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Is Philips Hue Environmentally Friendly?

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Smart bulbs are convenient and useful for at home, however a common concern is how energy efficient and environmentally friendly they are. We look at the benefits and energy savings of using LED smart bulbs over your traditional incandescent light bulb. 

How Philips Hue Bulbs Can Actually Save You Money

Saving energy can save you money, we look at the green credentials of Hue and smart lights and how energy efficient they are. 

Does Hue use less Energy?

First off smart bulbs use LED technology, this is already saves at lot of energy. LED bulbs can use up to 75% less energy than a comparable incandescent light bulb. LED stands for “light-emitting diode”, and isn’t actually a bulb, they’re tiny semiconductors (diodes) that are wrapped to help focus and channel the light.

A single Hue light bulb using a Hue bridge is said to have the lowest carbon footprint of the top smart bulbs on the market and consumes 80% less electricity than an equivalent incandescent light bulb.

How to save Energy with your Hue Lights?

With Hue smart lights there are a few easy ways to help save energy used for your lights at home that can also help reduce your electricity bill. Turning them off, reducing the brightness and using timers can all help:

  • Using geofencing to ensure all your lights are off when no one is home
  • Reduce the brightness to save energy
  • Using timers to ensure all lights are off at night if not needed

A Philips Hue white A19 bulb at 95% brightness uses 8.5 watts, while if reduced to 50% it only uses 3.2 watts. 

Do Smart Bulbs Use Up Electricity Even When They’re Off?

Whether the bulb is on or off the light is still using energy, however with the bulb and light off, the amount is tiny. 

As these are smart bulbs they always need to be on and have power going to them to that they are active to know when to turn on and be controlled via your app on your phone for example. So even with the light off they will sit dormant using a tiny amount of power so the bulb knows when to turn on. When not in use and in ‘standby’ mode the bulb uses around 0.15 watts of power. 

Read our full guide on smart bulbs in standby mode here.

Can the Philips Hue lighting system save money?

Yes. LED bulbs already recuse the amount of electricity you use compared to incandescent or halogen bulbs with all the energy being used to create the light. So on a comparable bulb a Hue bulb will be cheaper to run, add to this the smart feature of a Hue bulb you can also save more, using the timer and geofencing features to ensure they are off when not needed, and also dimming your lights can help save even more energy and making your electricity bill just a little more cheaper. 

How Long Do Philips Hue Bulbs Last?

Philips Hue Bulbs can last up to 25,000 hours, compared to an incandescent light bulb this is a huge difference. It is also important to note that bulbs are lasting longer and as new updates are made this is improved, the previous generation of Hue bulbs was around 15,000 hours, so there has also been a big improvement here too. 

LED bulbs and Philips hue bulbs are more expensive than a traditional bulb, so while cheaper to run and more energy efficient, there is a higher up front cost to purchase. To use the geofencing and timer features to help save energy through your Hue bulbs you do need a Hue bridge, tis would be mains run and consumes 3 watts, so there is a very small cost to run this too. 


Founder & Editor

Mike is the founder of Hue Home Lighting, a huge Hue fan with far too many lights, covering home and garden. A smart home gadget addict and also enjoys the odd bit of DIY

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