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Cree was hesitant so as to add a sensible bulb to its finest-promoting LED lineup, however that modified this yr with the addition of the $15 Cree Related LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of last 12 months's nicely-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the new Connected LED adds in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a management hub, and you will be ready to show it on and off remotely, or EcoLight schedule automated EcoLight lighting modifications. At launch, EcoLight lighting Cree's sensible bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you're going to purchase both off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, nevertheless, we have seen official support roll out for extra control gateways, including SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the new D-Link model of the Staples Join Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified support just but. The bulb works properly throughout the entire platforms we have tested it with, and it shares the sturdy lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here earlier than it.

Most interesting is the price. At $15 -- just a few dollars more than you'll spend on non-related rivals -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as the most cheap related bulb on the market. For basic automated lighting, EcoLight lighting it is the best choice we have tested but, and our present Editors' Selection winner. Cree adapted its smart bulb design from final 12 months's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the existing build. That implies that this isn't a bulb that goes out of its option to look fancy or newfangled -- instead, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of basic incandescents. I favored that strategy with the 4Flow, and i like it with the brand new Related LED too, though some may find the plastic construct to be a bit cheap-looking, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb additionally shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which makes use of vents to circulate air by the physique of the bulb, EcoLight outdoor eliminating the need for heat sinks.

That helps carry manufacturing costs down, and EcoLight also implies that the bulb is exceptionally mild for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Connected LED shares the same lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a very good factor. Both declare a mild output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even increased than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really spectacular 872 for the Connected LED. By way of efficiency, the 4Flow puts its mild out using 11 watts, but the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for the Linked LED on account of the Zigbee radio's power draw. After we examined it out, the quantity was really closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's achieved an excellent job of holding this bulb comparatively environment friendly. Still, it's value noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are much more environment friendly, every one drawing less than 10 watts.

Cree additionally did a very good job with color temperature here, touchdown extremely close to the acknowledged 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Related LED lands nearer to the mark than some other good bulb we have examined, so if you are choosy about that good shade of heat, yellowy mild, you may like this LED. The one place where Cree's smart bulb lags behind at the least some of the competitors is the color rendering score, which measures how accurately a given mild source illuminates different shades. The Cree Linked LED hits a moderately unusual score of 80 out of 100, EcoLight lighting and EcoLight lighting on condition that both the WeMo LED and the equally cheap GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I'd have favored to see Cree do higher. To access the Cree LED's sensible options, you'll need to pair it with a control hub that may translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Related LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, but soon expanded its third occasion compatibility to include options like SmartThings, Staples Join , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Totally different platforms offer completely different features -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT support into the image, for instance -- however generally, the automating experience is basically the identical. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, EcoLight LED bulbs and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. Regardless of which platform you are using, you may be in a position to turn the Cree Connected LED on or off remotely, EcoLight lighting dim it, or automate it using whatever controls your system offers. These probably embody setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like motion sensors. The bulb paired easily with each of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have dedicated settings and EcoLight lighting pairing directions for the Cree LED proper within the app, which helps. Staples Connect would not provide gadget-specific help for Cree simply but, but it surely was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee system on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, though I wanted to manually reset the bulb through the pairing process so as to assist the bridge discover it.