As an apartment dweller, I’m constantly looking for creative ways to solve one of the most vexing problems with rental units: ugly flush-mount ceiling lights.
You know the kind I mean. They’re generally dome-shaped, they’re cheap, and when we moved into our current apartment, they were paired with fluorescent bulbs that gave our dining room all the charm of a hospital operating theater.
What we really wanted were pendant lights that would hang from the ceiling, perfect for giving our dining table a well-lit yet warm vibe—anything to give our apartment dining experience a glow-up.
But as any renter knows, installing pendants in our apartment was a non-starter, so we brainstormed other ideas. Floor lamps flanking the dining room table? Perhaps, but that wouldn’t help much in terms of lighting our dinner plates. An arc lamp? Tried it, and it was a big failure—the only one small enough for our cramped space kept flopping down onto the table while we were eating.
Here’s how our dining room looks with the overhead flush-mount lights on. Meh. (And you should have seen it with the florescent bulbs.)
Ben Patterson/Foundry
We also tried some of those little rechargeable table lamps you see in restaurants, but they turned out to be a waste of money. Even the ones that looked reasonably good had hardly any battery life, they took forever to recharge, and one of the lamps we bought literally fell apart after a couple of months. Ugh.
I had also been circling this portable Philips Hue lamp—specifically, the Hue Go. It was about the right size for our dining table, it had the right look, and best of all, it was smart. I already had a bunch of Philips Hue lights in my apartment, so the Go would fit right in.
The only thing the Hue Go didn’t have going for it was an affordable price tag. With a $175.99 list price, the Go isn’t nearly as pricey as some other Hue lamps, but I still balked at the price.
This is where one of our Philips Hue Go lamps sits during the day.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
Finally, I went ahead and sprung for a pair of the Hue Go lamps—and yes, I paid full price (Amazon didn’t have any discounts at the time). It was a stretch for our budget, but I figured it was smarter than throwing money away on additional cheap lamps.
The Hue Go lamps I purchased can connect either directly to your phone via Bluetooth or to your home network via the Philips Hue Bridge. I already had the Hue Bridge, so I was able to connect the Go lamps quickly and add them to my existing smart lighting routines, perfect for having the lamps glow in cool daylight colors during the day and in warmer hues at night.
Along with each lamp comes a hockey puck-style charger with a cord that plugs into a wall outlet. You can sit the Go lamp on its charger to keep it shining day and night, or it can run on battery power when you take it on the go (pun intended, I imagine).
The charger for the Philips Hue Go.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
What’s the battery life for the Hue Go? It varies, depending on how brightly it’s shining. If you dial the brightness up all the way, the Go is only good for roughly an hour or two. Dim the light, and the Go could potentially run for the balance of the day.
So here was the plan with the new Go lamps: During the day, they’d sit on the sides of the room, resting on their chargers. At supper, we’d position them on the dining room table running on battery power, perfect—I hoped—for giving our dinners a more elegant lighting feel.
Behold, our Hue-enabled dining room glow-up.
Ben Patterson/Foundry
We tried it, and boom—it was an instant dining room glow-up. Our dining experience felt much more cozy, the dining room’s lighting scheme matched the ambiance set by my other scheduled Hue lights, and best of all, the Hue Go lamps have been reliable performers, barely skipping a beat during a solid year of heavy use. The Go lamps have run out of juice once or twice while we were eating, but it’s been a surprisingly rare occurrence considering how long our suppertimes tend to run.
I honestly believe the Hue Go portable lamp is worth it at its $175.99 list price, but if you check on Amazon, you’ll see that the black version is now selling for just $105.27, a 40-percent discount. Do yourself a favor and get two of them.
Buy the Philips Hue Go portable table lamp on Amazon
This article is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lights.