Product Review: Vanance 9W (80w Equivalent) Smart Light Bulb Multicolor & Dimmable

 

I love these bulbs. It is a bit more expensive than a traditional LED bulb (you get just one for the price you can get a pack of at least two depending on the brand), but once it is set up it is much more useful than a regular bulb. It has a sunrise and sunrise and sunset feature that will automatically dim or illuminate the bulb in the morning and at night. It makes it much easier for your eyes to adjust to the light or the dark. Unlike a bulb in a smart plug that you can set to turn on or off at certain times, it does not blast at full brightness or make the room pitch black immediately. For example, you can set the bulb transition from 0% brightness to 50% brightness in a half hour. Or from 0% to 100% brightness in 10 minutes. You can also schedule timers to just turn the bulb on and off at certain times so they are on when you get home or turn off when you go to work.

They also work with devices like Amazon echo units, so you can turn the bulbs on or off with a voice command. If you have more than one bulb, you can set them as a group in the Alexa app and have all the bulbs in the group turn on or off at one time. They are pretty easy to install, assuming you are pretty good at connecting devices to your Wi-Fi network. You do need to download the Magic Home app and walk through the setup process. One thing to know, you need to have the lamp you plug it into already turned on when you screw the bulb in. Then the bulb will blink which tells you that it is discoverable to your network. If you screw the bulb in, then turn the lamp on, the bulb may not be discoverable by your Wi-Fi network. Once the bulb is set up, you just leave your lamp on and let the bulb turn on and off.

I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes smart home devices. If you are technophobic though, setting it up will probably make you go mad. Once it is set up, even if you are not all that technologically inclined they are pretty easy to use. And, I have not had an issue with them having to be reset even if my wireless network goes down. They reconnect themselves without a problem. They are definitely worth the price as long as you are willing to handle the setup process.

Product Review: Magic Hue WiFi Light Bulb, Soft White, Smart Sunrise Wake Up Light Bulb, 60 Watts Equivalent

 

This is a smart LED light bulb that I mainly got for the sunrise feature because while having a smart plug is great, it can be jarring having a light turn on full blast at 5 a.m. in a dark room. In the app, you basically tell it what percentage you want the light to start at, where you want it to end, and what time frame. So you can have it go from 0% to 100% over the course of 10 min, a half hour, or whatever interval you would like. You can also set it to turn on and off at different times or control it through the app. As with a smart plug, you leave the lamp "on" and the bulb turns itself on and off.

The setup was fairly straightforward and is much like connecting an echo unit to your Wi-Fi. There are a few steps involved, including downloading an app, but nothing that is overly complicated. I will update this review in the future should the need arise, but so far, I am very satisfied, and definitely recommend it.

Product Review: Amazon Echo (1st Generation)

 

I have one of these (which I ordered from another site that was offering them at a lower cost at the time) and one echo dot. I keep this one in my bedroom and mainly use it to play music since it has a better speaker than the Dot. It is not high-end Bose quality, but much better in quality than old-school low-end computer speakers, and some Bluetooth speakers.

This is (in my opinion) very handy, and has more and more functionality being added all the time. The Echo can do anything from playing music from Pandora, iHeart, Amazon music, etc, to updating a grocery list, turning lights on and off, ordering a pizza, accessing Wikipedia, getting weather and traffic updates, etc.

I see them as being as useful as you want them to be. Some of the skills that can be enabled are pretty useless or just for fun, but others like the alert my buddy app (which can alert a list of people if you need help, which can be great for seniors) can be very useful. I have found that it responds to and understands commands most of the time very well. It mainly only has problems when there is background noise like from a TV. Although it occasionally understands a question but does not know the answer. You can give it feedback through the app which you have to download to a phone or tablet to get it set up, by telling it whether the unit did what you wanted next to what it heard.

The setup is very easy, just plug it in, connect it to wifi via the app, and then read off a list of 25 commands so it can configure to your voice. It is definitely not something that everyone will find useful or see as a must-have, but if you have seen the commercials or looked into it and are intrigued by at least some of the things it can do then I definitely think it (especially at the reduced holiday price) is worth the expense. Even if you are looking for a reasonably priced Bluetooth speaker this will give you that functionality and a lot more.

Product Review: Kasa Smart (HS100 KIT) Plug 2-Pack

 

I bought a pair of these along with the Echo (not through Amazon). I found them to be fairly easy to set up. You do have to download an app to your phone or tablet and verify your email address when you register through the app. After that, it is a matter of plugging them in and walking through the steps on the app. Depending on your wireless connection, it may take a couple tries, but if you are in any way tech-savvy, it should take no more than about 10-15 min.

Once it is set up you can turn them on and off just by pressing an icon on the app or telling the Echo to do it if you have one. You can even schedule the lights to turn on and off at specific times, or set a timer to turn them off (helpful if you have a bedroom lamp plugged into it and you want to use it almost as a sleep timer). I am very happy with the purchase and will probably get more. My only gripe about it is it takes up a lot of room pm the outlet and makes it hard to plug anything else into the second plug of an outlet that the unit is not plugged into. That aside, they work great and I would highly recommend them.