That Helps Convey Production Prices Down
Cree was hesitant to add a wise bulb to its finest-promoting LED lineup, but that modified this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Connected LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of last yr's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the new Connected LED provides in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you'll be ready to show it on and EcoLight smart bulbs off remotely, or schedule automated lighting modifications. At launch, Cree's sensible bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you will buy each off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, however, we have seen official help roll out for added management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You may add the bulbs to the new D-Link version of the Staples Connect Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified support simply but. The bulb works properly across all the platforms we've examined it with, and it shares the robust lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here before it.
Most appealing is the value. At $15 -- just a few dollars greater than you may spend on non-related opponents -- it ties with the GE Link LED as probably the most inexpensive related bulb on the market. For primary automated lighting, it's the very best possibility we've tested but, and our present Editors' Selection winner. Cree adapted its smart bulb design from last year's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the existing construct. That implies that this isn't a bulb that goes out of its technique to look fancy or newfangled -- as an alternative, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of basic incandescents. I appreciated that strategy with the 4Flow, and that i like it with the new Linked LED too, although some would possibly find the plastic build to be a bit low cost-trying, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The brand new bulb additionally shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which makes use of vents to circulate air via the physique of the bulb, eliminating the necessity for heat sinks.
That helps convey production costs down, and also implies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle 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's largely a superb factor. Both declare a gentle output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even larger than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really spectacular 872 for the Related LED. In terms of effectivity, reduce energy consumption the 4Flow places its mild out utilizing eleven watts, but the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for long-life LED the Related LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. When we examined it out, the number was actually closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's executed a superb job of preserving this bulb comparatively environment friendly. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that each the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more efficient, each drawing less than 10 watts.
Cree additionally did a very good job with shade temperature right here, EcoLight touchdown extremely close to the said 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Connected LED lands nearer to the mark than another smart bulb we've tested, so if you're picky about that perfect shade of warm, yellowy light, you will like this LED. The one place the place Cree's sensible bulb lags behind at least among the competitors is the color EcoLight rendering rating, which measures how accurately a given mild supply illuminates completely different shades. The Cree Linked LED hits a somewhat bizarre score of 80 out of 100, and EcoLight provided that both the WeMo LED and the equally inexpensive GE Hyperlink LED hit closer to 90, I would have favored to see Cree do better. To access the Cree LED's sensible features, you may need to pair it with a control hub that can translate its Zigbee sign into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Link LED, the Cree Linked LED came out the gate trumpeting Wink assist at launch, but soon expanded its third occasion compatibility to incorporate choices like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .
Completely different platforms supply different features -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT assist into the image, for instance -- however usually, the automating experience is largely the identical. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you're using, energy-saving LED bulbs you will be able to show the Cree Related LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it utilizing no matter controls your system offers. These seemingly include 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-mentioned platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have dedicated settings and EcoLight pairing directions for the Cree LED proper within the app, which helps. Staples Join does not provide machine-specific support for Cree just but, but it surely was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee device on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was pretty painless, EcoLight too, although I wanted to manually reset the bulb throughout the pairing course of so as to help the bridge find it.