Philips Hue Festavia String Lights Reviews Rating
Summary
Existing Hue owners will find the Philips Hue Festavia light strings a good option. The lights can be integrated seamlessly into any existing setup, while the dynamic scenes provide an appealing animation effect to all lights in your area or room.
There are pros
- All other Hue lights compatible
- A dynamic scene creates a beautiful effect
Cons
- Twinkly may be more expensive than Twinkly, unless you already have Philips Hue lamps
Philips Hue recently announced Festavia string lighting, specifically for Christmas, the Holiday Season, and Christmas Trees.
It is surprising that there are so few competitors in this niche of smart Christmas tree lighting. Amazon has many Chinese brand options, but Twinkly is the only one that offers a great experience.
The Festavia lights are a far superior product than Twinkly, if you have invested in Philips Hue.
Philips Hue Festavia Vs Twinkly Strings
Over the years I have reviewed many Twinkly products. But the sting lights that they make are my favourite. I reviewed the Twinkly Strings Gold Edition, but they currently have three colour options, multicolour, multicolour & white and gold/silver. You can choose from multiple lengths. They range in price, starting at 250 LEDs to upping to 600 LEDs.
Twinkly is the leader in smart lighting for decorations, as it allows you to map your entire lighting system and create beautiful lighting patterns. The animation effect can be made simple or complex by mapping multiple products. The Twinkly Strings are a great product, however I believe you will need many lights to achieve an impressive effect.
Twinkly also has an entrepreneur side, which specializes in elaborate installations.
Philips Hue has a significant disadvantage when it comes to smart Christmas lighting. Festavia strings lights don’t offer the same level of customization as Twinkly string lights, and are more expensive than similar Festavia multicolour lights.
Hue, on the other side, has a huge advantage. Philips Hue is the market leader for smart lighting, I’d estimate more than half the people I know have some sort of Hue product in their home.
I hate having to use dozens upon dozens different apps for controlling my smart-home devices. Matter could help, but I’m heavily invested in Philips Hue. Festavia seems to make a lot more sense for me. I believe this will also be true for large numbers of people.
In Use / Dynamic Scenes / Media Syncing
Existing Hue customers will find the set-up identical. After plugging the bulbs in, open the app to search for the new Hue device and follow the setup instructions. You can add it to any room. My Christmas tree was in a separate room that I made and then moved it to another zone.
Even though you don’t have the fancy animation effects that Twinkly has. Philips Hue Festavia works seamlessly within the Hue ecosystem. Instead of having each Christmas light work individually (like Twinkly), you can create a setting for your lights by assigning them to specific rooms and zones.
Dynamic scenes allow you to change your lights’ colours over time. The speed and intensity of the light can be adjusted to suit your needs. Twinkly doesn’t work for me, as I already have a number of Hue products. I’m able to make a scene using all of the available lights in my room. With Twinkly, I’d have to buy multiple products to achieve a similar effect.
Philips Hue also designed a scatter pattern to go with these new lights. The line gradient is what you would expect for light strips. It allows the colours to seamlessly blend into one another. The scatter pattern creates the random look that most people want for their Christmas tree.
As you’d expect, Festavia lights can work with everything else you have within Hue. Schedules can be created or assigned to lights by buttons, dimmers and the Hue Tap Dial. It all works flawlessly.
Festavia lights can be synced with Spotify, just like the other Hue light. Although I don’t normally like to sync my lights with music (or any other kind of music), I can understand the desire of those who want to sync their Christmas lights with music. You will enjoy a relaxing effect as you play Christmas music throughout the season.
Similar to the previous, the Philips Hue Play HDMI box can be used to synchronize the lights with any content you’re watching on your TV.
Prices for Electricity and Power Draw
Since I’ve written a lot lately about cost-of-living, I started testing cost of products.
Although the Festavia has a large power brink it can only be rated at 40W. Hue states that the standard power draw for the Festavia is 15W, and that it has a standby power draw of 0.5W.
Prices and other options
The Philips Hue Festavia are priced at £139.99 RRP, and these have 250 RGB LEDs on a 20m/65ft cord. The 15th of April was the official launch date.Th The website states that they were sold out in November. I’d expect new stock soon.
Twinkly Generation 2 with 250 RGB lights on a 20M string have an RRP of £115, but there is a decent discount during Black Friday/Cyber Monday. On Amazon, they have been at around £107, since April and are currently £92.39. Argos have them for £86.25.
While there are many smart string lights out, none compare to Twinkly or Philips Hue.
If you only want basic smart control of your lights, and working on a schedule, then you’d likely be better off with dumb lights and using a smart plug.
All in all
Philips Hue Festavia, I feel, is strictly an item that can be used with existing Philips Hue systems. It makes more sense to keep Hue in Christmas lights if you’ve made a significant investment in Hue.
They are my favorite people. Hue is a great ecosystem. It’s simple to use and performs flawlessly.
Twinkly is hard for others to overlook. You get superior lighting functionality and they are less expensive. I don’t particularly like the Twinkly app, I find it ugly and clunky compared to Hue, but once you have the lights set up, there is not much need to keep going into it.
Existing Hue owners, depending on your needs for Christmas lights, the Festavia is more economical than Twinkly. There are multiple lights within one room, and they all have a designated scene. They all function perfectly in dynamic scenes. I’d have to buy multiple Twinkly lights to achieve a similar effect. Of course, I can’t create fancy animations with Hue, but that is not something I am that bothered about.
Overall, while the Philips Hue Festavia are expensive, I don’t think £25 extra vs the Twinkly Generation 2 is too much of a price premium to have all might lights working flawlessly under one ecosystem.
