That Helps Deliver Production Costs Down
Cree was hesitant to add a smart bulb to its best-selling LED lineup, but that changed this year with the addition of the $15 Cree Linked LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of last yr's effectively-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Linked LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, EcoLight energy and you'll be ready to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting modifications. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was considerably married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you're going to purchase each off the shelf at House Depot. Since then, nonetheless, we have seen official support roll out for additional control gateways, including SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You may add the bulbs to the brand new D-Hyperlink model of the Staples Join Hub , too, though there isn't official, Zonoff-certified support just yet. The bulb works effectively throughout all the platforms we have examined it with, and it shares the strong lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here earlier than it.
Most appealing is the worth. At $15 -- just some dollars more than you may spend on non-linked competitors -- it ties with the GE Link LED as probably the most cheap connected bulb in the marketplace. For fundamental automated lighting, EcoLight energy it is the best option we've examined yet, and our current Editors' Choice winner. Cree tailored its good bulb design from last year's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the existing construct. That implies that this is not a bulb that goes out of its way to look fancy or newfangled -- instead, EcoLight energy it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of basic incandescents. I favored that method with the 4Flow, and that i prefer it with the brand new Connected LED too, although some may find the plastic build to be a bit low cost-trying, especially when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb additionally shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which uses vents to circulate air by the physique of the bulb, eliminating the necessity for heat sinks.
That helps convey manufacturing prices down, and also means that the bulb is exceptionally mild for an LED, weighing in at lower than 2 ounces. The Cree Linked LED shares the identical lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that's largely a good thing. Each declare a light output of 815 lumens, and each clocked in even increased than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for EcoLight the 4Flow, and a really impressive 872 for the Related LED. By way of effectivity, the 4Flow places its mild out utilizing eleven watts, however the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for the Connected LED on account of the Zigbee radio's power draw. After we tested it out, the quantity was really closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's achieved a good job of keeping 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 a very good job with coloration temperature here, touchdown extraordinarily near the said 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Linked LED lands closer to the mark than another smart bulb we've tested, so if you are picky about that perfect shade of heat, yellowy mild, you may like this LED. The one place the place Cree's sensible bulb lags behind not less than among the competitors is the coloration rendering score, which measures how accurately a given gentle supply illuminates different shades. The Cree Connected LED hits a reasonably ordinary score of eighty out of 100, EcoLight energy and on condition that each the WeMo LED and the equally cheap GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I would have preferred to see Cree do better. To entry the Cree LED's good features, you will must pair it with a management hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Link LED, the Cree Connected LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, but soon expanded its third occasion compatibility to include options like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .
Different platforms supply totally different options -- SmartThings and Philips carry IFTTT support into the image, as an example -- however generally, the automating experience is basically the identical. We tested the bulb on multiple platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or EcoLight bulbs controlling it. Regardless of which platform you are utilizing, you will be able to show the Cree Linked LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it using no matter controls your system provides. These possible embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like movement sensors. The bulb paired simply with each of the above-mentioned platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have devoted settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right in the app, which helps. Staples Join would not supply machine-specific help for Cree simply but, nevertheless it was capable of detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee gadget on the first try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, though I needed to manually reset the bulb throughout the pairing process in order to assist the bridge find it.