Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsBulb Not Bad - Installation of Two Bulbs A Nightmare
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 November 2023
I've tried to be fair with this review, and was tempted to give just one star. However, the bulb itself is not bad gives good light, and when connected interacts with Alexa.
However, the technical setting up with WiFi aspect is in my view poor to the point of being a nightmare, particularly if two bulbs are used at once at different location. After wasting almost a week without success of a stable installation, gave up and returned two bulbs via Amazon - being a computer programmer, am quite technical and do not like to admit defeat, but life's too short. In my endeavours did discover a number of quirks, that may help others with this bulb.
For a single bulb you need a powerful 2.4GHz WiFi signal, even Excellent may not be good enough. I found initially setting the bulb up in the same room as the WiFi router can work. Albeit as soon as the bulb was located in an adjacent room, the signal strength though still rated as excellent was not enough to provide a stable connection. Once lost, back to initial installation in the router room.
The real nightmare was in trying to install a second bulb. One located front of house, the other at back. This needed a WiFi repeater placed half way. The App doesn't give you an option to add another device, until it is closed and restarted (more time wasted). However, on setting up the second bulb, this was prone to causing an IP Configuration error. My guess is that the app was attempting to allocate the same IP as the first bulb, also didn't seem to like the other bulb being on, resulting in numerous failed pairing attempts. I found that switching the other bulb off during setting up, and after numerous attempts can provide a (temporary) successful set up, with different IP's allocated by luck.
Unfortunately the bulbs are prone to losing their WiFi connection, so the whole process had to be repeated numerous times. This would also be the case for power cuts (which are not unusual here on the Isle of Wight). After numerous resets, rebooting router, and seeing numerous IP Configuration errors, gave up and went for the return.
For a single bulb use, with a nearby powerful WiFi router in the same room of use they can work okay. Otherwise would not recommend.