Cree was hesitant so as to add a smart bulb to its finest-promoting LED lineup, but that changed this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Linked LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of last 12 months's properly-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , EcoLight the brand new Related LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you will be in a position to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting modifications. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , energy-saving LED bulbs which made sense given that you're going to purchase each off the shelf at EcoLight home lighting Depot. Since then, nonetheless, we've seen official assist roll out for additional management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You can add the bulbs to the new D-Hyperlink model of the Staples Connect Hub , too, although there isn't official, Zonoff-certified support simply yet. The bulb works well across all the platforms we have examined it with, and it shares the strong lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came earlier than it.
Most appealing is the value. At $15 -- just a few dollars greater than you may spend on non-linked rivals -- it ties with the GE Link LED as probably the most inexpensive related bulb in the marketplace. For basic automated lighting, it's one of the best option we have tested but, and our current Editors' Alternative winner. Cree tailored its sensible bulb design from last 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 technique to look fancy or newfangled -- as a substitute, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of traditional incandescents. I liked that method with the 4Flow, and i prefer it with the new Connected LED too, though some may find the plastic construct to be a bit cheap-trying, 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 way of the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.
That helps convey production costs down, and EcoLight lighting also means that the bulb is exceptionally light for an LED, weighing in at lower than 2 ounces. The Cree Linked LED shares the same lighting specs as the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a superb factor. Both claim a mild output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even higher than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a very spectacular 872 for the Linked LED. In terms of efficiency, the 4Flow places its light out utilizing eleven watts, however the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for the Linked LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. After we tested it out, the quantity was truly closer to 11.1 watts, EcoLight home lighting so Cree's carried out a very good job of preserving this bulb comparatively efficient. Nonetheless, it's worth noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more efficient, each one drawing lower than 10 watts.
Cree also did a very good job with color temperature here, touchdown extraordinarily close to the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Linked LED lands nearer to the mark than every other good bulb we've examined, so if you're choosy about that good shade of warm, yellowy light, you may like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind a minimum of a few of the competition is the colour rendering rating, which measures how precisely a given mild source illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Related LED hits a quite unusual score of eighty out of 100, and provided that each the WeMo LED and the equally inexpensive GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I might have appreciated to see Cree do better. To entry the Cree LED's smart features, you may need to pair it with a control hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Link LED, the Cree Connected LED came out the gate trumpeting Wink assist at launch, however quickly expanded its third occasion compatibility to incorporate choices like SmartThings, Staples Join , and the Philips Hue Bridge .
Completely different platforms supply different options -- SmartThings and Philips carry IFTTT assist into the picture, for EcoLight instance -- but usually, the automating experience is basically the identical. We tested the bulb on a number of platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you're using, EcoLight energy you will be able to show the Cree Related LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it utilizing whatever controls your system offers. These doubtless embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like movement sensors. The bulb paired easily with each of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have devoted settings and pairing directions for the Cree LED right in the app, which helps. Staples Join does not provide machine-particular support for Cree simply yet, nevertheless it was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee gadget on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was pretty painless, too, although I needed to manually reset the bulb during the pairing process in order to assist the bridge discover it.