LIFX Mini 800-Lumen LED Light Bulb (L3A19MC08E26) Multi Colored - 1 Pack, 120 volts, 9W - New

The media could not be loaded. I've purchased two of these but didn't leave a review until the third one here. I heard of "smart homes" but didn't think it was that interesting, until I learned about LED lights that could be set to any color. I chose the LIFX Mini Color as it had a middle price and didn't use a hub unlike other LED lights, which hasn't caused problems, even with the three lights in the same general area. (If a light doesn't respond, just turn it off then on using a light switch.)The lights are easy to set up. Install the LIFX app, then locate the light, give it your Wi-Fi password, and connect it to your LIFX account. From there, there are many things that can be done, such as:• Scheduling - LIFX's app has the ability to set times for lights or groups of lights to change colors and brightness to change. These can even be set based on sunrise/sunset.• Customization - Custom color/brightness combinations can be saved to a palette for easy use later on. As with other smart lights, saving groups of lights' current appearances as scenes is also possible.• Integrating with other services - I've only used Google Assistant and IFTTT, but both work perfectly with the lights. With IFTTT, for example, the lights can be set to specific hex-code colors or be set to flash based on events, turning my first light into an alert light.These lights definitely do a good job at displaying any color I want. In the app, there are two color wheels, one for natural light colors and another one for full-color selection. Additionally, the brightness can be fine-tuned to what percentage I want. If there's any small thing to point out here, it's that I can see the light abruptly change between colors every couple degrees around the color wheel, meaning the lights can't display every color, but they still have a very wide range of colors they can use!In conclusion, if you are thinking of starting the process of turning your home into a smart home, or just want to have full control of the lighting of a room, I recommend LIFX Mini Color lights.

I chose LIFX instead of Phillips Hue due to the fact no hub is required for LIFX. For many, the hub may not be a deal breaker, but for me it is. Here's why: The Phillips Hue Hub is not wireless. It requires a hard wired connection to your router. That poses an issue for me as my router has 4 ports and all are consumed by other devices. I'm not interested in purchasing a switch in order to aggregate connections and then daisy chain the hub to the switch and the switch to the router. While it would be easy enough to do, that just adds complexity to a product that's meant to further simplify technology. At that point I'd have to plug 2 additional devices into power and aggregate connections to my router. The good thing about the Hue bulbs is that they're still controllable if your internet connection is down (rarely ever happens to us) - as Hue uses the router as a sort of 'internal network' independent of an internet connection. The LIFX bulbs are completely self contained with built-in WiFi - so no hub required. You simply screw them into a light socket and walk through a very simply setup. They can then be controlled from within your home or from the other side of the world via the app. The lights are group-able and schedule-able and can even be voice controlled via the Amazon Alexa app (must have an Echo). Using the IFTTT app (If This, Then That), you can program them to turn on or off based on your proximity to your home/neighborhood. If you experience an internet failure, your lights are not controllable until the internet connection is reestablished. However, that's not a deal breaker for me since you can still control them manually and the lights will turn on at the last level of brightness they were set to. Once the connection is restored, they continue to function normally. My internet went out once in the last 2 years for about 3 hours during the day - I can deal with that. :) Hope you all found this helpful. Cheers -