Cree was hesitant so as to add a smart bulb to its finest-selling LED lineup, however that changed this yr with the addition of the $15 Cree Connected LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of final yr's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Connected LED provides 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 adjustments. At launch, Cree's sensible bulb was considerably married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you'll purchase each off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, nonetheless, we've seen official support roll out for extra management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You can add the bulbs to the brand new D-Hyperlink version of the Staples Connect Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified support just yet. The bulb works well throughout the entire platforms we've examined it with, and it shares the robust lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came before it.
Most appealing is the value. At $15 -- just a few dollars more than you'll spend on non-related competitors -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink LED as essentially the most inexpensive related bulb on the market. For primary automated lighting, it's the perfect possibility we have examined yet, and our present Editors' Alternative winner. Cree adapted its smart bulb design from final year's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the present construct. That signifies that this is not a bulb that goes out of its option to look fancy or newfangled -- as an alternative, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of traditional incandescents. I liked that strategy with the 4Flow, and that i like it with the new Related LED too, although some may find the plastic construct to be a bit cheap-wanting, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb also shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which makes use of vents to circulate air by way of the physique of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.
That helps deliver production prices down, and likewise implies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Related LED shares the same lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a good thing. Both claim a light output of 815 lumens, and each clocked in even increased than that in front of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really impressive 872 for the Connected LED. By way of efficiency, the 4Flow puts its light out utilizing 11 watts, but 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 actually closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's carried out a very good job of protecting this bulb comparatively efficient. Nonetheless, it is value noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more environment friendly, every one drawing lower than 10 watts.
Cree additionally did a very good job with coloration temperature here, landing extraordinarily close to the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Linked LED lands closer to the mark than another smart bulb we have examined, so if you're picky about that perfect shade of heat, yellowy mild, you may like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind at the least among the competitors is the color rendering rating, which measures how accurately a given gentle supply illuminates completely different shades. The Cree Connected LED hits a relatively unusual rating of 80 out of 100, and on condition that each the WeMo LED and EcoLight the equally inexpensive GE Link LED hit nearer to 90, I'd have liked to see Cree do better. To access the Cree LED's good features, you may have to pair it with a management hub that may translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Connected LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink help at launch, however soon expanded its third occasion compatibility to incorporate options like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and EcoLight the Philips Hue Bridge .
Completely different platforms offer different features -- SmartThings and Philips deliver IFTTT assist into the image, as an example -- but on the whole, the automating expertise is essentially the identical. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you are using, EcoLight you may be in a position to turn the Cree Related LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it utilizing no matter controls your system presents. These probably include setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with things like motion sensors. The bulb paired simply with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have devoted settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right in the app, which helps. Staples Join would not offer gadget-particular assist for Cree simply but, but it was capable of detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee system on the primary strive. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was fairly painless, too, although I needed to manually reset the bulb in the course of the pairing process so as to assist the bridge discover it.