Smart home lighting has become pretty predictable over the years, but Philips Hue has a pretty clever idea in its new Wall Washer light. After using it for a few months, I’m pretty impressed by it, but it doesn’t exactly buck the stereotype for Hue’s pricing.
The Philips Hue Wall Washer is, in a brief summary, a single light that can fill an entire wall with light. That’s the pitch anyway. The Wall Washer does this by including three light panels within a single, compact device. Each panel is angled slightly differently and allows for the “single” source of light to extend from the bottom of a wall all the way to the ceiling.
In practice, this works remarkably well.
The Wall Washer is ideally placed a few inches away from your wall to get the widest impact. In my living room, I use it as an accent in the back of the room against the Hue lightstrip behind my TV and the other bulbs placed around that. It fills up the back quite well and makes the whole room more immersive when paired to a Sync Box 8K, but that’s not really where it shines.
The way the Wall Washer is best used is behind a TV, especially if you set up two of them. To test this, I tried it out behind my monitor. There, especially with my desk set up caddy-corner, the Wall Washer can fill up the corner behind my monitor while syncing through the Hue app on Windows to the games I’m playing. Even a single Wall Washer works really well for this, and it’s roughly as bright as using two Philips Hue Play Bars that would often be used in this particular setup.
Where the Washer differs, though, is in how many colors it can produce. Where even my usual setup of having three Play Bars behind my monitor can put out some nice colors, the Washer is noticeably more intricate in the colors it splashes onto my wall. It just makes everything a bit more immersive. I will note, though, that this would definitely work better in a home with lower ceilings.
When I’m not syncing colors, in either room, the Washer’s biggest highlight for me is just the ability to fill a part of a room with light that isn’t as easily accomplished by a lamp or ceiling fixture. And the Hue app gives you very granular controls over the lighting effects.
I think the beauty of the compact hardware here is the biggest selling point of the Philips Hue Wall Washer. You’re getting a huge area covered with minimal space needed on a table, shelf, or desk. The discrete hardware design has high “wife approval” factor too, if that’s important.
But you’re also paying a premium for it.
The Philips Hue Wall Washer is a tough sell at a whopping $220 per unit. Going back to the dual-Play Bar setup mentioned earlier, the Washer is still up to $80 more expensive. In some setups, it objectively works better, but I think many people will be better served by something like the Play Bar or a lightstrip. Yet, this is also where the Hue lineup flexes one of its biggest strengths – there’s something for just about every situation.
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