Get ready to level up your ambient lighting game! Philips Hue appears to be launching a powerful new addition to its smart home lineup: the Philips Hue Play Smart Wall Washer. Leaked via an Amazon UK listing, this new light promises a significant upgrade over the popular Hue Play Light Bar, delivering a wider, more intense burst of color for your walls and entertainment area. It’s designed to sync with your music and movies, transforming your room with dynamic light.
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This successor to the Light Bar offers notably increased brightness and enhanced color coverage thanks to a clever new design, but it comes with a higher price tag to match its improved performance.
What Makes the Hue Wall Washer Different?
Think of the Wall Washer as the Light Bar’s bigger, bolder sibling. While both cast a vibrant glow on your walls, the new model is engineered for greater impact and coverage.
Brighter, Wider Illumination
The most immediate upgrade is the brightness. The new Hue Play Smart Wall Washer boasts up to 1,035 lumens of light output. If you’re not deep into lighting specs, that’s more than double the 500 lumens offered by the previous Hue Play Light Bar. More lumens mean a brighter, more noticeable effect on your wall.
Beyond just brightness, the Wall Washer uses a technology Philips calls “ColorCast.” This isn’t just marketing jargon; it refers to how the LEDs are physically angled upwards within the unit. This angled design helps project light over a much wider area compared to the Light Bar, covering significantly more wall space from the same distance.
Philips Hue Play Smart Wall Washer new in box, showing its design
Philips claims this wider beam covers “three times as much surface” as other wall wash lighting methods, making it incredibly effective at filling a wall with color or white light. Whether you place it close to the wall or a bit further back, the ColorCast technology is designed to maximize your light spread.
Sleek Design and Placement
Measuring in at just over 6 inches tall and about 3.5 inches wide, the Wall Washer has a form factor somewhat similar to the base of Philips’ recently announced Hue Twilight lamp, though without the bedside lamp function. It’s built with an aluminum body and a matte finish, a smart choice that helps prevent glare from your TV screen reflecting off the light itself – a potential annoyance with shinier plastic finishes.
You can position these lights behind your TV, on a shelf, or anywhere you want to add a splash of dynamic light. For larger setups or wider walls, you can still pair multiple units for uniform illumination, just like with the Light Bars.
Two Philips Hue Play Smart Wall Washers lighting a wall behind a TV setup
The Price Tag: Is It Worth the Upgrade?
Here’s where the biggest difference lies, and it’s a significant one. The increased performance comes at a much higher cost. While the original Hue Play Light Bar typically sells for around $90 (and is often found for less), the new Wall Washer is listed at £199.99 in the UK. That translates to roughly $270 USD based on current exchange rates.
Comparing the price:
- Hue Play Light Bar: ~$70 – $90 per single unit.
- Hue Play Smart Wall Washer: ~$270 per single unit.
That’s a price jump of over 300%! For that premium, you’re getting over twice the brightness and a much wider light spread. Whether that performance boost justifies the considerably higher cost will depend on your budget and how much ambient light coverage you need for your space.
Smart Features and Connectivity
Like other Philips Hue products, the Wall Washer is packed with smart features. You can expect seamless syncing with your entertainment – matching the colors and intensity to the content on your TV or the beat of your music.
Despite its high maximum brightness, the Wall Washer also features “ultra-low dimming.” This means it can create very subtle lighting effects and even function as a soft night light, giving it versatility beyond just vibrant entertainment syncing.
Connectivity includes Bluetooth, allowing for easy setup and control directly from your phone without needing a Hue Bridge. While the initial Amazon listing didn’t explicitly mention Zigbee (the protocol the Hue Bridge uses), most new Hue lights support both, so it’s likely compatible with the Bridge for integration into larger smart home systems and features like syncing. It’s also ready for voice control, working with Google Assistant, Apple Siri, and Amazon Alexa.
Expect the Philips Hue Play Smart Wall Washer to start hitting the market sometime in the next four months, according to reports.
