Ever for the reason that Philips Hue LED($199.Ninety nine at Verizon) lighting kit hit the digital residence market, there has been a steady uptick in competing good bulb merchandise like the LIFX LED Mild Bulb( at Amazon) and the Linked by TCP Smart Lighting System as well as latest product bulletins from electronics giants LG and Samsung. Add the Lumen TL800 from Tabu to that list. Priced at $69.99 per bulb (but accessible online for round $50), the TL800 makes use of Bluetooth wireless technology to speak together with your smartphone through a neat little app that allows you to flip lights on and off, choose colours, and have the lights behave a sure manner when you've gotten an incoming cellphone call. Not like the Philips and TCP bulbs the TL800 doesn't require a bridge, but it surely would not connect to the Internet either, which suggests you cannot management it when you are away from dwelling or have it interact with other dwelling automation devices. With a vented metal casing separating the round glass dome from the Edison screw base, the TL800 appears to be like prefer it would be proper at residence in an Apollo spacecraft.

The bulb measures 4.75 inches in size and puts out solely four hundred lumens, which is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent bulb. That's not very vibrant when in comparison with the LIFX (1,017 lumens), TCP (800 lumens), and Philips (600 lumens) bulbs. As with the Philips and LIFX bulbs, it could possibly show 16 million colors, but since it does not hook up with the Web you can't control it with dwelling automation hubs from firms equivalent to Revolv( at Amazon) and SmartThings($149.99 at Amazon). Nor can you utilize the popular IFTTT (If This Then That) internet service to have it turn on and off or change colours based mostly on issues like Fb requests, Foursquare notifications, and ESPN sports scores. You don't get much in the way of directions with the TL800, but there's not much to explain. I screwed it into a lamp in my office, downloaded the app onto my iOS smartphone, made certain Bluetooth was enabled on my gadget, EcoLight energy and opened the app.

The Lumen app is uncomplicated and easy to make use of and lets you management up to 10 bulbs at a time. You can management every bulb individually or control a gaggle of bulbs. The home web page lists all installed bulbs and exhibits you what coloration they are at present set to. Pressing a bulb icon takes you to a page where you possibly can select color or warm white settings and turn the bulb on or off. While you select the heat white setting you're presented with a monochrome wheel that lets you manually modify brightness, EcoLight or you possibly can choose one of 4 brightness presets (90, 70, 50, or 30 p.c). Beneath the wheel is a Call Alert icon that takes you to a page the place you can configure the light to flash a specific shade when your phone has an incoming name. There's also a Wake-Up timer that will turn the sunshine on utilizing a dim heat white setting that progressively will get brighter to create a sunrise impact, and a Proximity choice that may have a light activate to a preset shade and brightness when your phone comes into range (about 30 feet).

In color mode you get a wheel that lets you select a coloration for each bulb and assign a shade brightness setting. For deep, sturdy colors you set the brightness degree to the darkest setting

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Pub: 18 Sep 2025 00:21 UTC

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