Light up the night with Philips Hue smart outdoor lighting

Up until now, our backyard lighting has been dismal — consisting of a back porch light and a couple of pool lights. It was a dark entertaining space at night to say the least! Now that we’ve added Philips Hue smart outdoor lights, however, we can actually see our guests once the sun goes down. (Stay tuned for the video at the end of this post!)

Here are the top 7 reasons I recommend Philips Hue outdoor lights:

1. Despite running a blog and being obsessed with gadgets, I’m not actually very techy. And you don’t have to be to make this “smart lighting” work; you just connect the Hue Bridge to your modem and let the Philips Hue App on your iOS or Android smartphone do the rest. No word of a lie, it took me less than two minutes to figure out how to set up the Bridge and another minute or so to get the lights working once we placed them where we wanted them. This is easy stuff right here, folks.

2. You’ll add some serious ambiance to your outdoor entertaining spaces. Whether it’s a “light party” with the kids who can choose from 16 million different colours for any of your connected lights, or setting the scene for a sophisticated backyard soirée thanks to pre-set colour combinations — like Savanna Sunset, Tropical Twilight or Article Aurora — you can create moods that run the gamut of fun to fabulous. Summer parties will never be the same!

3. Your home will be well-lit no matter where in the world you might be. This is the kind of security every family can use, whether or not you have an alarm system. We’ve been able to set timers for our Philips Hue lights in the front or back of the house, which turns our lights on and off at specific times to make it look like we’re home, even when we might not be. As frequent travellers, I love this extra peace of mind.

4. If you have the Google Assistant on a phone or smart display, you have handsfree control of your smart lights. Simple voice commands turn lights on and off, dim them, activate routines and more.

5. For more advanced control, you can use the Hue App to easily organize individual lights into rooms or zones. For example, in our backyard, we have three separate zones set up: one that’s just the porch light, one that’s just the yard lights and one that includes the porch and yard lights together. No matter how many lights you have, selecting a certain zone gives you complete control for every space where you’ve got Philips Hue smart lights.

6. There are many outdoor lighting products from Philips Hue to fit your budget and creativity. We love a clean, modern look indoors and out and we were able to achieve this beautifully in our moderately sized suburban backyard using one Hue Bridge, six Calla Outdoor Bollards, three outdoor cable extensions and three E12 Bulbs (which fit perfectly in our existing light fixture). But there are also flood lights, light strips, wall lights, spot lights and much more.

7. They’re fun. I mean, really fun. Who doesn’t want a pink backyard (just me?!)?

How much do Philips Hue outdoor smart lights cost?

No matter what kind of Philips Hue outdoor lighting you choose, you need to start with a Hue Bridge. This will run you about $50 (Canadian). From there, you can add up to 50 lights to run on a single Bridge — and that includes both indoor and outdoor smart lighting.

For example:

• The Calla Outdoor Bollard base kit is $169.99 — this provides one light point and all of the cables and power supply you’ll need to get started
• Any additional add-on Bollards are $119.99 each
• Extension cables are $19.99 each and whether or not you need any comes down to (1) the size of your yard and (2) how closely you place your Bollards apart. For us, it made more sense to spend $40-60 on extensions rather than $120+ to add more lights
• The single E12 bulbs that fit into our porch light fixtures are $59.99 each, so if you need three (or more) per fixture like we do and you aren’t super attached to what you’ve already got, it may make more sense to start fresh with a Philips Hue outdoor wall light (which range from about $70-180 depending on the light and the retailer)

So the grand total for the stunning backyard lighting scene we were able to create in this video came to about $1,000:

Be sure to check Best Buy, Canadian Tire or Amazon (among other retailers) to find the best selection of Philips Hue products in Canada. Whether you Light My Fire, are a Ray of Light or become Blinded By The Light is entirely up to you.

DISCLAIMER: Philips Hue compensated me for this post, but it was up to us to select and connect the outdoor lighting that best fit our space. All opinions are my own.

VIDEO CREDIT: Kristina Laukkanen