Philips Hue Iris analysis: This elegant accent light supports each Zigbee and Bluetooth

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The most up-to-date version of the Iris, a shipshape mood lamp from Signify-owned Philips Hue, cannily improves on the spruce authentic, upping its brightness, making improvements to its translucent light diffuser and spiffing up the vitality cable, while together with a Bluetooth radio in the gash tag. Able to working each with or with out a hub, the $100 Iris can cast a soothing shaft of color or tunable white light on a nearby wall, while its translucent diffuser glows within the lamp’s decided shell. A cinch to space up and well suited with Alexa, Google Assistant, and (if historical with a hub) HomeKit, the Iris makes for an straightforward and cheap intention to warm up a room.

While the Iris has a checklist tag of $100 (or $99.99 for these who must must catch technical about it), the fair as of late released lamp is easiest now discovering its arrangement into retail channels, so don’t be bowled over for these who peek inflated prices from third-party resellers.

Fetch and specs

While it’s rated for up to 570 lumens, or twice as sparkling as its predecessor, the Iris isn’t no doubt meant to light a room or illuminate a workspace. As an more than just a few (and relish its transportable cousin, the Philips Hue Plug), the Iris is extra of a mood light, casting a white or color glow on a nearby wall.

This analysis is section of TechHive’s coverage of the most convenient shipshape bulbs, where you’ll web opinions of competing merchandise, plus a buyer’s book to the functions you can buy into consideration when browsing.

About 7.5 inches immense, 7 inches huge, and eight inches deep, the 1.5-pound Iris feels surprisingly light for its size. The lamp’s translucent diffuser is visible within the Iris’s decided plastic frightful, allowing the lamp to glow each internal and exterior.

Out there in each unlit and white finishes, along with a quartet of steel “special version” colours (gold, rose, copper, and silver), the Iris’s frightful has a flat characteristic on the backside that positions the lamp at roughly a 45-degree angle. Come the frightful of the Iris is a 6.5-trail, fabric-lined vitality cable that terminates in a elephantine, outlet-blocking off 24-watt AC adapter.

Ben Patterson/IDG

Besides its ability to glow in 16 million colours, the Iris can additionally cast white light that’s tunable from a no doubt warm 2,000 Kelvin to a hazy-daytime 6,500 Kelvin.

Setup

As with different original Philips Hue lights, the Iris is well suited with each Bluetooth and Zigbee, that manner you don’t need a Hue Bridge to exercise the Iris, even supposing chances are you’ll are searching out for to upgrade to a bridge if you reflect the boundaries of the Hue Bluetooth setup.

Ben Patterson/IDG

For added particulars on getting a Hue light such as the Iris up and operating, investigate cross-take a look at my analysis of the original Hue Lightstrip Plus. The brief version is that the Iris comes geared up with each Bluetooth and Zigbee radios, that manner you don’t necessarily need a Hue Bridge to begin the usage of the Iris. With the Hue Bluetooth app to your iOS gadget or Android cell phone, chances are you’ll perchance maybe flip the Iris on and off, trade its brightness and color temperature, swap lights presets, space timers, and develop straightforward, one-time sleep/wake-up routines, no hub required.

The exercise of the Iris with Bluetooth has some serious boundaries, nonetheless, together with the truth that you just’ll must be within 30 ft of the Iris to manipulate it. You additionally won’t be ready to group the Iris in a room with different Hue lights, nor will you be ready to manipulate bigger than 10 lights at a time. And while the Hue Bluetooth app will will let you join the Iris to Alexa or Google Assistant, it won’t will let you exercise the Iris with HomeKit.

Luckily, it’s straightforward emigrate the Iris to the Hue Bridge to vastly enhance its capabilities. Not easiest can the bridge administration up to 50 Hue lights, it can additionally group them into rooms and “zones.” You’ll additionally be ready to develop extra define routines and personalized schedules, or even administration your lights while you’re away from residence. At closing, the usage of the Bridge manner you’ll be ready to add the Iris (or any different supported Hue lights) to HomeKit.

Blueprint and performance

In actual fact one of largest challenges offered by the Iris is a ingenious one—specifically, where precisely for these who attach it? After futzing with the lamp in my dining room and the bedroom, I done up putting it in a darkish corner of my space of job, where it cast a fab 6,500Okay glow that simulated a comforting shaft of hazy daytime. (I historical the Iris with the Hue Bridge, incidentally.)

Ben Patterson/IDG

I hasty adjusted to having the Iris in my space of job, even supposing I would possibly maybe appropriate as with out danger own left it in my bedroom, in section to test the lamp’s agility as a nightlight. In actual fact one of the innovations of the original Iris is that while you space its brightness to appropriate 1 percent, the diffuser glows ever so a shrimp bit with out no doubt casting light on the wall, making it excellent for exercise in an oh-so-refined wake-up routine.

Besides wake-up and sleep routines, the Iris works with same outdated timers; to illustrate, I space the Iris to ramp up its brightness to about 50 percent each morning at 7 a.m., after which slowly dark and flip itself off at 7 p.m. each night. One other probability would had been to space the Iris to flip itself on and off at spoil of day and sunset, or to douse itself on every occasion a Hue-well suited motion sensor detected that no person became once in the room. The Iris carried out nice with negate assistants as well, obediently altering its colours, brightness, and vitality states basically based utterly utterly on my Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri queries.

Bottom line

The Philips Hue Iris suffers from concerns traditional amongst Hue lights, together with tiny Bluetooth strengthen (even supposing it’s nice to own the probability at all) to boot to a elephantine wall wart that blocks nearby retailers. Otherwise, I’m no longer easy-pressed to come relieve up with any complaints about the straightforward-to-exercise, magnificent-having a peek Iris, which improves on the authentic version in barely noteworthy every arrangement.

• A cinch to space up and well suited with Alexa, Google Assistant, and (if historical with a hub) HomeKit, the Bluetooth-enabled Iris makes for an straightforward and cheap intention to warm up a room.

  Mavens

  • Dapper invent
  • Brilliant colours and tunable white light
  • Translucent diffuser glows even at low brightness settings
  • Works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and (the usage of the Hue Bridge) HomeKit

  Cons

  • Restricted alternate strategies for Bluetooth administration
  • Cloth-lined vitality cable is saddled with a wall wart

Ben has been writing about abilities and person electronics for bigger than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers shipshape residence and residence leisure merchandise.