Philips announces new Hue pendant light

Philips is introducing one of its biggest Hue lights yet: a full-on fixture meant to hang from your ceiling and illuminate your dinner table with a big, seamlessly glowing disk of light.

I got to see the new smart light fixture, called the White Ambiance Cher Suspension light, in person recently, and it has a nice look that strikes a balance between not being too futuristic and tacky and not being too showy, either. It’s sort of designed to blend perfectly into a really generic West Elm catalog.

That said, I can also see the light standing out too much in a lot of dining rooms — the glowing disk is pretty unique. But that’s kind of the hard part about selling light fixtures instead of just standalone bulbs: even if someone wants a Hue-connected fixture, it has to match their home’s style first.

Rather than do the all-out color-changing thing that Hue lights are known for, this fixture only moves between shades of white, from warmer tones for the evening to cooler tones for the morning. Philips says it made that decision because multicolor lights are usually best for entertainment experiences in the living room, whereas it didn’t see many people eating dinner under a glowing red or purple light.

Otherwise, the light has all of the typical features that make a Hue light a Hue light, like connecting to your phone and the ability to be controlled remotely and set on all kinds of complicated timers and location-based triggers.

Unlike a traditional light fixture, you won’t be able to replace this fixture’s lights when they burn out, since they’re all LED. Philips said they should be able to run for 25,000 hours, or about 22 years of use, in the company’s estimate. One representative told me, “You’ll have another motivation to change it before it actually dies.” The light comes out in October and will sell for $229.99.

While Philips has done odd-looking lamps here and there in the past, it hasn’t really started moving into fixtures until this year. In May, the company introduced four fixtures, all of which were based around a similar disk shape and hung from the ceiling to different degrees. Today’s addition gives the line a much more prominent option.

In addition to the new fixture, Philips is also introducing two other Hue lights. The first is an E12 candle bulb that does multiple colors; the second is a covered light meant for recessed ceiling fixtures. The light only does shades of white, and it’s supposed to be water resistant enough to be installed in bathrooms. Both of those also come out in October.