So what are the biggest difference between the NanoLeaf Smart Ivy and any Phillips Hue light bulb? Well, the looks but beyond that, the Phillips Hue experience is just way better. When compared to the Nanoleaf Smart Ivy, not the Nanoleaf Aurora.

When I boil all the features down, you’re basically paying more money for Nanoleaf’s fancier looking light bulbs and losing out on all the extra functionality that the Phillips Hue line of bulbs has to offer. I’ll elaborate on the details in a minute.

For this comparisons, I’ve give the Smart Ivy a score of 3.2 eh’s out of 5 and the equivalent set of Phillips Hue bulbs a score of 4.1 Eh’s out of 5. There’s are two areas where the Hue is better but they deal with accessing the smart LED bulb and might not be applicable to everybody.

Check out the Nanoleaf Aurora vs. Philips Hue Go/Bloom comparison:    • Which one should you get? Aurora Nano...  

Smart Home Lighting Intro: https://shreh.ca/2s8nN7u

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Get the Nanoleaf Smart Ivy on Amazon!
Amazon US: https://shreh.ca/2tc9610
Amazon CA: https://shreh.ca/2tbFrVz
Amazon UK: https://shreh.ca/2tbYnn3
Amazon DE: https://shreh.ca/2tbNfq9

Or get it on eBay: https://shreh.ca/2tccokK

When it comes to the physical design, the Philips hue line of bulbs look like actual light bulbs whereas the Nanoleaf Smart Ivy bulbs look very unique. I would say they look badass. The first thing that came to mind was that the black Smart Ivy bulbs were the awesome looking dark side sith lords of the smart led light world whereas the Hue bulbs where the bland, beige robe-wearing Jedi ninnies.

Both sets of light bulbs are dimmable but the Smart Ivy lights are set to 3000k color. Coloured lightning has been a big selling point for smart lights for us so the single color of the Smart IVY is a bit of a bummer. A big bummer when you considering the price difference between an equivalent set of Philips Hue White bulbs.

When it comes to brightness, the 800 lumen Smart Ivy lights at 3000k are brighter by a couple hundred lumens when compared to the Philips Hue bulbs at a similar color setting. The Hue bulbs are brightest at 4000k at 800 lumens which means they’re the brighter, warmer bulb whereas the Smart Ivy is a brighter, cooler bulb. If I had to make a decision based on the color, I would use the Smart Ivy bulbs in my working area and the Hue bulbs in my living/bedroom areas.

Setting up any of the Philips Hue bulbs has been quite easy whereas the Nanoleaf Smart Ivy bridge took multiple tries. It reached a point where I was going to pass on the product because I couldn’t get it to connect to my home network. This wasn’t the case for the Nanoleaf Aurora.

Before we move onto functionality, the last thing I will point out is that the Smart Ivy bulbs will emit light in a pattern. The LED’s aren’t diffused so depending on where you put them, you’re going to see bright spots. For example, check out the bright spots on my table when I use a Smart Ivy Bulb in this lamp.

Philips Hue blows the Nanoleaf out of the when it comes to overall functionality. In my opinion, the biggest reason for this discrepancy is the fact that Philips has been at this for several years now whereas Nanoleaf is still relatively new at the smart light bulb game. An example of Philip’s maturity is the integration of their Hue bulbs into other third party apps like Sleep Cycle which offers sleep tracking but wakes you up using a Philips Hue Bulb.

The biggest difference for us is that Nanoleaf doesn’t offer stand alone remote access whereas Philips does through their own service. If you want to control your Smart Ivy bulbs remotely, you will need to setup an Apple TV or iPad as your Apple Home command center.

Secondly, Nanoleaf doesn’t offer any wearables integration which might not be a big deal for most people but it is a feature that Philips has.

The Nanoleaf app itself focuses heavily on the Aurora with almost no UI dedicated to the Smart Ivy bulbs. It’s almost like they’re an after thought.

When it comes to compatibility, both sets of lights work with IFTTT, Apple Home, Alexa, Wink, Smart Things and Google Home. There isn’t a service that I’ve come across that doesn’t work with these lights which is nice. This isn’t the case for smart LED lights from Osram.