Tabu Lumen Smart LED Bulb TL800 Evaluate

Ever because the Philips Hue LED($199.99 at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital house market, there was a gentle uptick in competing sensible bulb products like the LIFX LED Gentle Bulb( at Amazon) and the Related by TCP Good Lighting System in addition to recent product announcements from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that record. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (however out there on-line for round $50), the TL800 makes use of Bluetooth wireless technology to speak along with your smartphone through a neat little app that allows you to turn lights on and off, choose colours, and have the lights behave a sure manner when you may have an incoming phone name. Not like the Philips and EcoLight solar bulbs TCP bulbs the TL800 does not require a bridge, EcoLight solar bulbs however it does not connect to the Internet both, which implies you cannot management it when you're away from home or have it work together with different house automation devices. With a vented metal casing separating the round glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 seems to be prefer it could be proper at residence in an Apollo spacecraft.



The bulb measures 4.75 inches in length and puts out only 400 lumens, which is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That's 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 LIFX bulbs, it might display 16 million colors, however since it does not connect with the Internet you can't control it with house automation hubs from companies comparable to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.Ninety nine at Amazon). Nor can you employ the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it activate and off or change colors based on issues like Facebook requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports activities scores. You aren't getting a lot in the best way of instructions with the TL800, but there's not much to elucidate. I screwed it right into a lamp in my workplace, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made certain Bluetooth was enabled on my device, EcoLight solar bulbs and opened the app.



The Lumen app is uncomplicated and easy to make use of and EcoLight home lighting allows you to control up to 10 bulbs at a time. You possibly can management every bulb individually or management a bunch of bulbs. The house web page lists all installed EcoLight solar bulbs and reveals you what shade they are presently set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a web page where you may select colour or warm white settings and EcoLight turn the bulb on or off. When you select the heat white setting you are offered with a monochrome wheel that allows you to manually alter brightness, EcoLight solar bulbs or you may select one of 4 brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 p.c). Under the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a page the place you can configure the light to flash a particular 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 progressively will get brighter to create a sunrise effect, and a Proximity choice that will have a gentle turn on to a preset shade and brightness when your telephone comes into range (about 30 ft).



In color EcoLight mode you get a wheel that lets you choose a shade for each bulb and EcoLight assign a coloration brightness setting. For EcoLight energy deep, robust colors you set the brightness level to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colours, use a brighter setting. Below the shade wheel are seven preset icons including two social gathering modes that show pre-programmed flashing colours; a Romance mode that step by step transitions between orange, yellow, and purple; a Relaxation mode that is presupposed to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and a Music Sync mode that accesses your stored music database and flashes the sunshine to the beat utilizing various colors. Right here you can too adjust Proximity and Name Alert settings, but you can't create your individual customized presets like you'll be able to with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the house page you may flip all or some lights on and off and add them to teams.



The group choice is beneficial in order for you to manage a number of lights all of sudden. All the settings and presets that can be found for particular person bulbs are additionally accessible in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.0 to speak with the smartphone, which accounts for its wonderful responsiveness. It turned on and off immediately when informed to take action, and there was no lag time between shade and brightness changes. The Wake-Up function turned on according to my schedule and the bulb grew to become progressively brighter over time. The decision Alert feature also worked as advertised and comes in very useful if you're sporting headphones. Shade high quality was good with very deep reds, blues, EcoLight solar bulbs and greens, but if you are lighting a big room you might have multiple bulb, as four hundred lumens shouldn't be very vibrant. The Tabu TL800 is an effective alternative for anyone wanting so as to add a few colorful lights to a room that they can management from a smartphone.