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I've used a lot of different smart lighting over the years and the brand I invariably come back to is Philips Hue. Although Hue products carry a premium price tag, there's a reason.

They work.

Generally speaking, Hue is brighter, is better designed and is just... well... smarter.

A big part of the Philips Hue equation is the Bridge - the standalone connection hub you'll need if you want to install any Hue gizmo. Unlike most other smart lights, Hue lights don't all connect to your home Wi-Fi individually, instead, you connect the Bridge to your network and it controls the lights instead.

This means a lot less clutter on your router and a more reliable connection for all things Hue.

Now the Hue Bridge Pro takes that up a notch. Several notches actually. While the original Bridge had to be hardwired to your router via an ethernet cable, the revitalised Bridge Pro can connect wirelessly, meaning more flexibility around where you can set it up.

The Pro can also control up to 150 devices, as opposed to 50, offers expanded compatibility with Samsung SmartThings, Alexa, Apple Home and Google Assistant and has a new chip which means 5x times faster response times.

This all makes for quite the upgrade - but there is a catch. While you can swap all your existing devices and their associated settings over to the Bridge Pro from your old one, it takes a mysteriously long time. It's not complicated - you just sign into the Hue app on your phone and follow the instructions - it's just that it takes forever. Like, go away and do something else in the meantime forever. 

And it's the kind of process that doesn't really give you much of an indication of how far through it is... so you'll be tempted to give up, stop everything and start again. Not a good idea, unless you want to risk losing all your scenes and settings and having to add every device all over again from scratch. Trust me; you'll get there in the end. You just have to wait.

And the wait is worth it. Especially if you're running the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box for TV backlighting like I am - that five-fold increase in response time is noticeable right away.

While we're talking synced backlighting, meet the Hue Play Wall Washer - part of the new generation of better - and brighter - Hue devices.

This solid but compact little unit is Hue's effort to make backlighting even more accessible, in a way combining the finely-tuned, flowing effects of the earlier Light Bar and Gradient Lightstrip with the full glow-power of some of Hue's other feature lights.

Essentially, with just one (but preferably two) Wall Washers, you can come close to achieving the same kind of total-wall coverage offered by the Bar/Lightstrip combo. How effective this is depends a little on the size of the TV you're trying to accent.

As you'll see in the video below, the wall washers do a surprisingly good job of beaming a lot further up the wall than you might think - within reason.

Given I already had quite an effective synced backlighting setup, I soon realised the best use of my new Wall Washers was to widen the effect even further. As they're quite subtle - and certainly very small, I've been able to set them up some distance away from each side of the telly to spread all the colours appearing on-screen even further along each wall.

Let me emphasise again just how engrossing it is to have what you're watching exploded beyond the borders of your screen - especially if things are being blown up, set on fire or suddenly plunged into water. Conversely, I find even sporting action is enhanced mightily when the green of the pitch is carried on up and along the walls. It'll help if you've got a bit of space - these wee power-houses tend to work better when positioned with a reasonable gap between them and the surface they're shining on.

Of course, there are many other ways to use the Hue Play Wall Washers. Domestic Manager has been particularly taken with my attempts to provide accent lighting from underneath some of her more spectacular pot plants. As you can imagine, the changing colours and shadows cast quite the spell.

Like all Hue lighting, the Wall Washers can be set to do certain things at certain times, even activating at sunset and turning off at sunrise - whenever that happens to be at your place.

As yet another feature upgrade on the Bridge Pro, Hue Motion Aware means you can now set your lights to activate when you enter the room - no other external motion sensor required, as long as you're running at least three Hue Lights in any specified space.

That's a lot of exciting new Hue going on - and thanks to the Bridge Pro, none of it is really putting any significant extra strain on my home network. You see? Totally worth it.