Is Costco offer for Hue starter kit a good deal?

[Dee Dee Sommers]

Thank you for the feedback, Scot!
I live in the Tampa, FL area, so we occasionally have power interruptions associated with lightning or tropical weather.



> On Oct 7, 2019, at 2:25 PM, Scot <xtension at gunsmoke.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 7 Oct 2019 14:11:44 -0400, Dee Dee Sommers wrote:
>> Hi XTentioneers,
>> 
>> I see today that Costco is offering a Hue Starter Kit (hub + 2 color 
>> bulbs) for $74.99 delivered. 
>> Is this a good price? What all can I do with Hue?
>> Do you recommend Hue?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Dee Dee
>> 
> 
> I've had Hue light strips and bulbs operating through a Hue hub (not 
> sure what generation) using HomeKit for a couple years now. I so far 
> haven't integrated any of them with XTension. I also have not found 
> them to be very reliable, especially if there are electricity 
> interruptions. Originally, the lamps were programmed to come on at full 
> brightness once power was restored after an outage. This was deemed by 
> Philips to be a safety feature. When I returned after three and a half 
> weeks of being evacuated due to the Camp Fire, all of my Hue bulbs had 
> been on at full brightness for at least two weeks. My home survived the 
> fire, but the thought of all those lamps being on full blast in an 
> empty house left me feeling anything but safe. Not to mention the big 
> electric bill I got that month, when I wasn't expecting to see any use 
> at all. 
> 
> A firmware update came out earlier this year that is supposed to let 
> you set the brightness the lamps will come back at, but that has also 
> not been reliable. It's very dry and windy here, and the utility has 
> been staging Public Safety Power Shutdowns so that their lines won't 
> start wildfires. I've been getting along with a generator, but the 
> resulting power interruptions and start ups have Hue lamps coming on at 
> full brightness, coming on at very low levels of different colors, or 
> not coming on at all. I suppose at some point Philips might get the 
> bugs worked out, but for as much as they cost, I'm not buying any more. 
> If you do purchase HomeKit compatible lamps, just buy one to start with 
> and see what happens when the electricity is cycled off and on. You 
> might not like what they do.
> 
> $.02,
> 
> Scot
> Yankee Hill, California
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