Cree was hesitant so as to add a smart bulb to its greatest-promoting LED lineup, however that changed this yr with the addition of the $15 Cree Connected LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of final 12 months's nicely-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Connected LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a management hub, and you will be ready to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting adjustments. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was considerably married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you're going to buy each off the shelf at House Depot. Since then, however, we've seen official support roll out for added control gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You can add the bulbs to the new D-Hyperlink version of the Staples Connect Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified help just but. The bulb works well throughout the entire platforms we have tested it with, and it shares the sturdy lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here before it.
Most interesting is the value. At $15 -- just some dollars more than you may spend on non-linked rivals -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as essentially the most cheap connected bulb in the marketplace. For basic automated lighting, it is the best option we have tested yet, and our current Editors' Selection winner. Cree adapted its smart bulb design from last yr's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the prevailing build. That means that this is not a bulb that goes out of its method to look fancy or EcoLight reviews newfangled -- instead, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of classic incandescents. I preferred that approach with the 4Flow, and that i prefer it with the new Linked LED too, though some may discover the plastic build to be a bit low cost-wanting, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb also shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which makes use of vents to circulate air through the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.
That helps convey production costs down, and likewise signifies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Related LED shares the same lighting specs as the 4Flow LED, too, and that's largely a very good thing. Both claim a mild output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even increased than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a very spectacular 872 for the Linked LED. In terms of efficiency, the 4Flow places its gentle out utilizing 11 watts, however the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Linked LED on account of the Zigbee radio's power draw. After we examined it out, the quantity was actually nearer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's done an excellent job of retaining this bulb comparatively environment friendly. Still, it's price noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are much more efficient, every one drawing lower than 10 watts.
Cree also did an excellent job with shade temperature here, landing extraordinarily near the said 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Connected LED lands nearer to the mark than another smart bulb we've examined, so if you're choosy about that good shade of warm, yellowy gentle, you'll like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind a minimum of a few of the competition is the colour rendering score, which measures how accurately a given gentle supply illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Related LED hits a relatively ordinary rating of 80 out of 100, and provided that each the WeMo LED and the equally inexpensive GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I might have liked to see Cree do better. To entry the Cree LED's smart options, you'll have to pair it with a control hub that may translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Link LED, EcoLight reviews the Cree Linked LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink assist at launch, however quickly expanded its third party compatibility to include options like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .
Different platforms offer completely different options -- SmartThings and Philips convey IFTTT support into the image, as an example -- however typically, the automating experience is largely the identical. We examined the bulb on a number of platforms, and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. Regardless of which platform you are utilizing, you may be in a position to turn the Cree Related LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it using no matter controls your system affords. These likely embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with things like motion sensors. The bulb paired easily with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have devoted settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right within the app, EcoLight lighting which helps. Staples Join doesn't provide system-particular help for Cree simply but, but it was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee device on the primary strive. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was pretty painless, too, although I wanted to manually reset the bulb throughout the pairing course of in order to help the bridge find it.
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