I'd thought I'd a quick update on how the smart bulb is holding up since approx 9 Months when I wrote the original review :
- A recent firmware update has made the blub's WiFi much more stable and responsive. No more random disconnects
- The smart bulb is now natively integrated with Alexa i.e you no longer have to say the keyword "Ask LIFX", instead you can now ask Alexa naturally for eg "Alexa, set living room brightness to 50%"
- Google Assistant is now supported
- An update to the Andriod/iOS app has improved the layout a lot and made it easy to use and understand
ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW:
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When I first received my package with the Lifx Smart bulb I opened it half expecting it to be dead on arrival - thats because it was freely rolling in the shipping box without any air cushions added - however to my relief the Lifx smart bulb is packaged extremely well in a hard cylindrical tube suspended by a foam cushion which should make survive the harshest of shipping conditions. Tragedy averted! Another thing that struck me was the compact size of this bulb - I was expecting it be larger with all its features, WiFi and a 1100 lumen/75 Watt equivalent brightness rating - however its not much larger than a standard 800 lumen LED bulb and a hair bit smaller than a standard 75 Watt equivalent CFL bulb , this means that it should be able to fit in almost all lamp and ceiling fixtures where you can fit a regular CFL lamp
CONSTRUCTION & BUILD QUALITY:
- The lamp is surprisingly compact for all the features and brightness rating making is compatible with most lamp fixtures (see the comparison in video)
- The base of the lamp is made of metal for heat dissipation which also makes the bulb feel quite heavy for its size. The weight might be a bit too much for gooseneck type lamps
- The lamp features a flat disc type of glowing surface instead of the more traditional globe type surfaces of most other lamps. This effects its light distribution and perceived brightness ( I'll elaborate it more a bit further on)
- The bulb can only use the 2.4 Ghz WiFi band for connecting to your network and in my opinion is a good thing as it gives the flexibility of installing the bulb a greater range from your router. A modern router should be able to bridge your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands anyway for network visibility.
INITIAL SETUP, MOBILE APP & OPERATION:
Check my video for the initial WiFi Setup process, mobile app operation and Alexa Integration . I've indexed the video timestamps in case you'd like to jump straight to a particular section
The initial setup process can be a bit cumbersome and here are a couple of steps that can make the setup process a bit simpler (also covered in my video):
- Switch the WiFi network on your phone to the 2.4 Ghz band during setup
- When you plug in the bulb for the first time, it can take upto 30~40 seconds for it to broadcast its WiFi signal & become visible to the App
- You'll have to create a LIFX account when you open the app for the first time
- The way the setup process works its the App will disconnect the phone from your home's WiFi and connect it the Bulb's own broadcast WiFi Network, transfer your Home WiFi credentials to the Bulb, reconnect your phone back the the Home WiFi and do a firmware update on the bulb. This process can be a bit slow or the transition from one phase to another may not be smoothly managed by the Mobile app. It its best to be a bit patient and you may have to switch the WiFi networks manually between the Bulb and your home network (the app will ask to do so if necessary )
- The app can organize the various smart bulbs into three hierarchies : Home (Top Level) > Room > Individual bulb. If personally feel thats one level too much to manage and customize and just Room> Individual bulb would have sufficed like what TP-Link offers
- The app allows you to control the brightness & hue of the lamp from very warm yellows to bright blueish white either with set preset temperatures or anything in between for that perfect shade YOU want
- There are two separate sections sections where you can control the color of the lamp one of which gives you a more traditional color wheel where you can customize any color your want across the spectrum and then there is another section called 'Scenes' where the colors can be adjusted according to preset scenes. For example there is a 'Santa Scene' which makes the lamp color Red. Duh !
- Whats conspicuously missing from the app though is any sort of scheduling ability turn on or off the lamps and preset times
- The app allows you to add cool effects to your bulb like a candle flicker , strobe or cycle through various colors as well
ALEXA INTEGRATION:
- Integrating the LIFX Bulb is another two step process i.e it requires you to enable TWO separate skills on the Alexa App to take advantage of all its features :
- (1) The "LIFX Optimized for Smart Home" skill allows you to turn On/Off the blub and control its brightness . This is a Native Alexa App which means you can say the commands in any figure of speech without any special keywords: For Example "Alexa, Turn on the Bedroom Lights" or "Alexa, Set Bedroom lights to 50% brightness"
- (2) The second skill that you need to enable is called "LIFX". This is a Non-Native Alexa skill which allows you to control the Color of the smart bulb and requires you to say a preset keyword "Ask LIFX" . For Example "Alexa, Ask LIFX to set the Bedroom lights to Purple"
- Once you enable both these skills by authenticating with your LIFX account which you created, the rest of the process is simple and you just have to ask Alexa to 'Discover Devices' (See video)
THE GOOD:
- Very compact size for a dimmable, color Smart bulb which makes it compatible with a wide variety of fixtures
- The color temperatures can be adjusted to your preference from warm daylight tones to cool blues
- The colors are vivid and you have an almost infinite palette to choose from
- Supports more smart home systems than any other bulb that I've seen - It works with Alexa, Nest , Google, SmartThings, IFTTT etc
- Voice control with Alexa is simple, straightforward and easy to setup
- Packaged very well which should survive the harshest of shipping conditions
THE NOT SO GOOD:
- Because of the relatively smaller flat illuminated surface area of the bulb compared to a globe bulb , its light distribution is not as widespread as compared to a traditional globe surface.
- This impacts the perceived brightness of the bulb - To my eyes it does not seem significantly brighter than a standard 800 Lumen LED Bulb. I've included a picture of them side by side for you to decide - hope it comes across in the picture
- The software App for this bulb needs more work , its is poorly organized and overcrowded with too many sections and yet it is missing basic functionality like scheduling the bulbs. The software, on occasion, is also prone to disconnection requiring you to restart the app or turn off and On the WiFi on your phone
- Some of the advertised integrations like Google was not fully working at the time of writing this review and were "Under Work"
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Overall the the LIFX smart bulb is a solid platform for a Smart lighting solution with deep integrations with popular smart home systems and while ~$50 is not cheap , but if you compare it to other similar smart bulbs like the TP-Link LB130 or Philips Hue its actually brighter and is a better value for money option which works great with Amazon's Alexa. The only issue I had had was with the somewhat clunky App which can and hopefully will be fixed via future software updates. I will be purchasing a few more of these bulbs to complete my living room setup.
Update on January 9th: I now have a 3rd A19 and I'm loving it. As with the other two A19s I bought, setup was extremely easy. I see other customers reporting problems, but this is now three A19s in a row that I bought and set up individually with absolutely no issues. I don't know why I'm not having any issues, but so far my experience has been 5-star all the way. I wish I had tons of money because now I want to replace every single light in my home with these.
***Original Review***
To start with, installation is extremely easy. Follow the steps below. *DON'T TURN YOUR NEW LIFX LIGHTS ON UNTIL STEP 3*
1. Install the LIFX app
2. ***THIS STEP IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT*** Switch to your 2.4 GHz network (or you can switch to the 2.4 GHz before you install the app, it doesn't matter).
3. Turn on your new LIFX light(s) using the light switch.
4. Look at the LIFX app. You are guided through the installation of your lights. It's extremely easy. I would love to detail the process but there's almost nothing to say. Installation is a breeze.
5. ***ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING*** After installation is complete, switch back to your 5 GHz network. Yep, you don't have to stay on your 2.4 GHz network after you're done installing your new LIFX light(s).
6. Enjoy!
I mean, really, that's all there is to it. At this point, the lights should just work and give you no problems whatsoever. However, if you *DO* experience any problems, then restart your router. *NOT* restarting the router is the one thing that is causing people to have problems with their smart lights after installation (or *during*). Routers are computers too, and so just like any computer, they need to be restarted regularly - usually after connecting new devices. Sure, some routers are better than others and so they don't need to be restarted as often, but *ALL* routers still need to be restarted on a regular basis, whether that's weekly or monthly or just a few times per year.
If you experience issues controlling these lights with Apple HomeKit (using "Hey Siri"), then don't blame LIFX. Any issues you have when using "Hey Siri" are Apple's fault. For example, you might ask, "Hey Siri, make the lights orange" (or any color), but instead of getting the color you asked for, the lights turn off. For some reason, they aren't actually OFF, but they are instead set to 0% brightness. So, just ask for whatever brightness level you want, like 100%. If you continue having issues at this point, like maybe Siri will claim one of your lights failed or is experiencing a problem, then you should ask Siri to turn the lights off and then ask Siri to turn the lights back on. Or, you can go into the Home app and manually turn the lights off and back on from there instead of asking Siri to do it.
If one day you end up losing all ability to control one or more of your lights, then restart the router. You will encounter this at some point, and I'm here to tell you that this isn't a problem with the LIFX lights. It's a problem with the technology in general. It affects all smart lights on the market. This technology just isn't completely matured yet.
I haven't seen any negative reviews posted since the firmware update yet that *DON'T* have an easy solution, such as restarting the router. Yet, unfortunately, people post a negative review not knowing that there's a simple solution to the problem(s) they're experiencing. So, please don't pay attention to them. I've had my LIFX lights for 34 days now, and so far I haven't had any issues that didn't have a super easy and super simple solution. Whenever I have any sort of issue controlling my lights with "Hey Siri", I try the following:
1. "Hey Siri, set the lights to 100" (or whatever brightness level I want at the time)
2. If that fails, I ask Siri to turn the lights off and back on again.
3. If that fails, I restart my iPhone (it's the only thing I use to control my lights).
4. If that doesn't fix the control issues, I restart the router. I have only had to restart my router *one time* so far in the 34 days of daily use of these lights. Usually, all I have to do is just tell Siri to set the brightness to something OTHER than 0% and then they are fine. It's a strange bug, but it's not a big deal, and it's certainly not a good reason for me to say anything bad about these lights, especially since it's just an issue with Apple HomeKit and it has nothing to do with the LIFX app or the lights.
So, I have absolutely NO regrets buying these lights! If I had known how much I'd like them, I would've gladly paid a lot more for them, knowing it would be worth every penny.
Here's why you should get these instead of some other brand's smart lights:
- The LIFX smart lights can be brighter than any other smart light on the market. They can produce up to 1100 lumens! Compare that to the average maximum brightness of 800 lumens of other smart lights. Interestingly, the LIFX Mini lights produce a maximum brightness of 800 lumens. The brightest smart lights from other manufacturers is only 800 lumens. This is because other manufacturers use vastly inferior-quality parts that make up the "guts" of the smart lights, resulting in a much lower heat tolerance (and also an inferior color quality).
- The LIFX lights don't require (or use) a hub. If you buy just 1 light, then you'll have everything you need.
- The colors they produce are absolutely amazing. If you don't believe me, look at reviews on YouTube. You will find people who have compared these to the other leading smart lights on the market and found the LIFX lights to produce better colors. It's just my opinion that the colors are *amazing*. They all seem very true and accurate, and very pleasing to look at.
- There's no such thing as a "Starter Kit" for LIFX, and you don't need one! If you want just 1 light, you can buy just 1 and you'll have everything you'll need.
- They have the best app. Again, check YouTube reviews of these lights!
- These produce more light per watt. That means they are the most efficient smart lights on the market. At their maximum brightness of 1100 lumens, they only consume 11W. By comparison, the competing Philips Hue light can only produce 800 lumens, and it requires 10W to do so. 1100 lumens is a 75W equivalent, and 800 lumens is a 60W equivalent.
- The best CRI of the LIFX lights is 85 (I assume this is when you're using white, which is also 3500K). Philips Hue's best CRI appears to only be 80. I personally don't care much about CRI, but I know many people do, so there you go.
- LIFX smart lights work with Google Home, Alexa, and Apple HomeKit.
- In my experience so far, LIFX has fantastic customer service and support. I feel like I'm treated as a family member. They feel like a very small, down-to-earth family-owned business. Why did I contact them? I just wanted to ask them about the issues controlling the lights with "Hey Siri". I wanted to see if they were aware of it, and unfortunately, no one has yet reported this issue to them. They said they will attempt to find a way to fix this issue even though it's really all on Apple HomeKit's end.
So yeah, I highly, highly, highly recommend the LIFX A19 lights! They have quite noticeably improved my quality of life.
This is a review after day 1. I would like to clarify one config issue that was not clear to me from the product description and LIFX website. You do not have to operate the bulb in the same network as your smart phone or tablet. I have an Internet of things (IoT) wifi that is separate from my normal WiFi. All you need to do is connect the bulb to the IoT WiFi and then temporarily switch your phone to the IoT WiFi and claim the bulb to your LIFX cloud account. Then you can switch back your phone to your normal network and still control the bulb from your phone. Technically it means you control the bulb remotely all the time instead of via the local WiFi. The result is the same: you have full control over your bulb from your phone. Only downside: should you loose your external internet connection you cannot control the bulb locally. But I think a separate IoT WiFi is a good trade off if you are generally concerned about the security of IoT devices. The setup was quick and painless. While I will operate the bulb mostly in one fixed setting, I love the fact that light wise I can do almost anything I want: from cold whites to warm whites to almost any color you can think of at any brightness I want. This bulb also proofs to me that smart lights should not have to rely on a hub. LIFX,'s decision to use the cloud as hub seems right to me. One word of caution: I look at smart bulbs as a complement to non smart light solutions. I would not rely on all lights in my place being smart to avoid sitting in the dark should the smart bulbs ever get compromised. Last but least a complaint: some of the Nest integrations with the Nest cam require a Nest cam subscription even though I don't really see why those features could not be implemented without a subscription. Overall still a great product.
I have 24 of these connected through a Netgear R8500 router. Most of them are the A19. I agree - 24 is excessive. I have these just in table and floor lamps. I always have them in various colors and dimmed to around 25%. For me, they are mood lighting only.
Pros:
Great mood lighting
Make and save your own themes
Dimmable (but don't use with a dimmer switch)
Rich colors
Some cool pre-canned effects, i.e. Flicker, Color Cycle, Spooky, etc. (these are customizable)
consume very little power
I like the simple app
No hub needed
Convenient to turn on and off all lights in the house at once.
Geo fence. Lights will come on for you, or the kids, just by pulling into the driveway. Safety feature.
Keep your phone by your bed. If you hear a bump in the night you can very quickly turn on any light, room full of lights or all lights.
At 25% power, in color mode, they are burning less that a watt each.
I like that you can turn the I.R. mode off. With I.R. on, below around 9 watts your power consumption will jump from 0.5 watts to 7.6 watts. Even when you believe the light are off - they aren't really. They are giving off I.R. light and burning 7.6 watts each.
Grouping lights by room and by house.
Great for entertaining. You can put up some soothing, cozy colors. They really set the atmosphere - when you have enough of them.
Decorate your room, or house, with light. Best with white or off-white walls.
Cons:
They are heavy. I can see the horizontal arms, under the lamp shades, holding the sockets sagging under the weight. Most light sockets were designed for an incident bulb that weighs next to nothing. These Lifx bulbs replaced normal 40 watt equivalent or 4 watts LED bulbs that also weighed next to nothing.
They can often loose connection, although I haven't noticed as much of that lately.
I probably returned at least a dozen that would never connect or stay connected even after bulb resets. (Turn on and off 5 times)
They get pretty hot for an LED bulb. The 4 watt bulbs barely got warm and that's good for your AC.
For best signal the router manual says: "Place the router away from large glass surfaces." If your light bulb is enclosed in a ceiling fixture, chances are it's behind glass. But that's not why mine are only in table and floor lamps. Also not due to the builder-grade ceiling lights with weak, flimsy assembly between the socket and the light fixture. Although if I tried installing one in a ceiling fixture - that might become a reason.
When you turn on a light switch, your probably doing it because you need light. My Lifx light would come on set to Red or Blue, etc. at 25% power. This does not work if you turned on the light to look for something. So you have to go find your phone and open the app, set it to White, turn up the brightness. That's not convenient. So ceiling lights are for actual light and table and floor lamps are for mood lighting.
With the weird shape, they won't work with every fixture. They barely fit under some of the Tiffany shades. Some of the shades had to be raised a small amount to accommodate the squared off corners.
If you have a lot. They take up a lot of spots on your router.
The BR30 version doesn't not completely turn off unless you cut the power. Once your eyes adjust to the dark room, you'll see a very faint glow - even through a translucent lamp shade. It's very dim and not a big deal but it is definitely not fully off.
The A19s are all in Tiffany lamps with cut glass shades - so they are behind glass, mostly. Something the router manual says to avoid. The BR30s are in floor lamps with either Alabaster style or cut glass shades. Again, behind glass.
The metal arms on the table lamp sockets are metal tubular steel and built solid - yet because these arms are horizontal I can see the arms sagging under the weight. Some of the bulbs are sort of peeking out from under these shades - not so with the LED bulbs that were in these lamps. The socket on one arm actually broke under the weight. I have yet to try and fix that.
All things considered, the excellent mood lighting and safety features out weighs the cons - but not by very much. Could be 5 stars with better connections and lower cost. See graph for power consumption by color and brightness.
I was a little hesitant on buying one, since I felt that it was more a fad or for pre college kids sorta deal. Until I started using smart functions on Google Assistant (Alexa from Amazon) can also be used i'll describe my set up, which should be the same or similar to Alexa..
*highest brightness and *has built in WIFI. No Hub needed.
Set up was easy: screw the bulb in, turn it on like a normal bulb, download the app and 'connect bulb'. After that it ask you to name the bulb, in my situation I used 'lamp' than it pairs and ready to use. It uses 2.4ghz signal, which is good on distance than 5ghz. Considering that it sends a basic signal 'off and on' its not clogging your WIFI like streaming film would be. After going threw the set up, it will ask you for WiFi password etc If you change the name of your network, you have to set it up over again, since its a new network.
Shutting off you can use the app but in my set up. I use Google Home or my smartphone , only use the main app for some functions.. By adding the bulb to my Google home, it controls everything without going to a specific app and you can use voice : 'turn on lamp, off, change lamp color (insert a color) etc'. The official LIFX app does have themes, colors and you can see/turn the bulb brightness up or down or color suggestions and save to favorites even make home widget for android. Its also helpful on finding out names for example: I like daylight light, but the shade I like is 'cool daylight'. It does come in handy when you want a specific tone.
The benefit of using it will with Google home IF you don't have Alexa, you can have all 'smart items' listed like a command center and set it into a room and see all smart items instead of going into every app. This has pushed me into adding 3 ceiling fans that are smart and use both Alexa and Google Assistant in the same way as the bulb. But can be automated on a schedule, similar to the bulb. I plan on replacing all their bulbs with LIFX.
The main LIFX app is useful for creating themes and syncing multiple bulbs in various colors like 'Christmas, bright, cheerful etc' it cycles threw various colors creating a mood if you have more than 1 bulb.
Using Google Assistant, similar to Alexa, you can say : Dim lamp to 30% etc its useful using voice than having to go to the stock app for everything. You also can be away from the house, outside of your WIFI and send the command turn lamp lights on/off when going home or pulling up to the house.
PROS: VERY BRIGHT, Easy to use and connect, various colors, themes, sound themes, create a combination of colors or preset, can be dimmed. Has a day light schedule that can be made custom color that can turn on and off by-itself. You can also set it to turn on every day at a specif time, and off.
CONS: Haven't found any. I will update the review once I add more bulbs into the set up and see how they all work in unison. I may have to figure out a naming scheme for multiple bulbs
WARNING: Have a decent internet connection and make sure it can reach where the bulbs are set up. I think some are having connection issues because they're to far from the WIFI. Mine are all centralized. If you have a large home, invest in range extenders , mesh system or a decent WIFI setup. I plan on adding bulbs outside eventually.
UPDATE: 1/10/2019
Using a total of 5 light bulbs, 2 per ceiling fan and 1 for the floor lamp. Will be adding more. I found it easier when using 2 bulbs, like in my set up for a ceiling fan to just name them both the same: In my case (fan light 1 and fan light 2)There are 2 bulbs per fan, so the commands controls both lights on the fan itself. Making it easier than calling out 4 different bulb by name, plus the floor lamp bulb. Also figured out you can use gemstone colors like: Amber, ruby, turquoise, emerald, sapphire etc but no exotic combination like (quartz which is various colors or saying 'sapphire red'. It defaults to sapphire blue. You can use gold and silver but not diamond or Onyx (black). You can control all bulbs by saying 'living room lights or change all lights to (insert color)' after setting all of them in the same room with Google assistant. Make sure to name them the same in the LIFX App AND Google home so voice commands are the same name.
Feature Product
- Works with Amazon Alexa to support dimming, shades of white, and color settings through voice control (Alexa device sold separately)
- 16 million colors and warm to cool whites. Temperature : 2500K to 9000K
- Easy to set up, built in wifi - no hub required
- Bright - equivalent to 75W bulb ; Voltage Range:AC 100-240Volts 50/60 Hz
- Works with Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant
- Note: Kindly refer attached manual for guidance on installation
Description
LIFX (A19) Wi-Fi smart LED light bulb, adjustable, multicolor, dimmable, no hub required, works with Alexa, pack of 4
== Summary ==
The LIFX A19 multi-color smart light bulb is a great product with great design, excellent brightness (up to 1100 lumens), and easy setup and installation. I love how I can change the colors & set time schedules. It integrated easily into Google Home and SmartThings.
*Pros:
-Cool design.
-Multi-color.
-1100 lumens in A19 form-factor~! Most smart bulbs top off at 800 lumens.
-Easy to use app.
-Integrates easily into Google Home & SmartThings.
*Neutral:
-Pricey~!
*Cons:
-None.
I'm using this LIFX bulb at my front porch which is why I needed something brighter than the typical 800 lumen smart bulb. With a non-transparent glass dome cover surrounding the bulb, I knew 800 lumens just wouldn't be enough.
During initial setup, I experienced some connection hiccups when trying to pair it to my home Wifi network. The app suggested that I turn off and on the bulb 5 times to try the pairing again and that solved it.
Once inside the app, I was delighted by all the options I had. The app offers 4 main settings - Colors, Create, Effects, and Day & Dusk.
Inside the Colors settings, you can adjust the color of the light as well as the brightness level.
In the Create section, you can apply "Themes" such as "Thanksgiving," "Festive," "Party!", "Mellow," etc.
In the Effects settings, you can apply lighting effects such as "Spooky," "Flicker," "Pastels," "Color Cycle," and more.
It is inside the "Day & Dusk" setting where you can set your light bulb's on and off schedule. In my case, I have the bulb to turn on at 5:00 PM at 2700K color & 100% brightness. Then at midnight, the bulb is programmed to stay on but reduce Brightness to 30%. And at 6 AM, the light turns off until it becomes 5 PM again.
Even though it's pricier than competing smart bulbs, I still decided on the LIFX bulb for its higher lumen rating of 1100. It's good stuff.
This review is not about the value of owning RBG lights. Yes having magical color-changing lights is 100% awesome. This review is how good LIFX bulbs are. And yes they are fantastic: These are doing everything I wanted in an RBG light. Having brought these recently, I can't speak for the old firmware, but the current one seems to work great on my wifi network. They were easy to set up with the app, an update and have functioned nicely.
Unlike HUE these are not part of a smart home system. Being full wifi I'm not sure how many one could add to a network before things got hairy. Being an network admin, I can say you will definitely have major problems if you have more than say 15 on a typical home router. Also unlike Zigbee lights, these do not relay control signals, if anything they will interfere with each other polluting your wifi network. But that is the price you pay for picking wifi, and you have to know that going in. It would be nice if LIFX had a ZigBee product, because I can say their LED light hardware is the best on the market, even better than Hue's bulbs.
I can say with conviction these are the best RGB bulb's I've tried. As light, these are better than any of the imports here on amazon, hue, and definitely better than Ikea's newest RGB offering. If I had to rank them it would be LIFX > Hue > Ikea Tradfri, > everything else. These display all colors richly and accurately. They are very bright at some 900lm. They do not flicker even when dimming. They preform equally well with a warm or cool white settings. This is where the magic lights failed terribly as their "cool white" was a teal blue light at like 200 lm. These are a bit heavy at 7.5oz of weight, which is about the same as a medium sized apple. they are also oddly shaped with the squared off cylinder shape. So they might not work in some light fixtures.
They are also LED lights so they *CANNOT* be used in closed figures with no air circulation. The painted metal bases of the bulbs act as a heat sink to dissipate the heat from the power transformers and LED's. Now they don't get hot. For practical purposes they are "warm" to hand, not burn you instantly hot like old fashioned bulbs. You can change these by hand even after hours of running, and they totally won't heat up your room....But they have circuits and LEDs are made with semi conductors so they must be kept rather cool to survive. They don't need active cooling, but installing them in say a typical flush mount ceiling fixture with a glass dome will cause these to overheat and cook the LED's into dead. But this is true of all LED bulbs. Basically any kind of open fixture is good.
The app works decently for selecting colors: You get two wheels, one for color one for white. Spinning the wheel changes hue, moving up and down in the wheel changes the white/color mix, and flipping the dial in the middle changes brightness. This is very different from Hue's "color picker" approach but it works well for me. The white wheel is fantastic because it reads to me the specific Kelvin values for the white shade, thus setting to incandescent or sunlight tones is very easy. To my eyes the tones look correct for the K value claimed. Hue doesn't bother to offer specific K values for its white tones, which in my book is a huge fail. LIFX lights are the brightest RGB lights, and maintain their brightness over all shades of white and colors. The app is decent and lets me save any colors, and set up custom "Scenes." I do wish I had more control over the Day&Dusk function that lets you change the lights colors/brightness by time of day. It would at least be very nice to have more than 4 zones, or to edit the curves between the time zone. Just because I want it bright at noon and dark at 10pm doesn't mean I want the light to gradually darken from noon to 10pm evenly over those hours. I'm not sure, maybe I am not programming the app correctly. I still need to do some learning on all the app can do, and what 3rd party options might be out there.
I linked these with the google voice assistant on my android phone. It works nicely and I can even change the colors by name. I don't own an echo or Home, or other active listening device and never plan to. I've set my phone to only take voice prompts at a button touch because I don't need every sound in my home recorded and sent off to a corporation for who knows what.
Over all, if you wanna do a handfull of lights in your home, these are the ones to get.
I prefer these over the Philips Hue because I don't need the hub and they are significantly brighter. I also think the app is FAR superior to the Hue app. My friend has Hue and is jealous.
My main gripe is that the connection to Alexa was initially really problematic. I kept getting "null errors" and stuff. Eventually I completely started over with a new account and was able to get them working. And sometimes a bulb decides to just go offline for no reason. It's not a Wifi issue because I have several of these in a track lighting setup and its neighbors continue to work in both directions from the router. I've learned to just turn the light off (at the wall switch) for a half hour and when I turn it back on the bulb seems to start working again.
They get really hot. Does that matter? Eh, idk. Probably not hotter than incandescent bulbs.
I hope future firmware updates will improve reliability.
This review will include all the stuff that I installed since Dec. Will come back later for a long-term update.
All of them installed on a managed network.
10 TP link Kasa Switches Single Pole
2 TP Link Kasa Smart Plug Mini Outlet
10 TP Link Kasa LB 110 (2700K)
3 TP Link Kasa LB 120 (2500-9000k)
1 TP Link Kasa LB 130 (Color)
6 LIFX Mini White 800L (2700K)
3 LIFX A19 (Color)
Initial Installation:
I have zero trouble on installation, zero connecting issue or losing connection issue. I guess most of the complains are from older review and the new firmware fixed the problem. Both brands have a very simple straight forward installation. First you down load the app, next you install the bulb, then you click ADD device and follow the screen instruction then voila. Bear in mind that at first the device is trying to connect to your phone/tablet DIRECTLY to initiate the process, so stay close to it and make sure both device on the same network 2.4ghz. After you enter the Wi-Fi info on screen, they will switch back to connect to the Wi-Fi instead of each other, so give it some time to do that. From that point everything should be smooth sail and you and proceed to update the firmware and finish the installation.
Performance:
Both TP Link and LIFX performs really well on the white bulb, both are nice and bright and providing about the same amount of light but the LIFX has a way better dimming performance. The TP link dim at 1% is not really 1%, is at least 20% I would say, where the LIFX dim is really at 1%. If dim to 1% is important for you, I will forget about TP link, it can't go below 20% IRL even it is showing at 1%. If dimming to 1% is not that important to you then I will say both are good and it will be depending on the price point. I got both at $14.99, no complains there.
On the color bulb, the LIFX A19 will blow the TP Link LB130 away. LIFX A19 is rated at 85W and the LB130 is only at 60W, the brightness on the LIFX A19 is just pure awesome especially in color mode. Overall the LB130 is just weak, not bright at all on color and the one I have is kind of limping and became very dim on 3rd day so I end up returned it.
On the switch and the plug. They are awesome, zero hick up at all and very responsive to command, is like instant on and off no delay there, very solid product and the price is good too. I am glad that they are one of the cheapest but performing very good.
If you are putting 2 switches together, this is a perfect fit cover to use
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D0Q81YW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If your recess base is too small for the bulb base to go through, this is a good adapter to use but beware of the depth of your recess, it might stick out.
DiCUNO E26 to E26 Socket Extender, E26/E27 to E26/E27 Lamp Bulb Socket Extension, Lamp Holder Adapter (10-Pack)
I wasn't going to do that before because the price was crazy. $40 regular bulb? You are kidding me.
But at $14.99 a white bulb, I think is more doable now and I pulled the trigger, that's pretty much the same price when GE first came out the led bulb to replace filament decades ago.
These bulbs are great for my needs. They provide enough light for my picky tastes and are dimmable, using the intuitive app. The most important part, for me, is that you can actually get a warm white (Neutral 3200 K for me) that looks like a nice comforting incandescent bulb. Setup was simple, and despite what I read in some reviews about the bulbs dropping off of the home Wi-Fi, I have not had this happen in the weeks that I have been using them. My only complaint, and it is a small one, is that once in a while, I will issue a command for a group, and one of the lights is a few seconds behind the others in following the order. But that really isn't too bad. Almost like I am looking to complain.
The many included themes are fun to experiment with, as well as just the massive amount of colors you can dial in with the app. If there was a way I could create my own themes to save, that would be great, but I have yet to find if that really is an option. I'd set my preferred warm whites as a default on for my bulbs. That way after playing with the colors and themes, I could reset to my default with one action.
These bulbs work great with Alexa, and when I add a bulb, or a group, she discovers them quickly. Just activate the LIFX skill and she does the rest. I keep looking for other opportunities to replace existing bulbs with these from LIFX. I have a pair in a basement room on the ceiling, and the cheapo covers for the lights that clamp onto a light bulb with a stiff wire hasp, worked great with these, even though they are not traditional "bulb" shaped. The other three are in table lamps and you cannot tell they are "special" bulbs. No more three way bulbs that only have one setting working. I can set these from 0 to 100% brightness and get the exact level of light I desire at any time.
As I said, they work great with Alexa, the Android app works fine too. I have yet to experiment with the app for iOS, but the app for Windows 10 works surprisingly well. I did notice that the PC version was missing some of the prepackaged themes though. The bulbs may seem a little pricey, but if you can get a deal or convince yourself they will last for 22 years, they are not too expensive. I have one "spare" that will either be a true spare, or may find a home socket in the very near future.
I am more than pleased with my purchase, and imagine that there will eventually be more of these bulbs in my home. I have also been interested in some of their other items like the tiles, bars, and strips. Those would be fun to experiment with and add some dazzle in other places around the home.
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