If you’re looking for a way to make your home “smarter” this holiday season, look no further than Nyrius’s smart bulb option, the Wireless Smart LED Multicolor Light Bulb. Unlike most of its competitors, this smart bulb sells for $29.99, and does everything you need it to
Overview
The Nyrius smart bulb allows for Bluetooth connection between the bulb itself and any Android device 4.3 and up (except Android 6.0, I’ll mention this later) and iOS devices. Upon twisting the bulb into any standard light socket in your house (E26/E27 sockets), you’ll gain connection to the bulb once you have downloaded the Nyrius Smart Bulb app. Through the Android or iOS app, you can control the smart bulb in different ways through a Bluetooth 4.0 connection. You’ll be able to change the color of the light, dim the lights, create a timer for the light, and of course turn the light on and off.
Nyrius Smart Bulb app
After downloading the free Nyrius Smart Bulb app from Google Play or the App Store, the app will request you turn on Bluetooth to connect the smart bulb. I found the app to take a few moments before connecting to the bulb for the first time, but I didn’t get much of a delay following that. Once connected, you can see the bulb listed on your devices list within the “Manage” section of the app. This is where you can select the bulb for further actions or simply turn it on and off.
When you select the bulb you want to manage, you’ll have access to the multitude of the smart bulb’s abilities. Greeting you with an “infinite” array of colors, you can select the color you want the light to be from the color wheel. This can be deceiving, however, as you cannot select any color you want or fine tune colors, as the bulb will only change to a select amount of basic colors. This did not bother me in the slightest, as the bulb still can change to more colors than I really need it to. If a colored bulb is not your thing, selecting the white circle in the middle will restore the bulb to a regular white color. My favorite part of this page was the slider that allowed for dimming the light, no matter the color. It was easy, accessible, and there is no delay when adjusting it.
You can also select a mood for the smart bulb. The options for moods include reading, dining, relaxed and party. While selecting a mood can be fun to show your friends, I have not once used these for any situation, as the colors are a bit hard on the eyes. The reading mood provided a red light, which is absolutely not what I need for reading. The dining mood was acceptable, but a yellowish light was still not exactly ideal. The relaxed mood was a dimmed blue light, and while some may find this soothing, I did not. The party mood showcased the technical abilities of the light, flashing different colors in a speedy pace.
The next section of the app allows the smart bulb to react to sound, and change colors with a beat. If your smart bulb is connected to your phone, the light will change to whatever the phone’s microphone is hearing. So, if you’re phone is placed next to music speakers, this will provide for a great party scene.
For the price of this smart bulb, I was very happy with what the companion app can do. To give you an example of how I used the light’s timer feature, I would set the light to turn on the same time as my morning alarm, to eliminate the chances of me sleeping in. It is definitely worth noting that this app is not compatible with Android 6.0 so far. I have tested it with the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P and HTC One A9 and none have successfully connected to the smart bulb, while other devices without Marshmallow were able to. The app could also use a new design, as the current one is very outdated and bares the look of Android Gingerbread.
What we liked:
- Outstanding features
- Creating timers
- Device management
What could be better
- App interface
- Compatibility with Android 6.0
Overall
It’s going to be hard to find a better deal than the Nyrius Smart Bulb if you’re looking for smart home devices on a budget. For a thirty dollar device, I was amazed and surprised by what it could do. It’s also worth noticing that I accidentally dropped this bulb ten feet when unscrewing it, and it was completely undamaged. The durability, amount of features, and price of this bulb are reasons why you should try it out. Click below to check out Nyrius’s website.
