Tabu Lumen Sensible LED Bulb TL800 Evaluation
Ever because the Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital residence market, there was a gentle uptick in competing good bulb products like the LIFX LED Gentle Bulb( at Amazon) and the Related by TCP Good Lighting System as well as latest product bulletins from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that checklist. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (however available on-line for around $50), the TL800 uses Bluetooth wireless know-how to speak along with your smartphone through a neat little app that lets you flip lights on and EcoLight bulbs off, choose colours, and have the lights behave a sure means when you may have an incoming phone name. Not like the Philips and TCP EcoLight bulbs the TL800 does not require a bridge, but it doesn't connect to the Web either, EcoLight bulbs which means you can't management it when you are away from residence or have it interact with other dwelling automation units. With a vented steel casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 seems prefer it would be proper at home in an Apollo spacecraft.
The bulb measures 4.Seventy five inches in length and places out only four hundred lumens, which is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That's not very vibrant when compared to the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it could possibly show sixteen million colours, however because it does not hook up with the Internet you cannot control it with residence automation hubs from corporations resembling Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.Ninety nine at Amazon). Nor EcoLight bulbs can you use the favored IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it turn on and off or change colours based on things like Fb requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports scores. You aren't getting a lot in the way of directions with the TL800, but there's not much to clarify. I screwed it right into a lamp in my office, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made sure Bluetooth was enabled on my gadget, and opened the app.
The Lumen app is uncomplicated and straightforward to use and allows you to control up to 10 bulbs at a time. You may management every bulb individually or control a gaggle of bulbs. The house page lists all installed bulbs and shows you what colour they are presently set to. Pressing a bulb icon takes you to a web page where you possibly can select shade or warm white settings and turn the bulb on or off. While you choose the warm white setting you're presented with a monochrome wheel that allows you to manually alter brightness, or EcoLight lighting you can select one of 4 brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 p.c). Beneath the wheel is a Name Alert icon that takes you to a web page where you can configure the light to flash a specific shade when your phone has an incoming call. There's also a Wake-Up timer that may turn the light on utilizing a dim heat white setting that gradually will get brighter to create a sunrise impact, and a Proximity possibility that will have a gentle activate to a preset color and brightness when your cellphone comes into vary (about 30 ft).
In color mode you get a wheel that lets you choose a colour for each bulb and EcoLight bulbs assign a colour brightness setting. For deep, robust colours you set the brightness level to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colours, EcoLight bulbs use a brighter setting. Beneath the colour wheel are seven preset icons including two celebration modes that display pre-programmed flashing colors; a Romance mode that steadily transitions between orange, yellow, and purple; a Relaxation mode that is imagined to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and EcoLight bulbs a Music Sync mode that accesses your saved music database and flashes the light to the beat utilizing various colours. Here you can also adjust Proximity and Name Alert settings, but you can't create your own custom presets like you possibly can with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the house page you'll be able to flip all or some lights on and EcoLight brand off and add them to groups.
The group option is beneficial if you want to control multiple lights all of sudden. The entire settings and presets that can be found for EcoLight smart bulbs individual bulbs are additionally out there in group mode. The TL800 makes use of Bluetooth 4.Zero to speak with the smartphone, which accounts for its excellent responsiveness. It turned on and off immediately when told to take action, and there was no lag time between shade and brightness adjustments. The Wake-Up function turned on in keeping with my schedule and the bulb grew to become gradually brighter over time. The call Alert function additionally worked as marketed and comes in very helpful if you are wearing headphones. Colour quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but if you're lighting a big room you might have multiple bulb, EcoLight solutions as four hundred lumens is just not very bright. The Tabu TL800 is a good selection for anybody looking so as to add a couple of colorful lights to a room that they can control from a smartphone.