Review: Wireless controlled LED lights

A lightbulb that you can control from your smartphone to be any colour you want. A fun toy, or actually useful?

Courtesy of needITwantITgadgIT, comes wireless LED lightbulbs! When I first got the lights, I wanted to have a play but I did face an issue with getting them working. Yes it was user error, so was quickly sorted and the lights were working in no time!

We received the starter kit for review. This comprised of two LED lightbulbs, a wireless bridge and a remote control. You have to connect the wireless bridge to your local network (set up port forwarding if you want to control from anywhere) then sync the lights to the bridge.

Then it gets to playing. There are a number of modes, from disco to fading for going through colours. There’s also the option to choose any colour you wish at any brightness you want. I had the lights set up in two separate zones, so could control them.

They are great for parties, if only they could be worked in with the music, it’d be so much fun. Yes they are a toy, but here’s where they have real strength. They can be controlled via UDP commands. Using the Thecus we received last month, we’ve installed an open source home automation application and are testing these with them.

This is the first stage for integration and home automation. The capability of these lights is amazing and can be used for so many things. Turning on lights at certain events, making sure they come on when it gets dark - there’s a myriad of things that these lights can do when combined with a good home automation setup.

And that’s the strength of these lights. Their ability to integrate into an existing setup, the capability to be much smarter than just a light bulb. What if your lights could warn you of a range of things? An alert system with a different colour for each type of alert?

Users love them. They initially see a toy, but when they realise what they can do, then they’re hooked!

At $150 for the starter kit, it’s a bargain! I’ll be changing more of my bulbs over (up to 400 can be added) and starting to play more, seeing how it can integrate.