Ever for the reason that Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital dwelling market, there has been a gentle uptick in competing good bulb products just like the LIFX LED Gentle Bulb( at Amazon) and the Linked by TCP Sensible Lighting System in addition to current product announcements from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that checklist. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (but available on-line for EcoLight solutions around $50), the TL800 makes use of Bluetooth wireless technology to communicate along with your smartphone via a neat little app that permits you to turn lights on and EcoLight solar bulbs off, choose colours, and have the lights behave a sure method when you could have an incoming phone call. Unlike the Philips and EcoLight solutions TCP bulbs the TL800 doesn't require a bridge, but it doesn't connect with the Internet either, which means you cannot management it when you're away from residence or have it work together with other dwelling automation units. With a vented metal casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 seems to be prefer it can be right at dwelling in an Apollo spacecraft.

The bulb measures 4.75 inches in length and puts out only four hundred lumens, which is equal to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That is not very brilliant when in comparison with the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and energy-efficient bulbs LIFX bulbs, it might probably display sixteen million colours, but because it does not connect with the Web you can't control it with residence automation hubs from corporations comparable to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.99 at Amazon). Nor can you employ the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it turn on and off or change colours based on things like Fb requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports activities scores. You aren't getting a lot in the way of instructions with the TL800, but there's not much to clarify. I screwed it right into a lamp in my workplace, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made positive Bluetooth was enabled on my system, and opened the app.

The Lumen app is uncomplicated and simple to make use of and allows you to control up to 10 bulbs at a time. You may management each bulb individually or management a bunch of bulbs. The home web page lists all installed bulbs and exhibits you what shade they are at the moment set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a page where you can select colour or heat white settings and switch the bulb on or off. If you select the heat white setting you're offered with a monochrome wheel that permits you to manually adjust brightness, EcoLight or you can select one of four brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 p.c). Beneath the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a page the place you may configure the sunshine to flash a specific shade when your telephone has an incoming name. There's also a Wake-Up timer that may flip the sunshine on utilizing a dim warm white setting that step by step gets brighter to create a sunrise impact, and EcoLight solutions a Proximity choice that can have a mild activate to a preset shade and brightness when your telephone comes into vary (about 30 feet).

In shade mode you get a wheel that lets you select a shade for EcoLight solutions each bulb and EcoLight solutions assign a coloration brightness setting. For deep, strong colours you set the brightness degree to the darkest setting