Cree was hesitant so as to add a sensible bulb to its greatest-promoting LED lineup, however that changed this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Linked LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of last yr's effectively-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , EcoLight energy the brand new Linked LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a management hub, and you'll be in a position to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting modifications. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you're going to buy both off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, however, we have seen official assist roll out for additional control gateways, EcoLight including SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the new D-Hyperlink version of the Staples Join Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified support just yet. The bulb works well across all of the platforms we've tested it with, and it shares the robust EcoLight home lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came earlier than it.

Most interesting is the worth. At $15 -- just a few dollars greater than you will spend on non-related competitors -- it ties with the GE Link LED as the most cheap connected bulb in the marketplace. For basic automated lighting, it is the most effective option we've tested but, and our present Editors' Selection winner. Cree tailored its sensible bulb design from final yr's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the prevailing build. That implies that this is not a bulb that goes out of its method to look fancy or newfangled -- as an alternative, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of basic incandescents. I favored that approach with the 4Flow, and that i prefer it with the new Linked LED too, although some may discover the plastic build to be a bit low cost-trying, especially when the bulb is turned off. The brand EcoLight new bulb additionally shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which uses vents to circulate air by means of the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for EcoLight home lighting heat sinks.

That helps deliver manufacturing prices down, and also implies that the bulb is exceptionally mild for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Linked LED shares the identical lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that's largely a very good factor. Both claim a light output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even increased than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a very spectacular 872 for the Connected LED. By way of effectivity, the 4Flow places its light out utilizing 11 watts, but the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Related LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. Once we tested it out, the number was actually nearer to 11.1 watts, EcoLight so Cree's done a superb job of protecting this bulb relatively environment friendly. Nonetheless, EcoLight home lighting it's value noting that each the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are much more environment friendly, each drawing lower than 10 watts.

Cree additionally did a very good job with shade temperature here, landing extremely close to the acknowledged 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Connected LED lands nearer to the mark than another sensible bulb we have tested, so if you're picky about that good shade of heat, yellowy gentle, you'll like this LED. The one place the place Cree's sensible bulb lags behind at the very least among the competition is the coloration rendering rating, which measures how precisely a given gentle supply illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Linked LED hits a quite bizarre rating of 80 out of 100, and on condition that each the WeMo LED and the equally inexpensive GE Link LED hit nearer to 90, I'd have liked to see Cree do higher. To entry the Cree LED's smart options, you may must pair it with a control hub that may translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Link LED, the Cree Related LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, but quickly expanded its third celebration compatibility to incorporate choices like SmartThings, Staples Join , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Totally different platforms offer totally different options -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT help into the image, as an illustration -- but usually, the automating experience is largely the identical. We tested the bulb on multiple platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you're utilizing, you'll be ready to turn the Cree Linked LED on or off remotely, dim it, EcoLight home lighting or automate it using no matter controls your system offers. These possible embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like motion sensors. The bulb paired simply with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have devoted settings and pairing instructions for EcoLight home lighting the Cree LED right within the app, long-life LED which helps. Staples Join would not offer system-specific assist for Cree simply but, EcoLight home lighting nevertheless it was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee system on the primary strive. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, though I needed to manually reset the bulb during the pairing course of in order to help the bridge find it.