Cree was hesitant to add a sensible bulb to its best-selling LED lineup, however that modified this yr with the addition of the $15 Cree Related LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of final 12 months's nicely-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Related LED adds in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you'll be ready to show it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting changes. At launch, Cree's smart bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you're going to buy both off the shelf at House Depot. Since then, nonetheless, we've seen official help roll out for extra management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the new D-Link model of the Staples Connect Hub , too, though there isn't official, EcoLight Zonoff-certified assist just but. The bulb works well across all of the platforms we have tested it with, and it shares the robust lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here earlier than it.

Most interesting is the value. At $15 -- just a few dollars more than you may spend on non-linked rivals -- it ties with the GE Link LED as the most inexpensive linked bulb available on the market. For long-life LED basic automated lighting, EcoLight it's the best option we've tested yet, and our current Editors' Alternative winner. Cree tailored its good bulb design from final 12 months's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the existing construct. That signifies that this isn't a bulb that goes out of its way to look fancy or newfangled -- as an alternative, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of classic incandescents. I appreciated that strategy with the 4Flow, and i prefer it with the brand new Related LED too, though some would possibly discover the plastic construct to be a bit low cost-wanting, especially 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 via the body of the bulb, eliminating the need for heat sinks.

That helps bring production prices down, and likewise implies that the bulb is exceptionally mild for an LED, weighing in at lower than 2 ounces. The Cree Linked LED shares the identical lighting specs as the 4Flow LED, too, and EcoLight products that is largely a great factor. Each claim a light output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even larger than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a very spectacular 872 for the Connected LED. By way of efficiency, the 4Flow puts its light out using 11 watts, but the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for the Linked LED on account of the Zigbee radio's power draw. After we examined it out, EcoLight solutions the quantity was actually nearer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's performed a good job of conserving this bulb relatively environment friendly. Still, it's price noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more environment friendly, each one drawing less than 10 watts.

Cree additionally did an excellent job with coloration temperature here, touchdown extremely close to the acknowledged 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Related LED lands closer to the mark than every other smart bulb we've examined, so if you're picky about that excellent shade of heat, yellowy gentle, you'll like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind at the very least some of the competition is the colour rendering rating, which measures how precisely a given mild source illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Related LED hits a quite extraordinary score of 80 out of 100, and long-life LED provided that each the WeMo LED and long-life LED the equally inexpensive GE Link LED hit nearer to 90, I would have preferred to see Cree do better. To entry the Cree LED's smart features, you may need to pair it with a management hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Hyperlink LED, the Cree Related LED came out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, however soon expanded its third celebration compatibility to include options like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Completely different platforms supply completely different features -- SmartThings and Philips carry IFTTT help into the image, as an illustration -- but usually, the automating experience is basically the same. We tested the bulb on multiple platforms, long-life LED and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you're utilizing, you'll be able to turn the Cree Connected LED on or off remotely, dim it, or long-life LED automate it using whatever controls your system offers. These doubtless embody setting the lights to a timed schedule, or long-life LED syncing them up with issues like motion sensors. The bulb paired easily with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings both have dedicated settings and pairing instructions for the Cree long-life LED right in the app, which helps. Staples Connect doesn't provide machine-specific help for Cree just but, however it was capable of detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee gadget on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was pretty painless, too, although I needed to manually reset the bulb through the pairing course of in order to assist the bridge discover it.