Brightening things up with Philips Hue Lux (pictures)

The Philips Hue Lux is a new white-light only smart LED that shines a light on affordability. Click through to learn a little more about it.

Philips Hue Lux LEDs look a lot like their color-changing predecessors, except for the white-bodied build.

The new Lux LEDs use Zigbee to communicate wirelessly with the existing Philips Hue Bridge. If you've already got one, you don't need another.

Unlike the original Philips Hue LEDs, the Hue Lux bulbs don't change colors. Instead, they're locked in at a yellowy color temperature just below 2,700 K.

Each Hue Lux LED puts out 750 lumens from a stated power draw of 9 watts. However, in our tests, the bulbs drew close to 18 watts, making them rather inefficient compared to other LEDs.

Adding Philips Hue Lux LEDs to an existing Hue setup is a cinch.

If you have any trouble adding bulbs, the manual search option is a nice touch.

Hue Lux LEDs promise to last 25,000 hours, which is an improvement from the 15,000-hour lifespan of the original Philips Hue LED.

The Philips Hue Lux (left) will dim smoothly down to 0.5 percent brightness, another improvement over the original Philips Hue (right), and just slightly better than the competition (center).

The Philips Hue Lux costs $30 per bulb, or $100 for a two-bulb starter kit with the Hue Bridge (£25 and £80 in the UK, not yet available in Australia). That's half the cost of the original Philips Hue LEDs, so if color-changing mood lighting doesn't appeal to you, but automated smart lighting does, then Lux might be the way to go. Be sure and read our full review to help you decide.