19 Mar
Blog

TP-Hyperlink Kasa Filament Good Bulb KL50 Evaluation

If you want to add smart lighting to your home but want the classic look of a traditional clear light bulb, check out the TP-Link Kasa Filament KL50 Smart Light Bulb ($ 12.99). This new addition to the Kasa family of smart home devices is a clear LED lamp that emits 600 lumens of warm white light. It works with other smart devices that use IFTTT applets and can be controlled with voice commands from Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. However, it doesn’t work with Apple HomeKit and you can’t adjust the color temperature of the lightbulb like our editorial team does. the $ 7.99 Wyze Bulb.

Design and functions

The KL50 is a standard lamp of type A19 with an E26 screw-in socket. The lightbulb is clear and uses four strands of LED that are similar to the strands of filament used in old school incandescent lamps. It emits 600 lumens, which is roughly the equivalent of a 40 watt light bulb, and has a warm white color temperature of 2700K. That said, you can’t adjust the white temperature like you can with the Wyze lightbulb. The light bulb consumes seven watts of power and has a lifespan of almost 14 years, based on an average usage rate of three hours per day.

TP-Link Kasa Filament Smart Bulb KL50 trendy room

The lightbulb has an embedded 2.4GHz WiFi radio, so it doesn’t require a hub like most Philips Hue lightbulbs. It can be controlled with voice commands from Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and supports IFTTT applets that allow it to interact with third-party smart devices such as motion sensors, surveillance cameras, and video doorbells.

The KL50 uses the same Kasa Smart mobile app (for Android and iOS) as other TP-Link products. The lamp is displayed on a tab in the device dashboard along with tabs for other installed Kasa devices. The tab includes a power button that is green when the light is on and gray when it is off. It has a brightness indicator and a lamp icon that lights up when the lamp is on and dark when it is off. Tap the tab to launch a lamp screen that shows a larger on / off button and four brightness presets (100, 75, 25, and 1 percent). Tap a preset to change the brightness of the lightbulb and tap the pencil icon to change each preset to the brightness level you want.

TP-Link Kasa Filament Smart Bulb KL50 brightness settings

Below the “On / Off” button there are options for switching between the “Power” and “Brightness” modes. Below that are the “Preferences”, “Schedule” and “Usage” buttons. The Presets button takes you to a screen where you can edit the presets (as above) and view any recently used presets. Tap anywhere to change the brightness level. Tap the Schedule button to turn the lightbulb on and off according to a schedule and to fade the lightbulb on and off at a specific time and turn it on at a selected brightness preset. The usage screen shows daily, weekly and monthly energy usage statistics as well as the total usage time. It also shows potential daily and yearly savings compared to a standard 40 watt lamp.

Back in the device dashboard is a “Scenes” button that opens a screen where you can create scenes that control one or more devices with the push of a button. There’s also a Smart Actions button that takes you to a screen where you can create controls that Kasa smart devices can use to interact with each other. However, this requires a specific router (the TP-Link SR20).

Installation and performance

Schedule settings for TP-Link Kasa Filament Smart Bulb KL50

The installation of the KL50 lamp is easy. First, download the Kasa Smart mobile app and create an account. Tap on the plus symbol at the top, then on Add device and select the KL50 from the Smart Bulb menu. Follow the instructions on the screen to switch off the light on which the light bulb is to be installed and replace the old light bulb with the KL50. Tap Next and turn on the device. After five seconds, the light bulb will flash three times. At this point, you will be instructed to use your phone to connect to the bulb’s Wi-Fi SSID.

Once connected, go back to the app and wait a few seconds for the lightbulb to connect to your phone. Next, select your home WiFi SSID and enter your WiFi password. The lamp will be added to your network within a few seconds and automatically added to your Alexa device list.

The KL50 provided a nice warm light during testing and responded immediately to on and off commands and brightness level adjustments with the mobile app. It also responded quickly to Alexa voice commands and followed my schedules with no issues. I made an IFTTT applet that dimms the lightbulb to 10 percent when an Arlo Pro 3 camera detects motion, and it works fine, as does my applet that turns the lightbulb on when a sensor is off the Wyze Sense Starter Kit detects movement.

Conclusions

With the TP-Link Kasa light bulb KL50 you can equip your lamps and luminaires with intelligent LED light bulbs that offer the classic look of clear light bulbs. The KL50 is a pure white lamp, easy to install and offers planning and power consumption reports. You can control the lightbulb with voice commands from Alexa and Google, and respond to triggers from third-party devices using IFTTT applets. However, you can’t adjust the temperature of the white color like our lower-cost Editors’ Choice for smart white LEDs, the Wyze lightbulb.

TP-Link Kasa Filament Smart Bulb KL50

The bottom line

The elegant TP-Link Kasa Filament Smart Bulb KL50 supports voice control, works with third-party devices and can tell you how much energy it is using.

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Sengled Edison Filament Bulb brings CES 2020 back to 1879
04 Feb
Blog

Sengled Edison Filament Bulb brings CES 2020 again to 1879

The folks at Sengled brought a very vintage-esque piece of tech to Las Vegas this week at CES 2020. This is Sengled’s smart LED Edison light bulb with a design that is decidedly old-fashioned. Sengled also unveiled a number of new smart (and not so smart) lighting and smart home solutions at CES 2020, including smart LED candle lamps, a new smart hub, and a smart plug with energy monitoring.

The first recorded demonstration of a working carbon lightbulb was made by Joseph Swan in February 1879. In October 1879, Edison demonstrated a working carbon light bulb. Most modern reproductions of the original carbon light bulb are commonly known as the “Edison light bulb”.

The Edison Filament Bulb, shown this week by Sengled, is “a clear light bulb with a filament that is visible at a color temperature of 2100K”. Much like the few competing lightbulbs with similar intent, this lightbulb aims to “give any home a stylish look and a cozy golden sheen”.

The Sengled Smart LED Edison filament bulb (in a 2-pack) was presented this week (January 6, 2020) at CES 2020 with a price of approx. USD 30 MSRP. A pack of Sengled Smart LED E12 candle lamps, a Sengled Smart Hub and a Sengled Smart Plug with energy monitoring were also presented this week.

The candles work in a variety of colors and fit into many non-smart devices, “chandeliers, ceiling fans, and night lights to name a few”. With the Smart Plug with energy monitoring, even non-intelligent devices can become a little more futuristic. This plug can be connected to a Sengled app, with which you can switch on and off remotely – and monitor energy consumption.

The Smart Hub is actually a third generation device, ie the “3rd Generation Sengled Smart Hub”. If you’ve had either of the first two, this latest edition has some new features. This new version supports Apple HomeKit, which in turn allows Siri to control many types of smart devices.

This hub also supports the Google Local Home SDK for smart home control over a local network, completely offline – no internet required! Earlier versions (and this version) work with Amazon Alexa support and Google Assistant. This hub supports Zigbee 3.0 and “over 64 intelligent lights and accessories”.

The Sengled Smart LED E12 Candle Lamps cost about $ 25, the Sengled Smart Hub costs about $ 30, and the Sengled Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring costs about $ 20. Sengled hasn’t announced any release dates for these new technologies yet, but it wouldn’t be a shock if they all were available in Q1 2020. Take a look at our CES 2020 hub for more gadgets in bulk, weird again!

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WiZ Connected ST19 Filament Dimmable bulb review: This vintage Wi-Fi bulb is well suited for accent lighting
22 Dec
Blog

WiZ Related ST19 Filament Dimmable bulb assessment: This classic Wi-Fi bulb is nicely suited to accent lighting

Anyone looking for a stylish, yet affordable, vintage smart lamp that doesn’t require an expensive hub should consider WiZ Connected’s dimmable ST19 white incandescent lamp. This Wi-Fi enabled light bulb is screwed into a standard E26 socket. It’s too dark to illuminate an entire room (this is a 40-watt equivalent), but it works great as accent lighting in a dining or living room.

Setting it up is a breeze, and you can put the dimmable light on a schedule, set it to different lighting modes, group it with other WiZ Connected lights, and control it with voice commands from Alexa and Google Assistant.

Design specifications

WiZ Connected (owned by Signify, the company behind popular lighting brand Philips Hue) offers two versions of its dimmable ST19 incandescent lamp: one with amber glass (the one we tested) and one with clear glass. In addition to the elongated ST19 lamps, WiZ also sells standard A19 lamps and spherical G25 bulbs.

This review is part of TechHive’s coverage of the best smart lighting products. where to find Reviews of competing products, as well as a guide for shoppers on the features to consider when shopping.

The ST19 lamp has a lifespan of up to 15,000 hours and is equipped with an E26 base that can be screwed into a standard light bulb socket. The amber version of the light bulb is designed for a very warm white 2,000 Kelvin, while the clear light bulb is designed for a slightly cooler (but still warm) 2,700 Kelvin. Four linear LED filaments are located in the light bulb.

Both the clear and amber versions of the WiZ incandescent lamp ST19 emit 350 lumens at full brightness, which is too weak to illuminate an entire room or work area. Instead, think of decorative or accent lighting.

wiz connected st19 light bulb lifestyle Ben Patterson / IDG

The ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ Connected is too dark to illuminate an entire room, but it does provide a nice accent light (especially with this ugly ceiling light in my office).

configuration

Commissioning the ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ only takes a few minutes. Once you’ve downloaded the WiZ app (assuming you haven’t already), you can add the Wi-Fi enabled lamp to your WiZ home in two ways: either through smart pairing or manually. The Smart Pairing setting allows you to quickly connect a number of WiZ lamps at the same time. However, this will only work if your phone is connected to your router using the 2.4 GHz radio band. Therefore, you may need to disable your router’s 5GHz wireless network first (you can turn it back on once the pairing process is complete). With manual pairing, however, a connection to each new lamp is established via a temporary Wi-Fi signal. This is a tedious process, but when you do so you don’t have to mess with your router’s dual band settings.

In any case, I managed to add the ST19 lightbulb to the app in a matter of minutes (both the “smart” and manual pairing method worked just fine) and I added it to one of the rooms in my house as defined in the app definition (in this case “Office”), in which I also installed a few other WiZ lamps.

Features, app support and smart home integrations

Once you’ve used the WiZ Mobile App to group the ST19 bulb with your other WiZ Smart Lights, you can control it, set a schedule, and even set a daily “rhythm” with the WiZ Mobile App.

Since the lightbulb is only dimmable and non-tunable (meaning you can’t change the color temperature), there are only a few lighting modes available, including the standard “white” mode, a night light mode, and the “progressive” wake-up and bedtime modes that the light bulb Gradually brighten and dim over a period of 30 minutes.

wiz connected st19 bulb modes Ben Patterson / IDG

With the WiZ app, you can activate various lighting modes for the ST19 light bulb, including the dynamic “steampunk” mode. You can also adjust the brightness of the lightbulb, as well as the speed of dynamic lighting effects.

More interesting are a quartet of “dynamic” modes, including a pulse mode in which the brightness of the light bulb is gradually increased and decreased, a candlelight mode in which the filaments flicker gently, and a moody “steampunk” mode which randomly dims the light bulb and brightens, almost as if the lightbulb was connected to a transient electrical current. For each of the four modes, you can adjust both the brightness and the speed of the effect.

In addition to the app for controlling the lamp modes, you can also use the optional Wi-Fi WiZmote, with which you can access four “favorite modes” at the touch of a button. Another fascinating control method is the WiZclick feature, which essentially gives smarts to an otherwise “dumb” light switch by letting you switch between the first two of four preferred modes. Switching on the switch normally activates the first favorite mode, while the second favorite is activated by briefly flipping the switch twice.

The app also lets you set the lightbulb (or a room or the entire house) daily or weekly, activate a random vacation mode to fool potential intruders when you are not at home, or build the lightbulb into a lightbulb light scene. Finally, in a circadian rhythm mode, you can set the wake-up and bedtime times and then automatically change the brightness of the light bulb depending on the time of day.

WiZ’s ST19 lightbulb also lends itself to a wide variety of integrations including Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, Samsung SmartThings, Conrad Connect, Enki, ImperiHome, and Alice. For example, Alexa allows you to turn the light bulb on and off with voice commands, change the mode or room scene of the light bulb, or set up a routine triggered by language, time of day, motion sensor or a host of other conditions. While the ST19 light bulb does not support Apple HomeKit, you can assign WiZ room scenes to a Siri shortcut.

Bottom line

The ST19 incandescent lamp from WiZ Connected checks many of our boxes when it comes to intelligent lighting: It is easy to set up, works without a hub, is equipped with different lighting modes and can be controlled via voice commands. We also love the attractive vintage design, which is perfect for adding a touch of class to a living space. Best of all, it’s inexpensive.

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