Philips Hue A19 LED Smart Light Bulb, 3 Pack

I have been wanting Philips Hue lights for about 10 years. Since they first came out. The day finally arrived when I had some extra money. So I was very excited to try these. But from the time I turned these on, they have been a horrible experience. I am an IT specialist that has been using a computer for 37 years. So if I have trouble setting these up, good luck... Just finding the app was a nightmare because Google suggests unofficial apps instead, with the Philips app nowhere to be found. I actually had to type in a URL and it still went to the wrong address at first. Their app doesn't even work with Android Marshmallow 6, so I had to use it with another smartphone,... because??? But I had already paired the light with that phone, so then I had to go through quite an adventure to get it working with my other phone. The lightbulb simply refused to work. It "rejected" being unpaired/paired. I would say that took about 2 hours. After some struggle, finally, I had the other 2 lamps working with my phone, connected, now the real challenge had begun. The lights are not unified in the scene, so if you pick a scene, the lights will be different colors. It never explains this. So I had two lamps on my desk which -- no matter what I did, they were different colors. It was so frustrating. I literally had to manually adjust one of them to match the other. Because by default, I guess people like their lamps to be different colors??? HAHAHA You cannot even adjust the lights at the same time. For example if you wanted the 3 lights to change to a certain color and brightness, you have to adjust each one of them separately! Hahaha, what kind of smart app is this?? The app requires location to be turned on. HAHA, I'm using Bluetooth, I am literally right here where you are.. it would be impossible to control it over bluetooth if I wasn't standing before it. What kind of "smart" light is this. Why do my light bulbs need my GPS location - are you serious? My location is not Philip's business. Second, having location turned on to use your lamps means that all apps now have location turned on. Third, this uses a lot more battery ... for what exactly, Philips? Every time you open your phone, it will give you a location error. "These require location to be turned on," this is despite the fact that location is turned on... Luckily, it's just a momentary issue each time (a few seconds) The lights are dim, it's like living inside a cave lit by a candle. The lights barely light themselves up. If you use scene "Bright" you can almost find your way around the room. I guess they are somewhat adequate in the white settings, but leave a lot to be desired. If you want color mode, the lights barely light themselves up. You can stare directly at the lightbulb with brightness turned to the max. Christmas tree lights are brighter than these! I have no idea in the world how these are like $50 each. Now let's talk about the updates. Every single time you open the app, there is some update. Seemingly because it never finishes them. You have to update each light bulb individually!!! It won't just download the update to your phone and then begin installing to all or each light. Haha, no that would make too much sense! It will download the update, and it takes about 12-24 hours, and if you do anything else, it will cancel the update, apparently. It never gives you any clues like maybe you're not close enough to the light bulb, or ... what. Is this the slowest CPU/processor in the world? Combined with the slowest storage in the world? I'm serious, it probably is! Sure, they have to cut costs somewhere, but this is absurdly slow. And you can tell because when you turn the light switch on, it takes about 2 seconds for the lights to come on! I had left my phone on the entire night, plugged in with the screen on, and when I woke up it was still updating one of the bulbs. 8 hours later, it says "finalizing update" and it was stuck there. Like maybe now I can never use the light again. I am literally in the dark here. Then I realized I had it it switched off! 2 days later, now it's time to update the 2nd bulb! YAY torture! Black Friday deal or not, I will almost certainly return these and never buy a Hue product again.