Hive Active Lights

Let there bee light

Hive is British Gas’ home automation brand, best known for its central heating control system (£249). There’s also Hive Active Lighting, which lets you use an app to control special lightbulbs that fit ordinary sockets. It uses the same wireless Hive Hub as the central heating, which is handy if you already have it for your heating; if you don’t, you’ll need to start by buying one, at £80.

All the rest of the technology required is built into the Hive bulbs, which are available with full-size screw or bayonet mounts, but not for halogen fittings. You can choose a basic yellow light (£19), a bulb that can vary from warm (reddish) to cool white (£29) or (and this is where it gets more fun) a colour-changing bulb (£44). These come in discounted multi-packs you can buy in Argos and Amazon.

These nine-watt bulbs produce about 800 lumens, equivalent to a traditional 60W bulb. If you need more light for a big room, you’re out of luck, but less light is no problem because you can dim them. That all happens inside the bulb, and doesn’t require a dimmer switch. In fact, like rivals including Philips Hue and Ikea’s Tradfri (see Issue 505, page 25), it’s best to use sockets controlled by an on/ off wall switch. In practice they may work with an existing dimmer, kept turned all the way up, but it’s not guaranteed. Connect the Hub to your broadband router, then screw in your bulbs. Once you’ve paired them with the Hub, you can then control them individually from Hive’s app on your Apple or Android phone or tablet, whether at home or from anywhere else over the internet. If you have an Amazon Echo, you can ask Alexa to turn the lights up or down. What you can’t do is control them with a physical switch, because Hive doesn’t sell any, although it does offer sensors that can trigger the lights in response to movement or doors opening and closing. If you’re sufficiently techie you can also link your Active Lights to Smartthings products (see www.snipca.com/25463), or use the simpler IFTTT (see www. snipca.com/25462) to program them, although this is currently limited to turning on and off.

Hive is a popular solution for central heating control, and if you already have it – or are planning to get it for that reason – then Hive Active Lights are a handy addition. At the moment, though, they’re far less versatile than rival systems.

You can make Hive bulbs change colour or go from warm to cool, but they’re less versatile than rivals

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