Tabu Lumen Good LED Bulb TL800 Evaluation
Ever for the reason that Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting equipment hit the digital house market, there was a gradual uptick in competing smart bulb products like the LIFX LED Light Bulb( at Amazon) and the Related by TCP Smart Lighting System as well as latest product bulletins from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that list. Priced at $69.Ninety nine per bulb (however out there on-line for around $50), the TL800 uses Bluetooth wireless expertise to communicate together with your smartphone via a neat little app that permits you to flip lights on and off, select colours, and have the lights behave a certain way when you've got an incoming cellphone call. Not like the Philips and TCP bulbs the TL800 would not require a bridge, however it doesn't connect to the Web both, which means you cannot control it when you are away from home or have it interact with other home automation units. With a vented steel casing separating the round glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 appears to be like like it can be proper at dwelling in an Apollo spacecraft.
The bulb measures 4.Seventy five inches in size and puts out only four hundred lumens, which is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That's not very shiny when compared to the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and EcoLight outdoor Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it can show sixteen million colours, but since it does not connect with the Web you cannot management it with residence automation hubs from companies corresponding to Revolv( at Amazon) and EcoLight SmartThings($149.99 at Amazon). Nor can you employ the favored IFTTT (If This Then That) web service to have it turn on and off or change colors based mostly on things like Facebook requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports activities scores. You aren't getting much in the best way of directions with the TL800, however there's not a lot to explain. I screwed it right into a lamp in my workplace, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made positive Bluetooth was enabled on my gadget, EcoLight outdoor and opened the app.
The Lumen app is uncomplicated and easy to make use of and lets you management up to 10 bulbs at a time. You may control every bulb individually or control a bunch of bulbs. The home web page lists all installed bulbs and reveals you what shade they are currently set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a web page where you'll be able to choose coloration or heat white settings and EcoLight solutions switch the bulb on or off. When you choose the warm white setting you are introduced with a monochrome wheel that permits you to manually regulate brightness, or you can select one of four brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 %). Beneath the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a page where you'll be able to configure the light to flash a specific color when your phone has an incoming call. There's also a Wake-Up timer that will turn the sunshine on using a dim heat white setting that step by step gets brighter to create a sunrise effect, and a Proximity option that can have a gentle turn on to a preset colour and brightness when your cellphone comes into vary (about 30 feet).
In coloration mode you get a wheel that lets you select a colour for each bulb and assign a coloration brightness setting. For deep, sturdy colours you set the brightness level to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colors, use a brighter setting. Under the color wheel are seven preset icons together with two social gathering modes that display pre-programmed flashing colours; a Romance mode that gradually transitions between orange, yellow, and crimson; a Relaxation mode that's speculated 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. Right here you may as well alter Proximity and Call Alert settings, however you can't create your personal customized presets like you may with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the house web page you possibly can flip all or some lights on and off and add them to groups.
The group possibility is useful if you'd like to control multiple lights all of sudden. The entire settings and presets that are available for individual bulbs are also out there in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.Zero to speak with the smartphone, which accounts for its wonderful responsiveness. It turned on and off instantly when told to take action, EcoLight outdoor and there was no lag time between colour and brightness adjustments. The Wake-Up characteristic turned on according to my schedule and the bulb turned gradually brighter over time. The decision Alert feature additionally labored as marketed and comes in very handy if you are sporting headphones. Shade quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but if you're lighting a big room you might have multiple bulb, as four hundred lumens isn't very bright. The Tabu TL800 is an efficient selection for anyone wanting so as to add a few colorful lights to a room that they will management from a smartphone.