Cree was hesitant to add a sensible bulb to its best-promoting LED lineup, EcoLight solutions however that changed this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Related LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of last year's effectively-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Connected LED adds in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a management hub, and you'll be able to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting changes. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , EcoLight solutions which made sense given that you'll buy both off the shelf at House Depot. Since then, nonetheless, we've seen official support roll out for EcoLight extra control gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the brand new D-Hyperlink version of the Staples Join Hub , too, although there isn't official, Zonoff-certified help just yet. The bulb works properly throughout all of the platforms we've examined it with, EcoLight outdoor and it shares the sturdy lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came before it.

Most interesting is the worth. At $15 -- just a few dollars more than you may spend on non-related competitors -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as essentially the most cheap connected bulb on the market. For primary automated lighting, it is the very best possibility we have examined but, and our current Editors' Choice winner. Cree tailored its sensible bulb design from final 12 months's 4Flow LED, EcoLight solutions packing a Zigbee radio into the prevailing build. That means that this is not 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 approach with the 4Flow, EcoLight solutions and that i prefer it with the new Related LED too, though some would possibly find the plastic build to be a bit low cost-looking, especially 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 through the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.

That helps convey manufacturing costs down, and likewise implies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle for an LED, weighing in at lower than 2 ounces. The Cree Connected LED shares the identical lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and EcoLight outdoor that's largely a superb thing. Both declare a mild output of 815 lumens, and EcoLight solutions both clocked in even greater than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really impressive 872 for the Related LED. In terms of effectivity, the 4Flow puts its mild out using 11 watts, however the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Linked LED on account of the Zigbee radio's power draw. When we examined it out, the quantity was truly nearer to 11.1 watts, EcoLight so Cree's accomplished a great job of conserving this bulb relatively efficient. Nonetheless, it's value noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more environment friendly, each drawing lower than 10 watts.

Cree additionally did an excellent job with coloration temperature right here, touchdown extraordinarily close to the said 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Connected LED lands closer to the mark than some other sensible bulb we have tested, so if you are picky about that good shade of warm, yellowy light, you will like this LED. The one place the place Cree's sensible bulb lags behind at least a number of the competitors is the shade rendering rating, which measures how accurately a given light source illuminates different shades. The Cree Related LED hits a fairly bizarre score of 80 out of 100, and on condition that each the WeMo LED and the equally cheap GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I'd have preferred to see Cree do better. To access the Cree LED's sensible options, you'll must pair it with a management hub that may translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Related LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink help at launch, but soon expanded its third party compatibility to include choices like SmartThings, EcoLight solutions Staples Join , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Completely different platforms provide different options -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT help into the picture, for example -- however on the whole, the automating experience is essentially the same. We tested the bulb on multiple platforms, and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you are utilizing, you will be in a position to turn the Cree Linked LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it using no matter controls your system offers. These possible embrace setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like movement sensors. The bulb paired simply with every of the above-mentioned platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have devoted settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right in the app, EcoLight which helps. Staples Connect doesn't supply gadget-specific support for Cree just yet, but it was in a position to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee machine on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, though I needed to manually reset the bulb through the pairing course of so as to assist the bridge find it.