LIFX An extremely smart light system controlled by your smartphone

Smart home devices are everywhere. At the consumer shows this year, there has been a plethora of Smart home apps developed to be controlled by a smart phone or Apple watch and it can be integrated with your online life.

I have been road testing the LIFX LED Smart light bulb that will blink when I get a twitter mention, flash when I get a new email, changes colours when it starts raining and can be programmed to do a whole lot more. I’m having fun finding out all it can do.

Infinitely programmable

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There are manual controls aplenty on the multiple screens on my phone. I can choose the mood colour my one tap on this screen. Alternatively, I can choose a colour by just spinning the colour wheel. You can get the app from www.Lifx.com/pages/go

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The wifi functionality took me a couple of minutes to set up. It was quite straightforward.

You can program different settings for every room in your home. On your app, you name each room and create a setting for each room. As each bulb is programmable, you can choose a mood, a colour and the times the light comes on and off.

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On one of the tabs on the app, there are choices for some fun features like a flickering candle, colour cycle and even a music visualiser which dims and brightens to music. For Halloween, you can even try the Spooky feature.

Using the LIFX bulb for night time food photography

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The feature I like the most about this bulb is the range of daylight colours. I can choose from a cloudy day to a bright noon day sun. This is a great feature if you have to do food photography at night when you don’t have time to do it in the daytime.

Instead of being subject to the harsh incandescent light or halogen lights at home, I can now switch on the LIFX (from the comfort of the sofa) and choose a daylight spectrum. This simulates daylight and creates a much better light for photos.

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Because it has the daylight spectrum lights, it can also double as one of the SAD lights during the winter too (I am not sure if this is as medically effective, you will need to check). As the smart bulb is programmable via IFTTT, you can set  it to switch on and off at fixed times.

For security, if you are away, you can set it to switch on as if you were at home.

As it is an LED light with  lumens (75W equivalent) it is quite bright and should last for 22 years.

Product Specifications of LIFX smart LED bulb

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  • It integrates with Amazon Echo, Smart Things app, Nest, IFTTT
  • 16 Million Colours 
  • 1000 Shades of White
  • Adjustable and Dimmable
  • App and Cloud Connection
  • Control Lights at Home or Away
  • Set Timers and Alarms

You can buy it from a variety of places online including Amazon and John Lewis.

 

What other Smart products do you have in the home? Can you soon control your whole life by Smart Phone?

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EatCookExplore was gifted the LIFX bulb

 

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2 Comments

  1. I’ve been looking into the color-changing lights as well. I work at home and I want bright white light to keep me alert when I’m working and soft yellow light for relaxing in the evenings. Does Lifx have all those integrations you mention directly in their app, or are you using IFTTT to make all that happen?

    1. HI Eric,

      Yes, you can do that from the LIFX app itself. All the parts that you can’t do with the app, you can do with IFTTT.

      Hope that helps.

      May