The Philips Hue Enrave is a modern, nondescript, ceiling gentle that can match it into most residence decor whereas additionally giving your room the perks of good residence dwelling. Learn on for some hands-on impressions in my Enrave evaluation …
Design
What I needed for my front room was an LED ceiling gentle that was low profile and nondescript. I didn’t need the lights to make an announcement. The Enrave design suits the invoice because it sits just a few inches off the ceiling, and is comparatively featureless in look, with a easy round form lined by a plain white plastic diffuser.
So long as you may nail it into one thing stable, it may be fitted flush to the ceiling, protruding about six inches whole.
Internally, the Enrave homes two strips of LEDs. When lined by the diffuser, it produces even gentle distribution throughout the floor.
The Enrave is a part of Hue’s ‘White Ambiance’ assortment which suggests you may alter the colour temperature from a heat white to a cool white (yellow or bluer tinge), but it surely doesn’t have arbitrary RGB management. I’ve personally by no means discovered a sensible use for multicolored good lights — the novelty wears off quick — so this didn’t hassle me in any respect. Having the ability to arbitrarily dim the brightness is all I care about, and the Enrave is nice at that.
My solely actual criticism with the unit’s look is the standard management on the diffuser. The very heart of the plastic has a molding artifact, nearly like a nodule the place the curvature is misplaced. That is seen in sure circumstances, similar to when the sunshine itself is turned off however daylight is refracting within the room. It might be nicer if Philips might have manufactured the diffuser so it didn’t have this defect.
Additionally observe that when the sunshine is on, there may be some minor orthogonal gentle leakage to pay attention to. However the opaque sides imply many of the ceiling will stay in darkness, as the sunshine is directed on the room beneath. In case you are searching for a light-weight that additionally has the impact of lighting up the ceiling, this design just isn’t for you.
Totally different sizes of Enrave for various rooms
In case you are shopping for in, please pay attention to the scale of your room. There are a number of completely different fashions of Enrave gentle with various diameters for various quantities of sunshine output. The smallest Enrave fashions are meant for small rooms like loos or utility rooms, whereas the larger ones will emit sufficient gentle to cowl dwelling areas.
Before you purchase, I’d advocate slicing out circles of paper that match the diameters of the lights and sticking them on the ceiling with tape, simply so you may higher visualize the aesthetics and see whether or not the extensive white spherical form would dominate the house an excessive amount of.
In my case, the ceiling already had two gentle fittings in it, roughly evenly spaced throughout the ceiling. So I ended up choosing two of the Enrave small modules, the mixture of which amply covers the 120ft(approx) room measurement.
In HomeKit, I merely grouped these equipment collectively so they seem as a single gentle management. Learn my earlier protection of the Wall Swap Module to see how I can management the Enrvae ceiling lights utilizing a typical gentle change on the wall, along with HomeKit management by the House app and Siri voice instructions.
Why Hue?
I’ve typically discovered Philip Hue’s merchandise to be well-built, long-lasting and responsive in the case of good residence management. The HomeKit integration through the Hue bridge may be very stable, and I not often if ever expertise a ‘no response’ failure from Siri, one thing that occurs intermittently with cheaper manufacturers. Response instances are additionally excellent.
So far as dimmable LEDs go, it’s onerous to seek out ones that carry out higher than the standard bulbs used inside Hue merchandise. Different dimmable LED bulbs I’ve tried (paired with one thing like a good dimmer gentle change) merely don’t supply the identical vary of brightness. On Hue, the altering gradations are very easy with differing ranges of brightness for what seems like each share level on the slider within the app. On different cheaper model LED bulbs, I’ve discovered you may solely dim by a couple of third of the vary earlier than the lights merely flip off.
Longevity can also be an element. I haven’t had any of my Hue lights fail up to now, a few of which I’ve had for a few years. In distinction, I’ve had a number of retailer model LED bulbs die on me.
That being mentioned, there is no such thing as a hiding from the truth that Hue merchandise are exorbitantly costly, arguably a bit overpriced for what they’re. However as I used to be placing new ceiling lights in my important dwelling space, and so I didn’t thoughts paying for the very best, and becoming the Enrave lights. In rooms which might be much less essential to day by day dwelling, I take advantage of cheaper good residence gear (or none in any respect). What’s good about HomeKit is the flexibleness it lets you combine and match manufacturers like that.
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