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Ever since the Philips Hue LED($199.99 at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital home market, there was a gentle uptick in competing smart bulb merchandise like the LIFX LED Mild Bulb( at Amazon) and EcoLight the Related by TCP Good Lighting System in addition to current product announcements from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that listing. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (however out there on-line for around $50), the TL800 makes use of Bluetooth wireless expertise to communicate along with your smartphone by way of a neat little app that lets you flip lights on and off, select colors, and have the lights behave a sure approach when you have got an incoming telephone call. Not like the Philips and TCP bulbs the TL800 would not require a bridge, nevertheless it doesn't hook up with the Web both, which suggests you cannot control it when you are away from dwelling or have it work together with other residence automation units. With a vented metallic casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 appears to be like prefer it can be proper at house in an Apollo spacecraft.

The bulb measures 4.75 inches in size and puts out solely 400 lumens, which is equal to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That is not very vibrant when compared to the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and Philips (600 lumens) EcoLight bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it may display sixteen million colors, however since it doesn't connect with the Web you cannot control it with dwelling automation hubs from corporations similar to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.99 at Amazon). Nor can you utilize the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) web service to have it activate and off or change colours based on issues like Facebook requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports scores. You aren't getting much in the way in which of directions with the TL800, but there's not much to elucidate. I screwed it right into a lamp in my office, EcoLight bulbs downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made positive Bluetooth was enabled on my device, and opened the app.

The Lumen app is uncomplicated and simple to use and lets you control up to ten bulbs at a time. You possibly can control every bulb individually or management a bunch of bulbs. The house web page lists all installed bulbs and exhibits you what colour they're presently set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a web page where you'll be able to choose coloration or warm white settings and EcoLight bulbs turn the bulb on or off. Once you choose the warm white setting you are introduced with a monochrome wheel that lets you manually alter brightness, or you possibly can choose one of 4 brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 p.c). Beneath the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a web page the place you may configure the light to flash a specific shade when your telephone has an incoming name. There's additionally a Wake-Up timer that may turn the sunshine on utilizing a dim warm white setting that gradually gets brighter to create a sunrise impact, and a Proximity possibility that will have a light turn on to a preset color and EcoLight bulbs brightness when your phone comes into vary (about 30 feet).

In color mode you get a wheel that lets you select a colour for each bulb and assign a colour brightness setting. For deep, robust colors you set the brightness stage to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colors, use a brighter setting. Below the color wheel are seven preset icons including two party modes that show pre-programmed flashing colours; a Romance mode that steadily transitions between orange, yellow, and pink; a Relaxation mode that's supposed to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and a Music Sync mode that accesses your stored music database and flashes the light to the beat using varied colours. Here you may also adjust Proximity and Call Alert settings, but you can't create your personal custom presets like you can with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the home web page you possibly can turn all or some lights on and off and add them to teams.

The group possibility is beneficial if you want to regulate a number of lights suddenly. The entire settings and presets that can be found for particular person bulbs are additionally out there in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.0 to communicate with the smartphone, EcoLight bulbs which accounts for its glorious responsiveness. It turned on and off instantly when advised to do so, and there was no lag time between color and brightness modifications. The Wake-Up characteristic turned on in keeping with my schedule and the bulb turned progressively brighter over time. The decision Alert feature additionally labored as marketed and is available in very handy if you are carrying headphones. Coloration high quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but when you are lighting a big room you might have multiple bulb, as 400 lumens is just not very vibrant. The Tabu TL800 is an efficient selection for anybody trying so as to add a few colorful lights to a room that they will management from a smartphone.

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