Anybody have both and willing to compare?

I’ve been trying to hold out for a Hue gradient strip for months now. I’m wondering if I should just give up and get the Govee Immersion.

As you may guess from the title, I am trying to weigh the value of Phillips Hue to Govee Smart Home lights.

I currently have a single Hue bulb in a lamp in my bedroom (with a Hub connected to my router) and a Govee light strip under my desk in the office. I also have a normal standing lamp with normal bulbs connected to a smart plug from Smart Life.

I HATE having to go to a million different brands to control lights and right now I have more than I want. Luckily, the Google Home app keeps it all (mostly) in check since I try to only buy products I know have integration with it. So while it is manageable, I want to find an alternative to that standing lamp setup I mentioned.

I am trying to decide if it is worth it to get more Hue Bulbs or get Govee Bulbs to put in this lamp. Hue is so expensive but I know they are super quality, integrate well, and have good levels of brightness and color range. Not to mention, I already am invested in the ecosystem since I have the Hub. I only have experience with a Govee RGB strip, so I don't know how their bulbs stack up with their cheaper price. Are they gonna get as bright as Hue? Are they reliable for years to come? As far as their integration, I am pretty confident since they are super easy to set up and talk to Google Home. Does anyone have experience specifically with these bulbs or have any thoughts on them?

Appreciate the help!

I’m going to tell you why to buy Govee lights over Phillips Hue, saving you money, and why you will have a MUCH better & more immersive lighting experience on your rig! I’m not being paid, this is real enthusiast input. And I’ll follow this story up with a part 2 in the coming days with video of the lighting in action once fully completed.

PHILLIPS HUE:

So a year ago as I was nearing completion of my rig I bought a pair of Phillips Hue Play Bars and mounted them atop my rig for added immersion. And I really enjoyed them at first, but mainly due to them just being a cool new mod. They were not cheap. Well over $100 brand new for the pair of lights plus another $40-$50 for a new Phillips Hue Hub was needed. Then I invested in a really well made pair of Play Bar mounts that I found on Etsy. Call it close to $200 for everything needed to buy and mount my Hue lights. You can buy them cheaper used (which I wish I had done) but I’m going to tell you why not too.

So upon getting my Hue lights and mounts I jumped right into installing them on the rig. I watched a couple YouTube vids on how to set them up for the sim, the Boosted Media video being the main one. I downloaded the Hue phone app and the desktop app as instructed and set up the light bars and moved to pairing them with my PC. You need to have both apps installed (PC & Phone) but the Phone app is the only one that will allow you to position the lights with regards to where on your monitor they will draw the lighting data from.

This is where I found the first real drawback to making the Hue lights work properly for sim racing. The app provides a graphic where you are supposed to move small dots representing your lights, in my case 2, and position them for where on your monitor the lighting is drawn from. This little graphic is not only hard to place your lights with any sort of precision, it’s also horribly inaccurate and confusing. I have attempted to find the ultimate position for my lights no less than 20 times over the past year. So it’s ironic that today while once again seeking another video that would hopefully solve my woes, that I was able to discover my Govee lights would work with the sim.

It’s actually a bummer that it’s been so long before I found the best video explaining how to do set up Hue lights for sim racing. But even after following this video, and having better results, I’m still going to remove them in place of Govee lights and i'll explain why. (Here is a link to this well made Hue How-To Video

GOVEE WINS:

I will spare you all the details but a month ago I decided to remodel my office aka sim room. And due to good pricing and reviews I ordered a bunch of Govee lights for both my sim room and even the house.

I didn’t intend, nor did I even know you could sync them to the simulator. I thought only Hue lights could be used till this point. So it was a total luck out that the cheapest pair of light bars and a really nice gradient rope light, that fit nearly perfect into the channel of the 80/20 aluminum, were two of the many Govee products I had purchased on Amazon.

I set up all my Govee lights a month ago in the office and have been happy with them. I was pleased with how easy it was to connect them together through the Govee app and to our Google Nest home wifi network allowing us to easily turn them on and off just by talking to “Hey Google”.

While doing my latest Hue tuning (frustration) session I happened to come across this YouTube video that explained how to easily connect your Govee lights to SIMHUB for use on a simulator. I instantly regretted overlooking all the Govee posts and mentions I had scrolled past over the last handful of months and asked myself how in the hell had I not even thought about this yet!?!?

Here is a link to the video that fully changed the game for me and will for you too.

So the first thing you need to know is there are only a specific type of Govee products that will work for this, but there are plenty of options! And many affordable options. You can literally have immersive sim lighting for less than $50 thanks to Govee!

Luckily, the cheapest light bars I bought for my desktop monitors and the LED rope light I had already installed on the bottom of my sim are both are on the list and I linked them below. You can find the full list of compatible products for your sim set up and all the other details you need in the video linked above.

So why is it so much better? Well first of all PRICE! It’s literally less than half the price of the Phillips Hue. Second, performance! You’d think the more expensive Phillips product would be better but they aren’t. The Hue app sucks to pair your lights with a racing simulator whereas the Govee lights pair through SimHub, and if you’re already using SimHub like I have been then you will have the lights installed and working PERFECTLY in minutes!

SimHub makes it so that you can position the lighting location to your monitor exactly where you want them to pull from instead of trying to guess with some dumb room graphic like the Hue app uses. On top of that, you can make the lights work in grey scale so that the lights won’t illuminate in colors but rather in just a natural tone of light. I drive formula cars in AC primarily and use the Ferrari livery. So my Hue lights are almost always illuminated in Red or Pink lighting due to the lack of exposed dash on an f1 car. If you’re driving a car with a lot of black on the dash then it won’t be as bad but this grey scale option was amazing for me to produce normal looking ambient light.

Form there you also have the ability to set the lighting up for day light or night time driving along with a handful of other options. Being that I already use SimHub for my quad monitor telemetry and small dash display, as well as my wind sim, this was another huge plus as I didn’t have to download another bit of random software.

I should note as it pertains to software. In the Govee + SimHub video, the guy talks about downloading the Razer Synapse app. I did download that app but it’s not necessary I found. All I needed was the Govee Desktop app and SimHub. But maybe there is a need for it so I’ll leave it to you to try it out as he explained in the video.

If I was able to connect the Hue lights to SimHub I’d keep them mounted to the rig. But since I can’t I’ll be removing them and replacing them with my Govee light bars. I already connected my rope light acting as under glow and it works amazing with SimHub. I’m likely going to now add a few more Govee lights to the rig just to go all out. With Black Friday coming up, I’m sure there will be some crazy deals!

Anyway, hope the long post here was helpful. Sorry for the lack of images and screen shots as well as video, but Reddit doesn’t make it easy to generate an actual piece of content. Instead I just attached some random images of the rig with the lights. I’ll follow this up in the coming days with a part two showing how they all work once I get the Govee bars all placed and running and get the Hue lights down and listed on Marketplace.

RIP Phillips Hue Sim Lighting!

My Govee Products for the Sim:

Govee Light Bars H6056

Govee LED Rope Light H61A2

I am the local HT enthusiast in my friends/family group, so I don't know anybody local who has one of these setups. Thinking about taking the plunge and trying to sort stuff out.

I posted over on Philips Hue asking some questions comparing products if y'all want to check that out.

For this audience I guess I'm curious:

• Have you added or seen one of these setups? Did you like it? Does it distract from or add to the experience?

• If you've lived with it for awhile, weigh in on "worth it or not"? Do you still use it? Wife Approval Factor (WAF)?

• Have you gone ham with integrations into other room lighting?

Also in terms of setup/logistics I have every media source (Apple TV, console, 4k Blu Ray player) running to a Marantz head unit that then tells the TV what to show. I figured I would put a sync box between the head unit and the TV. Do we foresee any problems with that approach?

Hi Everyone,

I've been a long-time user of the Govee T2 for my 65" TV, and recently, I decided to try out the Philips Ambilight system along with their Signe floor lamps. I noticed that the Philips floor lamps have a unique feature where they turn off certain segments of the lights to simulate dark areas in the TV content. For example, in a scene with a dark sky and a fire on the ground, the top parts of the floor lamps remain off to represent the black sky, while the bottom sections light up with yellow and orange hues to mimic the fire.

I’m curious if Govee’s latest floor lamps have a similar capability. I recently purchased the Philips setup with their 8K Sync Box and absolutely love how it enhances immersion by blacking out parts of the lights in darker scenes. However, with Govee’s new AI Syncbox 2 coming out soon for both monitors and TVs, I’m considering whether I should return the Philips lights and Sync Box, which are three times the price, within the 30-day return window and get the Govee Syncbox 2 64" kit instead and the latest floor lamps.

I’d like to hear if anyone has insights on whether the new Govee floor lamps can achieve a similar level of immersion with dark areas in movies and games. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

I’m planning my next upgrade for ambient lights. With Amazon having a discount I feel this is a right time to buy.

Govee- 3 lights are $110 350 lumens I read it’s very easy to setup with simhub

Philips- 3 lights $166 plus bridge $47. Total $213 530 lumens I read setup isn’t too seamless.

Anyone have experience with these lights and can help me in the right direction?

Thanks 🙏