Guide
Let there be light – tips for getting started in the world of Hue
by Martin Jungfer
Three costly lighting fails I wish I hadn’t committed
24.1.2025
Translation: Katherine Martin
If your RGB lighting’s going to truly shine, it’ll all depend on your individual setup. Here’s where I went wrong when buying my lights.
Nobody loves RGB lighting more than me. Watching that sea of changing colours just makes me happy. The thing is, my appetite for colourful lighting sometimes overrides my common sense, leading me to buy lights I don’t actually need. This article will be painful to write, because I’ll be fessing up about the lighting I regret splashing out on.
Just so we’re clear, this isn’t a product review (the lamps listed below are all good!) They simply don’t suit my particular room setup. For you, it might be a completely different story.
Let’s face it, you want to see its pretty lighting effects as often as possible. The lamp’s got to be positioned somewhere you spend a lot of time, where it’s in your line of sight. It wouldn’t be worth putting it in a bedroom, for example. In my case, that leaves my home office, living room (complete with an armchair for reading and playing the Steam Deck) and conservatory (where I watch TV in the evenings) as options.
Basically, I didn’t need the lamp, but I thought it was too fabulous to return. It’s now positioned next to the TV, which has already claimed the wall as its own territory with its Ambilight technology. Yep, that was a bad buy.
However, that doesn’t work for my desk setup. There’s no space to the left and right of my monitors. Still, at least I can see the light above the screens. With my desk squeezed between the door and sloped ceiling, however, the whole setup comes off as jarring. The lighting simply emphasises how sad it looks.
I’m now so fed up with my workstation that I’m going to move it and paint the sloped ceiling a lighter colour. Hopefully that’ll help my light bars stand out more. I wrote about my current desk setup in more detail here:
The problem with the lamp’s three spotlights is that they don’t give off diffuse light like the lamps in mood photos do. Instead, the bulbs illuminate specific parts of the room – sometimes even to a dazzling degree. But even putting that to one side, buying the bulbs still wasn’t worth my while.
If I’m not streaming, the three bulbs have even less use. When I’m working, I barely notice the space behind me, no matter how brightly coloured it is. And I don’t use the room for anything other than sitting at the computer. If colour’s a must (it is!), then a regular ceiling lamp with a single bulb is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, I don’t have any other use for the GU10 bulbs, so I’m sticking with my unnecessary three-bulb setup.
When it comes to future lighting projects, I’ll consider more carefully whether the lamps are actually worthwhile. At least, that’s the plan…
Header image: Debora Pape
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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