Cree was hesitant to add a sensible bulb to its best-selling LED lineup, however that changed this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Related LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of last year's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Linked LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you will be ready to show it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting changes. At launch, Cree's good bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you will buy both off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, however, EcoLight bulbs we have seen official help roll out for extra control gateways, together with SmartThings and reduce energy consumption the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the new D-Link version of the Staples Join Hub , too, EcoLight LED although there is not official, Zonoff-certified help just yet. The bulb works well throughout all of the platforms we have tested it with, and EcoLight home lighting it shares the robust lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came earlier than it.

Most appealing is the value. At $15 -- just some dollars greater than you may spend on non-connected opponents -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as probably the most cheap linked bulb on the market. For primary automated lighting, it's one of the best option we've examined yet, and our present Editors' Alternative winner. Cree tailored its good bulb design from final yr's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the existing build. That signifies that this is not a bulb that goes out of its technique to look fancy or newfangled -- as a substitute, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of classic incandescents. I liked that strategy with the 4Flow, and i prefer it with the brand new Connected LED too, although some might find the plastic build to be a bit low cost-looking, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb also shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which makes use of vents to circulate air by way of the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.

That helps carry manufacturing prices down, and likewise implies that the bulb is exceptionally light for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Related LED shares the identical lighting specs as the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a superb factor. Both declare a gentle output of 815 lumens, and each clocked in even greater than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for EcoLight LED the 4Flow, and a really spectacular 872 for the Linked LED. By way of efficiency, the 4Flow puts its gentle out using 11 watts, however the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Connected LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. After we tested it out, the number was really closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's finished a good job of maintaining this bulb comparatively environment friendly. Nonetheless, it is value noting that each the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more environment friendly, every one drawing lower than 10 watts.

Cree additionally did a very good job with color EcoLight LED temperature right here, touchdown extremely close to the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Connected LED lands closer to the mark than some other smart bulb we have tested, so if you are choosy about that perfect shade of heat, yellowy light, you'll like this LED. The one place where Cree's good bulb lags behind at least a number of the competition is the colour rendering rating, 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 given that each the WeMo LED and the equally cheap GE Link LED hit closer to 90, I'd have favored to see Cree do better. To entry the Cree LED's sensible features, you may need to pair it with a management hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Related LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink assist at launch, but soon expanded its third social gathering compatibility to incorporate options like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Totally different platforms provide different options -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT support into the picture, for instance -- but in general, the automating experience is largely the identical. We tested the bulb on a number of platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. Regardless of which platform you're using, you'll be able to show the Cree Linked EcoLight LED on or off remotely, dim it, or EcoLight solar bulbs automate it using no matter controls your system presents. These seemingly embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with things like movement sensors. The bulb paired easily with each of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have dedicated settings and pairing instructions for EcoLight home lighting the Cree LED right in the app, which helps. Staples Connect does not provide system-particular help for Cree just yet, nevertheless it was in a position to 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 in the course of the pairing course of so as to assist the bridge discover it.