Smart light Bake off
This post really needs a video, and that is in the works but I really want to compare lighting systems.
I have a lot of "smart" lights:
So how do you compare all these lights?
The first criteria is cost: Per bulb cost, infrastructure costs, and use costs (it's not awesome to have your lights burning 40 watts all the time).
The second criteria is functionality: Do they do colors, if they do are they brilliant, if they are white, do they handle a range, are the bright enough, et cetera.
Maintenance: It's cool to have smart lights but if it takes you 35 tries to tell Alexa to turn on the light, or if you have to sign into a server in china to turn it on or off it may not be worth having since you still get up and flip the switch.
This option puts a little circuit board behind your existing light switch that allows you to remotely view the status and control the item on the other end. it can also be used in an outlet to control power. I love these for certain applications, but technically they are not smart lights, they are just smart switches that make your lights pretend to be smart.
Yeelight:
Yeelight is a Chinese brand from Xiaomi. They are becoming more common here in the US and are pretty available. Prices seem to fluctuate a lot but, but at the time of this writing they are still very reasonable and beautifully functional.
9 watts, not bad for a smart light. These also run on the ESP 8266 chips that the Sonoff uses so pretty similar "off" use.
Yes you do have to use the cloud, for setup. but once that is done, you can set up HASS.io to control the lights locally instead of calling out to China. That's what I did, and I would recommend it.
Lifx
Cloud Requirement:
Merkury
Philips Hue
I have a lot of "smart" lights:
- Hue (three bedrooms, and my office)
- Lifx (the 9 Can lights in the kitchen, and 3 minis in my entry way)
- Merkury (all the outside lights)
- Yeelight (the living room and another bedroom)
- Ikea (bathrooms) (not in this review)
- And some smart switches that make dumb lights smart.
So how do you compare all these lights?
The first criteria is cost: Per bulb cost, infrastructure costs, and use costs (it's not awesome to have your lights burning 40 watts all the time).
The second criteria is functionality: Do they do colors, if they do are they brilliant, if they are white, do they handle a range, are the bright enough, et cetera.
Maintenance: It's cool to have smart lights but if it takes you 35 tries to tell Alexa to turn on the light, or if you have to sign into a server in china to turn it on or off it may not be worth having since you still get up and flip the switch.
Sonoff switches and "dumb" (hopefully LED) lights.
Get 6 from Amazon for $36.90This option puts a little circuit board behind your existing light switch that allows you to remotely view the status and control the item on the other end. it can also be used in an outlet to control power. I love these for certain applications, but technically they are not smart lights, they are just smart switches that make your lights pretend to be smart.
Cost: *****
Sonoff basic switches are the cheapest for what you get @ ~$6 for the smart switch which will work with your existing switches, or ~12 as I have set them up with new wall plates, capacitive switches, fuses, etc.Infrastructure cost: ****
minimal, I did buy a programmer and some more jumper wires (~$15) because I want to tinker with them but I didn't buy a Hub (though the wink hub is an option for these with the default firmware).Efficiency: ****
The ESP 8266 or ESP 8285 chip that these baby's use runs on 3 volts and drains about 1 watt per hour, a little less without the relay engaged .2 watts per hour. to put that in perspective that is about 8 Kilowatts running full out (on) for an entire year 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. at 11.5 cents per KWH (which is the higher rate after you have burned your 400 KWH per month at 8.8 cents) it would cost 92 cents to run this device full out for a year.Cloud Requirement: *****
No cloud services required, I flash mine with Tasmota and use MQTT to control them from a mac mini I have running hass.io in my office.Usability:*****
Normal switches (unless you got funky like I did) that everyone understands, and the ability to see when they are on and off, and control them remotely.Functionality: **
They work great, but they can only turn your power on and off (there are more expensive solutions that also dim, but none that can change the color of your dumb lights). That being said, the two stars that these do get are the most important of all the possible stars, because that is what you will do with any of the smart lights once the novelty of eating under a fuchsia lamp subsides.
Yeelight:
Yeelight is a Chinese brand from Xiaomi. They are becoming more common here in the US and are pretty available. Prices seem to fluctuate a lot but, but at the time of this writing they are still very reasonable and beautifully functional.Cost: ****
At $16 (the cheapest color model) these are a steal. There are not many if any that are this potent at this price point.Infrastructure: *****
No hub required, and they connect on the 2.4ghz band so they don't fight with most of your bandwidth hungry devices like TVs, phones, computers et cetera.Efficiency:****
9 watts, not bad for a smart light. These also run on the ESP 8266 chips that the Sonoff uses so pretty similar "off" use.
Cloud Requirement: ***
Yes you do have to use the cloud, for setup. but once that is done, you can set up HASS.io to control the lights locally instead of calling out to China. That's what I did, and I would recommend it.Usability: ***
These lights were easy to set up and easy to get going even with the app phoning home to china. I did have to grant location in order to search for bulbs which is lame, because I told it I was in Louisiana even though I am in Utah and it found them right away. They also lose a star because flipping them on and off 5 times with 2 seconds wait returns them to setup mode which is a pretty rainbow flowing pattern, that wouldn't be bad except that my kids like it so they do it regularly just so they can see it in that mode, and then I have to re-discover them again and re-add them to the network.
Functionality: ****
These lights are beautiful! the colors are rich, the whites are bright. They have native support in HASS.io if you can find the ip address. I cannot say enough good about them.
Lifx
These are the gold standard smart bulb, and with good reason. Easy to use, no extra requirements, except a trust fund.
Cost:*
The most expensive lights I own. but when I purchased them and turned them on, I almost sold all the rest to buy these, they are brilliant. even after discovering the Yeelight at a much lower price point, I bought 3 of the mini's for my entryway when I needed smaller lights than I had on hand for my fixture.
Infrastructure: *****
No Hub needed, Plug and play with HASS.io, and Alexa and Google. Polished, flawless, but you pay for that.Efficiency: ***
11 watts is a little more, but the color and brightness definitely show why. I suspect if you dim them to the brilliance of other bulbs they would meet or beet their watt usage.Cloud Requirement:
Cloud Requirement: ****
These do run call back to cloud servers for setup and if you are off site. The good news is that these cloud servers are in the US, or UK if you buy them in Europe. HASS.io will also discover them and communicate with them locally as soon as you configure the Lifx plug in. You can cut the tether!
Usability: *****
Absolutely painless setup. Easiest lights in my house, plug them in, run the app, smile and wave!
Functionality: *****
All the colors, super bright, they even have a (more expensive) light that lights up infra red so your camera works better when it is "off"
Merkury
A relative newcomer showing up in Wal-Mart stores. These bargain bulbs definitely have a place in your smart light Arsenal
Cost: ****
at $12 this is the cheapest smart bulb around. In fact on black Friday when the Lifx bulbs went on sale for their refurbished price, you could still buy 4 of these for the price of 1 A19 Lifx bulb.Infrastructure: ****
No hub required, they discovered without any issues, have IOS and Android apps.Efficiency:????
I have no hard numbers on these bulbs but, they don't get quite as hot as my yeelight or Lifx bulbs and the Geeni bulbs which appear to be the same bulb say 11 watts.Cloud Requirement:**
Yes there is a cloud required to set them up. The current HASS.io plug in requires your user name and password to control them through the cloud, and the servers are in China. That being said, I did leverage the work of a few others to cobble together a plug in for HASS.io that will work with just locally. It does require a bit of setup to get the keys for each light, but it does allow you to cut the cord! check it out here: https://github.com/phatpenguintn/homeassistant-light.merkuryUsability:***
The Tuya or smart life apps that you use to set these up are pretty straight forward and easy to use.
No discovery issues, even on the second floor outside.
Functionality: ***
The white is a fixed warm light, but pretty bright. The colors are pretty rich, but dimmer than the Lifx, Hue or Yeelight bulbs. The biggest issue is that the colored settings produce very little light. They work as decorative lights, but don't expect to be able to actually see with them even at their brightest. The ability to also provide cool white would have given this one more star
Philips Hue
These are the first lights I ever got and I am not disappointed at all! I have only had 1 light that I had an issue with out of 20 bulbs, and most of them are cheaper refurbished bulbs. Far and away the best application, simple discovery with Alexa, Google home, even my Google wifi recognizes them and has control for them.
Cost: **
A little less than Lifx bulbs but requiring an additional hub to get them going.
InfrastructureEfficiency: ***
at 14 watts the hue bulbs burn a little more juice than some of the others, but they are brighter than all but the Lifx bulbs. Bright enough that my kids rarely use them at full brightness if they can help it.Cloud Requirement: *****
The hub runs locally, although it does allow you to use the cloud to check them while you are away, you can actually set them up with only your local network!!!! Of course HASS.io has native local support.Usability:
Second easiest to set up in my house, and I love that all the scenes immediately are available in Alexa. I am glad I started with these even with the cost. They made getting into the game much easier.
Functionality:
This ecosystem has the widest functionality of any of the smart lights. Hue has switches and sensors and about a bazillion different light form factors all in white and color.
Ikea TRÅDFRI:
I am not doing a review of the Ikea lights at this time. I have some conflicting results with my tests, and right now I am not using any smart features of my Ikea smart lights. Bottom line if you are willing to tinker, these zigbee lights are cheap and some people have had good luck with them. Unfortunately I have had bad luck with them staying connected, and with the sensors going dead. Hopefully I will be doing some tear-downs and seeing what we can do with these babies long term because I like the value that they offer. For now I would stick with the Merkury lights for about the same or a little less in terms of $$$.So who is the Winner?
If I was replacing all the lights in my house today, I would get Yeelights!
They are not quite as cheep as a Sonoff B1, but I have not been able to get my hands on one of those yet, and the Merkury lights are not quite bright enough when in color mode for me.
I will be buying some Merkury white dimming lights for some parts of the house.
Especially in applications where color is not as critical or better said novel. And I am looking at some Tuya based (Merkury like) downlights for some specific areas.
I may buy a few Lifx infra-red capable lights for areas where I really want better night time camera coverage, like my front door (in fact I am ordering this one right now even though it is $60)
Each one has a good application and a reason to use it.
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