Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsUpdate review; goes offline
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 February 2023
These are the 5th and 6th Tapo products I have bought, being the 3rd and 4th bulbs of the same type
I had previously left a glowing detailed review, however, having had them for a couple of months now I am updating to say that these bulbs go offline without reason or warning.
Suddenly the Alexa and Google commands stopped working.
Having manually turned them on and off and on, the bulbs did come on but didn't respond to commands, Alexa , whilst the bulb was on, kept saying that the bulbs were not connected and to check power supply and network connection, none of which had changed.
I tried contacting Tapo support and apart from an automated reply to me submitting support request through the app, because there is no support telephone number, but the support request also sent my log files, I have still heard nothing back.
There is also no information in the faq for when your bulbs stop working with Alexa or Google home.
I figured out, after much trial and error, that you had to set up the bulbs again because they had forgotten that they were already set up.
Then a couple of weeks later it happens again.
There is no interruption in the WiFi or broadband or electricity supply, I would be notified because I have a number of medical devices that rely on both and talk a warming when either is interrupted.
I found some message boards, once I knew what I was looking for, and it appears that this is something that happens to other people too, still no response from Tapo to me or anyone in the boards, so do beware that these bulbs appear to be flzky and if you buy and install them you need to be able to fix these issues by yourself.
Also, the minimum brightness setting is 25%, which is extremely bright.
I had previously had other smart bulbs when Ch allowed you to dim all the way down, but these only have 4 brightness levés, 25, 50, 75 and 100%.
Will be looking elsewhere next time, such a shame really, nice idea, poorly executed and poor/ nonexistent support.