The outdoor smart lights from Philips Hue allow you to extend the convenience and utility of smart lighting to the outdoors. However, it can be tricky to get power to all of these outdoor lights.
Here’s where the Philips Hue outdoor power supplies come in. These power supplies, along with extension tables and T connectors, can easily get all of your outdoor lights connected and powered up. However, these power supplies have wattage limits, and we need to figure out how many lights we can get connected to a single power supply.
There are two Philips Hue outdoor power supplies: one with a 40 watt limit, and another with 100 watt limit. You can connect as many lights as you can until the wattage limit is reached. Philips Hue lights have wattage requirements ranging from 8 watts up to 20 watts. This means that the fewest lights you can connect to a single power supply would be two while the most lights you can connect to a single power supply would be over 10.
Let's get your smart outdoor lighting setup connected and powered up.
What Are Your Hue Outdoor Lighting Options?
If you're looking for a smarter way to light up the outdoors, you can't go wrong with choosing Philips Hue and their outdoor lighting products. Philips Hue has been at the top of the game when it comes to smart lighting and that doesn't change when we step outside of your smart home.
Here's a few of the options you can pick from Philips Hue's smart outdoor lights.
Hue Outdoor Lights Strips
If you're used to using Hue’s indoor smart lights, you're probably familiar with their light strips. This is one of the flagship lighting products from Philips Hue, and now they've brought it outdoors.
Your options include the Amarant linear outdoor light, an 80-inch strip of LED lights, and a more traditional 197-inch strip of LED lights.
Hue Outdoor Ground Lighting
Ground lighting is one of the essentials of outdoor smart lights. You can use these to throw accent lighting on walls, light up your garden, or create decorative pathways that take your home to the next level.
Philips Hue offers several options for ground riding including their range of Lily spotlights, the Econic ground lights, and the Calla outdoor light bollard.
Hue Outdoor Floodlights
Hue has two main products to offer when it comes to their outdoor floodlights. They offer the Hue Welcome and the Hue Discover. The biggest difference between these two models of smart floodlight is that the Welcome is a warm white LED light and the Discover features color LED lights.
Outdoor Lighting Accessories and Must-Haves
There are a few must-haves that come with these Philips Hue outdoor lighting options. This, of course, includes things like the Hue smart hub, Hue outdoor motion sensor and power supplies, but this also includes Hue’s extension cables as well as outdoor smart light bulbs from the Hue brand.
Hue Outdoor Power Supplies
Getting power to all of your outdoor smart lights can be a little bit of a challenge. Running tons of extension cords and managing different power supplies as well as outlets makes these systems a little unwieldy. Thankfully, Philips Hue offers a few different options when it comes to adding a power supply to your outdoor lights.
Philips Hue offers two basic outdoor power supplies. There is a 40 watt option and a 100 watt option. These two power supplies are totally identical outside of their different wattage ratings. Here's why you should pick one over the other.
The 40 watt power supply is the ideal option for individuals who have completed their outdoor lighting setup, and it doesn't draw that much wattage. This can still be a good amount of lights which can easily cover a decent sized yard. You can save some money and keep the electricity bill down by getting this 40 watt outdoor power supply if you have a more streamlined outdoor lighting setup.
A 100 watt power supply is ideal for two different types of smart home setups. The first are smart homes with large yards that have tons of lighting. If you're expecting a lot of demand on your power supply, you should opt for the 100 watt model.
The 100 watt power supply from Philips Hue is also a smart choice if you're planning on expanding or changing your outdoor lighting setup. If you think you'll be growing into your outdoor smart lights, it's a smart decision to pick up a power supply that can give you room to grow and expand over time.
The biggest consideration when it comes to picking one of these two power supplies is figuring out how much electricity Philips Hue outdoor lights actually use.
How Much Electricity Do Hue Outdoor Lights Use?
Philips Hue outdoor lights use a range of different wattage ratings. The lowest wattage rating comes in at 8 watts with the Lilly outdoor spotlights with the largest wattage rating is the Amarant clocking in at around 20. Here's a breakdown of different Hue products and the wattage that they use.
- Lily Spotlights – 8 watts
- Lily XL – 15 watts
- Calla bollard – 8 watts
- Econic – 8 watts
- Impress – 16 watts
- Amarant – 20 watts
This will start to give you an idea of which power supply you'll need for your outdoor lighting setup. You could, for example, fit roughly twelve Lily spotlights on the 100 watt Philips Hue outdoor power supply. Picking a power supply also comes down to understanding the lights you want to use.
Even if you have a small yard you'll be lighting up, you'll need the larger power supply if you plan on having multiple Amarant or Lily XL spotlights. In general, the larger Philips Hue lights come with higher requirements for the watts they need.
This brings us to the one big question about these Philips Hue outdoor power supplies: how many lights can you power up on one power supply?
How Many Lights Can You Add to a Hue Outdoor Power Supply?
The number of lights you hook up to a given Philips Hue power supply isn't limited by the number of lights itself, but by the watts those lights need to stay powered.
This is all going to come down to how you want to light your yard and the plan that you have in mind. You can put as many lights as the wattage can handle on a single power supply. There's a few tips and tricks that will let you get the most out of this design.
The power supply is at its best when it's supplying wattage to lights that are further away from outlets. Some of these Philip Hue outdoor lights have options to be connected right into the mains. Other lights, like the sconces that will be hanging on the walls, can easily be powered without relying on one of these power supplies.
This helps you focus using your Philips Hue outdoor power supply on the lights that are going to be farther away from an outlet. It also lets you connect more lights into a power supply before you hit its wattage limit.
You might not be able to get up to the exact wattage limit of your power supply. The 40 watt power supply can only handle 2 Cala bollards combined with 1 Lily XL before it's too close to its limit to handle another light.
Here's a quick tip for making the most of your Philips Hue power supply. Before you start spending money on your outdoor smart lighting, you should take some time to draw out a layout for your lights. This will help you come up with the best design for your yard and also help you figure out which power supply you need to purchase.
We've been talking a lot about connecting multiple lights to a single power supply, but how do you get it done?
Can You Connect Multiple Philips Hue Outdoor Lights?
You're going to need some cables to string all these lights together and Philips Hue has you covered. One of the biggest advantages of working with Philips Hue lights is that you can get all of the products together from the manufacturer. This helps guarantee that things are going to work together smoothly without dealing with any unexpected problems along the way.
Philips Hue sells a combo package that includes a cable connector and a T connector. This helps you string multiple lights together and get them all connected into your power supply. The cable connector is particularly useful for running long distances while the T connector is ideal for routing multiple lights into the same line.
These connectors shouldn't impact the wattage requirements of the lights or the energy that your power supply puts out. They're basically just connectors that help you make complicated lighting arrangements work out without having to buy too many power supplies.
