Tabu Lumen Good LED Bulb TL800 Assessment

Ever since the Philips Hue LED($199.99 at Verizon) lighting equipment hit the digital residence market, there has been a steady uptick in competing smart bulb merchandise like the LIFX LED Gentle Bulb( at Amazon) and EcoLight brand 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 listing. Priced at $69.Ninety nine per bulb (but available online for around $50), the TL800 makes use of Bluetooth wireless know-how to speak along with your smartphone via a neat little app that permits you to turn lights on and off, select colors, and have the lights behave a certain way when you've got an incoming cellphone name. Unlike the Philips and TCP bulbs the TL800 would not require a bridge, nevertheless it does not connect to the Internet either, which implies you cannot control it when you're away from dwelling or have it interact with other dwelling automation devices. With a vented metallic casing separating the spherical glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 seems to be like it can be proper at house in an Apollo spacecraft.



The bulb measures 4.Seventy five inches in length and places out only 400 lumens, EcoLight home lighting which is equal to a forty watt incandescent bulb. That is not very vivid when in comparison with the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), EcoLight brand and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, dimmable LED bulbs it could actually show 16 million colors, however because it does not hook up with the Web you can't management it with home automation hubs from corporations equivalent to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.99 at Amazon). Nor EcoLight brand can you use the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it activate and off or change colours primarily based on issues like Facebook requests, Foursquare notifications, EcoLight brand and ESPN sports activities scores. You don't get much in the way in which of instructions with the TL800, however there's not a lot to clarify. I screwed it into a lamp in my workplace, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made positive Bluetooth was enabled on my machine, EcoLight brand and EcoLight opened the app.



The Lumen app is uncomplicated and straightforward to use and lets you control up to ten bulbs at a time. You can control each bulb individually or control a gaggle of bulbs. The house web page lists all installed bulbs and reveals you what color EcoLight smart bulbs they're at present set to. Urgent a bulb icon takes you to a page the place you'll be able to choose colour or heat white settings and EcoLight outdoor turn the bulb on or off. Once you choose the warm white setting you're introduced with a monochrome wheel that lets you manually alter brightness, or you possibly can select one of 4 brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 percent). Beneath the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a page the place you can configure the sunshine to flash a selected coloration when your telephone has an incoming call. There's additionally a Wake-Up timer that may turn the light on using a dim warm white setting that gradually gets brighter to create a sunrise effect, EcoLight brand and a Proximity choice that could have a mild turn on to a preset colour and brightness when your phone comes into range (about 30 feet).



In coloration mode you get a wheel that lets you select a colour for every bulb and assign a coloration brightness setting. For deep, sturdy colours you set the brightness stage to the darkest setting; for lighter pastel colours, use a brighter setting. Below the colour wheel are seven preset icons including two social gathering modes that display pre-programmed flashing colors; a Romance mode that gradually transitions between orange, yellow, and pink; a Relaxation mode that's purported to simulate a calming moonlight ambiance; and a Music Sync mode that accesses your saved music database and flashes the sunshine to the beat utilizing numerous colours. Right here you can even alter Proximity and Name Alert settings, however you cannot create your individual customized presets like you can with the Hue and LIFX bulbs. From the home page you possibly can flip all or some lights on and off and add them to groups.



The group possibility is helpful if you need to control multiple lights unexpectedly. All of the settings and presets that can be found for particular person bulbs are additionally out there in group mode. The TL800 uses Bluetooth 4.0 to communicate with the smartphone, which accounts for its glorious responsiveness. It turned on and off immediately when instructed to do so, and there was no lag time between color and brightness adjustments. The Wake-Up feature turned on according to my schedule and the bulb became gradually brighter over time. The decision Alert function also worked as advertised and is available in very helpful if you're sporting headphones. Coloration quality was good with very deep reds, blues, and greens, but if you're lighting a large room you may need a couple of bulb, as four hundred lumens is not very vivid. The Tabu TL800 is a good selection for anyone looking so as to add a few colorful lights to a room that they will management from a smartphone.