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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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