Philips Hue Outdoors Use
Outdoors test of Philips Hue White bulbs at South Finland.
Location: South Finland
Installation date: 07/2016
Model: 7 Philips Hue White E27
Weather history: from 08/2016 to 06/2020 (provided by wunderground.com)
First failed bulp: 06/2020
3 bulbs were installed 23.7.2016 and 4 bulbs 31.7.2016. Only 1 bulb was in a sealed lamp and that one didn’t work out so well as it started to get some humidity inside it from 10/2016. That bulb died 08/2017. Out of original 7 bulbs, first one to break without any external factors/humidity was at 06/2020.
Lights were automatized with IFTTT. Lights turn on at sunset and turn off at sunrise. IFTTT fetches sunset and sunrise times from weather.com. On darkest time lights are on 18 hours and on lightest time 5 hours in a day (Sun Graph for Helsinki).
(07/2017) There has been ~3 days when lights didn’t turn on automatically when IFTTT was updating Hue integration and maybe 5 times when lights didn’t turn on or off for unknown reason (problems with wifi etc.). Based on my experiences IFTTT’s reliability is pretty good.
(08/2017) The bulb that was in a sealed lamp which had gathered humidity for since 10/2016 finally malfunctioned. Sealed case had like 50ml of water inside and lots of moisture. Considering that, I would say that Hue bulbs work well in moist conditions.
(09/2017) New bulb was installed in a new sealed lamp which has a proper IP rating for outdoors.
(02/2018) Lights are automated with Home Assistant instead of IFTTT. Uses Home Assistant’s Sun component.
(02/2019) Lights are automated with Philips Hue’s own software as timing functionality is now much better.
(09/2019) New sealed lamp with proper IP rating failed and bulp broke because of humidity.
(06/2020) First bulp from the original batch to break without any external factors. End of test.