Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Holybo Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Compatible with Alexa, 9 W

2,324 total ratings, 279 with reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Translate all reviews to English

From the United States

From other countries

Danny

Works perfectly

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

Not the cheapest option, but if you already have the Hive hub, buying these is a no brainier! Setup takes less than a minute, and the app works really well. I used to have separate smart bulbs, and the Hive link is so much easier to link and configure.

The bulbs themselves give a nice light, and the ability to dim on command is great.

Worth noting that the bulbs can only be added to one group within the app. Wasn’t a problem for me, but depends how you plan to use them.

The Alexa integration works really well, including for dimming. Alexa can also turn off/on all lights, which helps get around the one group limitation.

Rupert

HIve Bulbs, they just work, flawlessly even with Alexa.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2020

Verified Purchase

We were using lightwaverf for many years, however we found it buggy and at best a beta release, the latest software screwup by Lightwave made us reconsider our options. At the time we were looking at smart control of the system and on a whim I purchased the hive system, which worked faultlessly compared to Lightwaverf. As we had the hive hub I thought I would try out a couple of bulbs for our outside lights. Now the switch one of the is connected to is a tripe gang and just the lightwave switch would have been £150, coupled with the difficulties of switching low wattage led bulbs. So I bought the hive build from Amazon for £15, bargain of the century! It just works everytime, we have it connected to a few Alexa routines and at the correct time, bing, light comes on, and then when it’s time, bing, light goes off. We even have it so that when we come home they jump from 25% brightness to 100% brightness for 10 minutes. It’s flawless. We have since bought some more outdoor lights and they will all have hive bulbs in. We have gone with TPLINK for the plugs, and the LightwaveRF system that we paid in total over £2k for? Well it’s now where it belongs in the bottom of a very muddy skip.

Massimiliano

Una si è rotta dopo pochi mesi

Reviewed in Italy on November 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

Una delle lampadine, dopo nemmeno 3 mesi di utilizzo non funziona più.
Come posso procedere al rimborso/sostituzione?

Translate review to English

Olly&Liz

Easy o install.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2024

Verified Purchase

Easy to install and control, much better than timers more flexible. Very pleased with our purchase.

Eamonn McGonigle

If you already have a Hive, a nice add-on

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you already have a Hive controller, these are a handy way to dip your toe into the world of smart lighting. The bulbs themselves seem to be of good quality. They are bright and produce a pleasing, natural colour. They are easy to integrate with the Hive system which - in turn - is easy to integrate with Google Home or Amazon Alexa if that's what you want. Dimming works well from either the Hive app or Google Home/Alexa.

One thing that the Hive ecosystem is missing is a light switch with dimming capability. The novelty of having to whip out your phone/iPad to control the lights can wear off quickly. Really, you are going to want voice control set up. On the other hand, you can obviously turn these off from a regular light switch (*not* a dimmer) and when you turn the switch back on, the bulb will come on, so even if none of your smart-home stuff is working, you can still turn on the lights. This has the downside that if there is an interruption to power, when power is restored the lights will come on and will remain on until they are turned off. Philips Hue bulbs used to do them same thing until - under pressure from users - Philips released a software update which made this behaviour configurable. There is (currently) no such option with the Hive bulbs.

Be aware that these are completely proprietary to Hive: you can't use them with the popular Philips Hue or Ikea controllers. If you don't already have a Hive controller for central heating, don't get one just to control these lights. The bulbs are also very expensive compared to some of the quality alternatives, so if you are thinking of embarking on a large-scale move to smart lighting, it might be better to go for a more "open" Zigbee-based system. On the other hand, for just a few bulbs where you already have the Hive, they are great.

Also check out the (more expensive) version that is both dimmable and lets you control the colour-temperature of the light: they are also excellent and work very well.

5 people found this helpful

Sandros

Long lasting bulb

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2023

Verified Purchase

Used with Amazon echo and Hive. Great for security while away on holiday.

Ray Allan

Excellent Value

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2024

Verified Purchase

Excellent value as bought as a spring deal.
Genuine Hive Bulbs at a price far cheaper than buying from Hive directly.

Stoney

Good bulbs

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2021

Verified Purchase

Hive bulbs are great for Alexa control..

They have a wide range of dimmable light..

They can be very bright and warm and go very low when dinned at 1% still giving off a warm glow..

Set these up with Alexa and set routines and voice commands and you will soon have them dimmed for movie time, bright for dinner time and slightly dimmed for reading time..

So just an important note.. if you don’t already have a HIVE HUB, you will need to get one to use these bulbs.. if you already have a hive heating system, you may or may not have a HUB, if not then you can use the same hub to control the lights and hive heating system, and this also means away from home via the app..

The only downside is the need for a hub and the price can be pricey.

But these do come up on offer, as do the HUB..

Amazon Customer

Hive light bulb

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2023

Verified Purchase

Works well

Ree

Broke my Hive Heating. Repeatedly :(

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

Caused havoc with my Hive heating system which until I purchased these was working fine. I had Hive heating fitted about three years ago and have saved a fortune since then on my energy bills. Really pleased with how easy it is to use. I already had Wemo smart bulbs but after purchasing an Amazon Echo speaker and enjoying voice control of my heating I opted to upgrade my smart lights and integrate them all into one system/app. Wemo is advertised as being compatible with Echo but the interface was very glitchy. So my aunt is now the proud owner of the Wemo bulbs and I ordered a bundle of Hive bulbs directly from British Gas with some extras from Amazon and installed them in about 10 minutes.

I was initially very pleased with them, the voice control was very good if a little frustrating at times, the app is ok (but would be better if it let you customise which lights appear on each page, but I missed the intuitiveness of Wemo. Because it knows your location Wemo automatically adjusts for sunrise/sunset - something these Hive bulbs won't do. The Wemo half hour fade in/out is also handy. Having said that, you can program these Hive bulbs to dim gradually if a little clunkily, by setting extra slots where the brightness is 10% less in each slot. And in the morning Wemo gradually lights up waking you in a similar way to sunrise - a little too effective if anything as I kept waking up absolutely wide awake about 15 minutes before my alarm with the death ball glow of hell illuminating me leading to a little swear fest before getting out of bed each morning. Hive just comes on at full power at the allocated time, not nearly so gentle as Wemo.

All was well for about two weeks and then I had overnight guests and my heating went offline. No amount of refreshing could get it to work again. I called Hive through the app and was talked through the process of re-pairing my thermostat to my boiler which had, for some unexplained reason disconnected from the hub. It is not a quick process and I was not warned I was actually resetting my system not just re-pairing it, so it wasn't until a day later I realilsed my heating schedule was no longer in play and I had to sit at the computer for nearly an hour redoing it.

Shortly afterwards it happened again, and once again I called Hive through the app and they got me up and running. The third time it happened I was ready to cuss people out but got a really helpful lady called Nora who explained the root of the problem. Each bulb acts as a mini wifi booster (whether you want/need it to or not.) There is no way to disable this functionality which is great if you live in a mansion, or a large house with a poor wifi signal, but completely unnecessary in a two bedroomed flat with excellent wifi strength throughout. The thermostat connects to the strongest signal it can find, in my case the bedroom light bulbs. When a lightbulb is turned off at the light switch instead of using the app or the Amazon Echo integration (voice control) it disconnects from the system but it reconnects itself when it is next turned on. If the thermostat happens to be connected through that light bulb it also disconnects from the system, but cannot automatically reconnect itself hence the re-pairing shenanigans.

Hive don't make light switches which would solve the problem, the reason they gave me was that they would be "prohibitively expensive due to needing an electrician to install them." Really Hive? Philips have managed it for only £20 per switch and no professional installation required, and would consumers willing to pay £20 each for light bulbs really blanch at buying switches to make them work without killing their heating system?

So Hive have no plans to release switches despite it being the most requested feature on their bog/community pages, (I was willing to wait it out and purchase them if they were in development as the system is otherwise good and reliable,) they cannot disable this wifi boosting function that I didn't want or need in the first place, and suggested I put sellotape and/or stickers on my light switches to prevent guests from using them. They did try sending me an updated hub (v2) in an attempt to resolve the issue but over Christmas I had family staying with me and despite explaining the light switch problem one of them forgot and used a light switch killing my heating for a fourth time.

At that point I suggested Hive refund me as light bulbs that break my heating when turned off at the switch are not fit for purpose if they have no plans to enable customers to replace the switches with an option that doesn't involve duct tape and post-it notes stuck on every light switch. Hive agreed to refund me and sent me a prepaid label with which to mail them back, I then contacted Amazon and explained that I was returning the bundle I had purchased directly from British Gas/Hive but had three bulbs purchased through Amazon that I also needed to return. Amazon were amazing as always and agreed to a full refund on all three despite the fact I did not have the boxes (they are supposed to last up to 20 years so it didn't occur to me to save them.)

I used the refunds to purchase Philips Hue WITH multiple switches. For now I've stuck the Hue switches on the wall next to the traditional light switches but as my father is an electrician I am considering asking him if a tidier alternative is possible (maybe hard wiring my lights and ditching the traditional switches altogether.) Whether or not I ditch the traditional switch the system is working fine, voice control as good as Hive and I like the way I can use the app or just grab the remote as I enter the room and use that instead.

As I have now used three systems and this review mentions them all I'll close with a quick summary or pro's/cons:
Hive - App reliable if a little clunky, no fade in/out, no geolocation for automatically tweaking sunrise and sunset, may break your heating if you use the Hive heating system, resulting in multiple calls to Hive/British Gas. No light switches planned. Accessories like smart plugs are useful but can't really compensate for the disconnecting problem - it's really difficult to stop guests from using light switches unless you want to put duct tape all over the place which I don't consider aesthetically pleasing. Good integration with Amazon Echo for voice control.
Wemo - App unreliable when you just want to turn off/on a light at an unscheduled time but benefits from geolocation features automatically updating itself each day for sunrise/sunset in your location so there is no need to keep reprogramming lights that you want to turn on at sunset etc. Up to half hour fade in fade out which is really useful and easy to use. Very effective as a wake up light and significantly cheaper than the Lumie lamps for the same purpose so I'd recommend them for people who suffer with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Terrible integration with Amazon Echo for voice control.
Philips Hue - Basic app functions are reliable but features that require login are glitchy because it takes you out of the app and into the web browser to sign in but then crashes. It has however synced with my sleep app without any problems. Huge range of lighting and accessories to choose from and the inclusion of switches in the range makes these my personal favourite. Fade in/out function on all lights and with some bulbs (look for the word ambience) the tone of the white can be changed from cold to warm replicating natural light more effectively, the colour bulbs can be set to any colour but I cannot comment on those as I don't have any. The white ambience offers four basic scenes (energise, relax etc) to change the quality/tone of the lighting either by room or individual light. The fade in/out function means these can also wake you up gently in the morning the same way that Wemo does. Good integration with Amazon Echo for voice control but it may be trying to hard there because it saves the "scene" options as separate lights so despite only installing 8 bulbs Amazon Echo thinks I have 38 with names like "Dimmed in Guest" "Arctic aurora in lounge" and "Spring Blossom in bedroom" etc. No way I will remember those names and will most likely just keep saying "Alexa, turn ____room lights off and other very basic commands.

I'll update if necessary once I've had more time to try functions or if Hive change their mind about the switches.

42 people found this helpful

Questions? Get fast answers from reviewers

Need customer service?

‹ See all details for Holybo Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Compatible with Alexa,...

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

Holybo Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Compatible with Alexa,... › Customer reviews

Customer reviews

Holybo Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Compatible with Alexa, 9 W

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

From other countries

Questions? Get fast answers from reviewers

Holybo Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Compatible with Alexa,...

›

Customer reviews