Ever since the Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting equipment hit the digital residence market, there has been a gentle uptick in competing smart bulb merchandise just like the LIFX LED Gentle Bulb( at Amazon) and the Related by TCP Good Lighting System as well as recent product announcements from electronics giants LG and EcoLight reviews Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that record. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (however accessible online for around $50), EcoLight brand the TL800 uses Bluetooth wireless know-how to speak together with your smartphone by way of a neat little app that allows you to flip lights on and off, choose colours, EcoLight brand and have the lights behave a certain manner when you could have an incoming phone name. Not like the Philips and EcoLight TCP bulbs the TL800 doesn't require a bridge, nevertheless it does not connect with the Internet either, which means you can't management it when you are away from house or have it work together with other dwelling automation gadgets. With a vented metallic casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 appears prefer it could be proper at dwelling in an Apollo spacecraft.

The bulb measures 4.Seventy five inches in length and EcoLight brand places out solely four hundred lumens, which is equal to a forty watt incandescent bulb. That is not very vivid when compared to the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), EcoLight brand and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it may display 16 million colours, but because it does not connect to the Internet you can't management it with home automation hubs from corporations corresponding to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.Ninety nine at Amazon). Nor can you use the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it turn on and off or change colors primarily based on things like Facebook requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports activities scores. You aren't getting a lot 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 system, and opened the app.

The Lumen app is uncomplicated and straightforward to use and allows you to control up to 10 bulbs at a time. You may control every bulb individually or control a group of bulbs. The home page lists all installed bulbs and exhibits you what colour they're presently set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a page where you'll be able to choose color EcoLight brand or warm white settings and turn the bulb on or EcoLight brand off. Whenever you select the heat white setting you are offered with a monochrome wheel that allows you to manually regulate brightness, or you possibly can choose one of four brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 %). Below the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a web page where you possibly can configure the sunshine to flash a specific shade when your phone has an incoming name. There's additionally a Wake-Up timer that may flip the light on utilizing a dim heat white setting that progressively gets brighter to create a sunrise effect, and a Proximity possibility that may have a light turn on to a preset coloration and brightness when your telephone comes into vary (about 30 ft).

In coloration mode you get a wheel that lets you select a colour for each bulb and assign a color brightness setting. For deep, sturdy colours you set the brightness stage to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colours, use a brighter setting. Under the color wheel are seven preset icons including two occasion modes that display pre-programmed flashing colours; a Romance mode that progressively transitions between orange, yellow, and purple; a Relaxation mode that is supposed to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and a Music Sync mode that accesses your stored music database and EcoLight flashes the light to the beat utilizing varied colours. Right here you may also adjust Proximity and Call Alert settings, however you can't create your personal custom presets like you possibly can with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the home page you may flip all or some lights on and off and add them to groups.

The group possibility is useful if you would like to manage multiple lights all at once. The entire settings and EcoLight lighting presets that can be found for particular person bulbs are also available in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.0 to speak with the smartphone, EcoLight which accounts for its wonderful responsiveness. It turned on and off immediately when advised to do so, and there was no lag time between coloration and brightness changes. The Wake-Up feature turned on in response to my schedule and the bulb grew to become steadily brighter over time. The decision Alert feature additionally worked as advertised and comes in very useful if you're wearing headphones. Shade quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but if you are lighting a big room you might have a couple of bulb, as four hundred lumens is just not very vibrant. The Tabu TL800 is a good alternative for anybody looking to add a couple of colorful lights to a room that they will management from a smartphone.