Cree was hesitant to add a wise bulb to its finest-selling LED lineup, however that changed this 12 months with the addition of the $15 Cree Connected LED. Sharing the build and lighting specs of final 12 months's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , the brand new Related LED adds in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you will be in a position to show it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting changes. At launch, Cree's sensible bulb was considerably married to the Wink Hub , which made sense given that you'll buy each off the shelf at House Depot. Since then, nevertheless, EcoLight we've seen official assist roll out for additional management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You may add the bulbs to the new D-Hyperlink version of the Staples Join Hub , too, though there is not official, Zonoff-certified help just yet. The bulb works effectively across all of the platforms we've tested it with, EcoLight and it shares the strong lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that came before it.

Most appealing is the worth. At $15 -- just a few dollars more than you will spend on non-related competitors -- it ties with the GE Link LED as essentially the most inexpensive linked bulb on the market. For fundamental automated lighting, it's the very best possibility we have tested yet, and our present Editors' Selection winner. Cree tailored its sensible bulb design from last 12 months's 4Flow LED, EcoLight packing a Zigbee radio into the existing build. That means 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 preferred that approach with the 4Flow, EcoLight and EcoLight i prefer it with the new Connected LED too, although some would possibly discover the plastic construct to be a bit low cost-looking, especially when the bulb is turned off. The brand new bulb additionally 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 bring manufacturing prices down, and in addition implies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle for EcoLight an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Linked LED shares the same lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a good factor. Each claim a gentle output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even increased than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really impressive 872 for the Related LED. When it comes to efficiency, the 4Flow puts its mild out utilizing eleven watts, but the quantity rises to 11.5 watts for the Connected LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. After we tested it out, the quantity was really closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's executed a very good job of holding this bulb relatively efficient. Nonetheless, it's price noting that both the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are even more efficient, each one drawing less than 10 watts.

Cree also did an excellent job with color temperature here, touchdown extraordinarily near the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Related LED lands closer to the mark than some other good bulb we've examined, so if you're picky about that perfect shade of heat, yellowy light, you will like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind no less than some of the competitors is the shade rendering score, EcoLight which measures how precisely a given light source illuminates completely different shades. The Cree Connected LED hits a reasonably unusual rating of 80 out of 100, EcoLight dimmable and provided that both the WeMo LED and the equally cheap GE Hyperlink LED hit closer to 90, I might have preferred to see Cree do better. To access the Cree LED's good options, you'll have to pair it with a management hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Like the GE Link LED, EcoLight the Cree Related LED came out the gate trumpeting Wink support at launch, however quickly expanded its third party compatibility to include choices like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Completely different platforms offer totally different features -- SmartThings and Philips carry IFTTT support into the image, as an example -- however in general, the automating expertise is largely the identical. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, and never ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. Regardless of which platform you are utilizing, you will be ready to show the Cree Linked LED on or off remotely, dim it, or automate it using no matter controls your system gives. These likely embody setting the lights to a timed schedule, or syncing them up with issues like motion sensors. The bulb paired simply with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and EcoLight energy SmartThings each have dedicated settings and pairing instructions for the Cree LED right within the app, which helps. Staples Connect would not supply gadget-specific support for Cree simply but, EcoLight nevertheless it was in a position to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee system 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 in the course of the pairing course of so as to help the bridge discover it.