MEPION

Ever since the Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital house market, there has been a gentle uptick in competing sensible bulb products just like the LIFX LED Light Bulb( at Amazon) and the Related by TCP Sensible Lighting System as well as latest product bulletins from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that record. Priced at $69.Ninety nine per bulb (but out there on-line for around $50), the TL800 uses Bluetooth wireless know-how to communicate with your smartphone by way of a neat little app that permits you to turn lights on and off, choose colours, and have the lights behave a sure means when you will have an incoming cellphone call. Not like the Philips and TCP bulbs the TL800 would not require a bridge, but it surely does not connect to the Web either, which means you can't control it when you're away from house or have it work together with different dwelling automation units. With a vented metallic casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 seems to be prefer it could be right at home in an Apollo spacecraft.

The bulb measures 4.Seventy five inches in length and puts out only 400 lumens, which is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That's not very vibrant when compared to the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it could possibly display sixteen million colors, but since it does not connect to the Web you can't control it with residence automation hubs from firms similar to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.Ninety nine at Amazon). Nor can you use the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) web service to have it activate and off or change colours based on issues like Fb requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports scores. You do not get much in the way in which of directions with the TL800, but there's not a lot to clarify. I screwed it right into a lamp in my workplace, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made certain Bluetooth was enabled on my device, and opened the app.

The Lumen app is uncomplicated and easy to use and allows you to control up to 10 bulbs at a time. You possibly can management each bulb individually or management a bunch of bulbs. The home web page lists all installed bulbs and shows you what shade they are presently set to. Pressing a bulb icon takes you to a web page where you'll be able to select coloration or warm white settings and switch the bulb on or off. When you select the heat white setting you are offered with a monochrome wheel that lets you manually modify brightness, or you possibly can choose one of four brightness presets (90, EcoLight 70, 50, or 30 %). Under the wheel is a Name Alert icon that takes you to a page the place you can configure the sunshine to flash a selected coloration when your phone has an incoming call. There's also a Wake-Up timer that can turn the sunshine on utilizing a dim heat white setting that progressively gets brighter to create a sunrise impact, and a Proximity choice that could have a gentle turn on to a preset shade and brightness when your telephone comes into range (about 30 feet).

In colour mode you get a wheel that lets you choose a coloration for EcoLight every bulb and assign a colour brightness setting. For deep, EcoLight robust colors you set the brightness degree to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colours, use a brighter setting. Beneath the coloration wheel are seven preset icons including two occasion modes that display pre-programmed flashing colors; a Romance mode that gradually transitions between orange, yellow, and pink; a Relaxation mode that is alleged to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and EcoLight a Music Sync mode that accesses your saved music database and LED bulbs for home flashes the sunshine to the beat using various colors. Right here you can even modify Proximity and Name Alert settings, but you can't create your own custom presets like you may with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the house page you possibly can flip all or some lights on and off and add them to teams.

The group choice is useful if you need to control a number of lights unexpectedly. All the settings and presets that are available for EcoLight energy individual bulbs are also available in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.Zero to speak with the smartphone, which accounts for its glorious responsiveness. It turned on and off immediately when told to do so, and there was no lag time between coloration and brightness modifications. The Wake-Up characteristic turned on according to my schedule and the bulb became step by step brighter over time. The decision Alert characteristic additionally worked as advertised and comes in very handy if you're sporting headphones. Colour quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but if you are lighting a big room you might have more than one bulb, EcoLight smart bulbs as four hundred lumens shouldn't be very brilliant. The Tabu TL800 is an effective alternative for anyone wanting so as to add a few colorful lights to a room that they can control from a smartphone.