bulb is meant to be seen. The ST64 Edison glass and the exposed spiral filament are the decoration, so it goes where a frosted bulb would look wrong.

• Where a Philips Hue filament bulb belongs
• 2100K is warmer than warm white
• Deep dimming, and why cheap filament LEDs fail
• The glass, and the numbers behind it
• Bluetooth now, Bridge later

Where a Philips Hue filament bulb belongs

In a fitting that shows the bulb. An open pendant over a dining table, a bare holder on a wall, a cage or a glass shade where you can see through to the glass.

In a closed opal shade none of this matters and you are paying for decoration nobody will see. Put a plain Hue White in those and save the difference.

2100K is warmer than warm white

Most warm white bulbs sit at 2700K. This one is fixed at 2100K, which is amber rather than cream, and close to the colour of an old filament lamp turned down on a dimmer.

It is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. The whole point of an exposed filament is that it looks like a filament, and a 2700K bulb in clear glass looks like an LED pretending.

Deep dimming, and why cheap filament LEDs fail

Philips call it deep dimming: it goes down to a low candle glow without the colour drifting grey and without the flicker that appears at the bottom of the range on cheap filament LEDs.

That bottom end is exactly where a decorative bulb spends its evening, so it is the part worth paying for. A bulb that flickers at ten per cent is a bulb you end up running at fifty.

The glass, and the numbers behind it

ST64 Edison glass, clear, with a spiral filament. 60mm across and 135mm tall, so it stands taller than a standard bulb and that is worth checking against a shade with a tight opening.

580 lumens from 7W, CRI 80 or better, rated for 15,000 hours and 50,000 switch cycles. Standard E27 screw at 220 to 240V.

Bluetooth now, Bridge later

Both radios are in it, so out of the box your phone controls it over Bluetooth while you are in the room, with nothing else bought.

Add a Hue Bridge and it gains schedules, control from outside the house and voice assistants, which on a dining pendant means it can come up amber at seven every evening without anybody touching a phone. Philips list the filament range at philips-hue.com.