I had reviewed Smart LED bulbs earlier, like the SYSKA LED smart bulb. That bulb pair Bluetooth, so what’s so special about the Yeelight. The Yeelight connects via WiFi, so it’s always connected to your router and is accessible via the app, and does not disconnect as frequently as the Bluetooth lights. I bought mine on GearBest.com, and it costs around $22, which is around Rs 1400. The shipping is free, and there’s no customs duty on LED bulbs so what you pay is what you get the bulb at.
In the box you only have the instruction manual and the bulb itself.
We setup the bulb via the Yeelight app, available on the play-store. Before you can set it up, its important to note that the bulb uses a bayonet or E27 socket, you need to convert it to an B22 socket to be used in regular bulb holders (in India that is). If you need one, i will link the same off Amazon at the end of the article.
Install the bulb in a socket and power it on. Open up the yeelight app, set country to USA, if you want to be able to control it via Alexa, the bulb should be visible automatically in the app. Click on the listed bulb, and it displays the wifi option, make sure it’s displaying your wifi name, enter the password below, and the bulb takes care of connecting to the router from there.
The bulb is made of aluminium, with a plastic top. As LED bulbs generally last long, even this bulb has a life expectancy of around 11 years. Power rating is 9W, and is pretty bright at 600 lumens. The bulb consists of 19 leds, of which 9 are white leds, and 10 are color changing RGB led’s.
The yeelight app is the main control center for you bulb, you can turn the bulb on and off, dim the light, change colors all on the app. On the home screen, we have the connected lights listed. Tap on a light you want to control, and we are greeted with a page with various modes available, like sunrise, sunset, night mode, party mode etc
Tab 2 has the white light color temperatures and the white light can go between 1700K which is more yellow and all the way to 6500K which is more white.
The bulb can display 16 million colors, which are available in tab 3, you can choose any color from the color swatch provided.
Below, we have a control panel, which has presets for colors, a place to store favorites, a color
Picker, which can choose any color from an image or even the camera to set your bulb to.
Then we have music flow, which changes colors on the bulb as per the music being played.
We also have a timer to set how long the bulb should stay on before turning off. We also have an option to set multiple schedules, for when we want the bulb to turn on or off and also what color or intensity via the scenes available. A firmware update was also available, so updated it via the app.
The light can also be controlled via alexa, so we open up the alexa app, open up skills, search for and instal the yeelight skill. Login to our yeelight app login, and in the smarthome tab , search for devices. Once setup you can control the light via your voice. Commands include dimming the light, and also change color, but color is only standard color names, like red, blue, green etc, nothing fancy, but you always have access to the app, for more selective color choice.
So the Yeelight is a great offering from Xiaomi at a great price, where many other smart lights are controlled via Bluetooth, this has a WiFi chip within. So if you want a smart-light, that doesn’t break the bank, the Yeelight is a great choice. Thanks for watching and see you all next time.
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