Cree was hesitant so as to add a smart bulb to its greatest-promoting LED lineup, but that changed this yr with the addition of the $15 Cree Linked LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of last year's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the new Connected LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a management hub, EcoLight energy and you'll be ready to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting adjustments. At launch, Cree's good bulb was considerably married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you'll purchase both off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, EcoLight lighting however, we've seen official assist roll out for added control gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the EcoLight brand new D-Hyperlink model of the Staples Join Hub , too, though there isn't official, EcoLight brand Zonoff-certified help simply yet. The bulb works well across the entire platforms we've examined it with, and it shares the strong lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came earlier than it.
Most interesting is the value. At $15 -- just some dollars greater than you may spend on non-related rivals -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as essentially the most inexpensive related bulb available on the market. For primary automated lighting, it is the most effective possibility we've examined yet, EcoLight and our current Editors' Choice winner. Cree tailored its sensible bulb design from final yr's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the present construct. That implies that this isn't a bulb that goes out of its solution to look fancy or newfangled -- as an alternative, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of traditional incandescents. I liked that strategy with the 4Flow, and EcoLight lighting i prefer it with the new Linked LED too, though some may find the plastic construct to be a bit low-cost-wanting, especially when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb also shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which uses vents to circulate air by way of the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.
That helps deliver production prices down, EcoLight brand and in addition implies that the bulb is exceptionally light for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Connected LED shares the identical lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a very good factor. Both claim a mild output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even greater than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really spectacular 872 for the Related LED. When it comes to effectivity, the 4Flow puts its light out using 11 watts, but the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Related LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. After we examined it out, the quantity was really nearer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's performed a great job of preserving this bulb relatively environment friendly. Nonetheless, EcoLight LED bulbs it's worth noting that each the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are much more environment friendly, EcoLight brand every one drawing less than 10 watts.
Cree also did a very good job with color EcoLight brand temperature here, landing extremely near the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, EcoLight brand the Cree Linked LED lands closer to the mark than another good bulb we've tested, so if you're choosy about that perfect shade of warm, yellowy mild, you will like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind at the least a number of the competition is the coloration rendering score, which measures how accurately a given mild supply illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Connected LED hits a rather peculiar rating of eighty out of 100, and provided that both the WeMo LED and the equally inexpensive GE Link LED hit closer to 90, I'd have liked to see Cree do higher. To access the Cree LED's sensible features, you'll have to pair it with a control hub that can translate its Zigbee sign into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Related LED came out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, but soon expanded its third occasion compatibility to include choices like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .
Completely different platforms provide completely different features -- SmartThings and Philips carry IFTTT assist into the image, for instance -- however typically, the automating experience is largely the same. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. Regardless of which platform you are utilizing, you will be in a position to show the Cree Related LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it using whatever controls your system provides. These possible include 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-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have dedicated settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right within the app, which helps. Staples Join would not provide machine-particular support for Cree simply but, but it was capable of detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee machine on the first strive. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, though I needed to manually reset the bulb throughout the pairing course of in order to assist the bridge find it.