Cree was hesitant so as to add a wise bulb to its finest-selling LED lineup, however that modified this year with the addition of the $15 Cree Connected LED. Sharing the construct and lighting specs of final year's well-reviewed Cree 4Flow LED , energy-saving LED bulbs the new Related LED adds in a Zigbee radio. Pair it with a control hub, and you'll be in a position to turn it on and off remotely, or schedule automated lighting modifications. At launch, Cree's sensible bulb was somewhat married to the Wink Hub , EcoLight which made sense given that you're going to buy both off the shelf at Dwelling Depot. Since then, nevertheless, we've seen official help roll out for added management gateways, together with SmartThings and the Philips Hue Bridge . You'll be able to add the bulbs to the brand new D-Hyperlink model of the Staples Connect Hub , too, although there is not official, Zonoff-certified support simply but. The bulb works well across all of the platforms we've tested it with, and it shares the strong lighting specs of the 4Flow LED that got here earlier than it.

Most interesting is the value. At $15 -- just some dollars greater than you'll spend on non-linked competitors -- it ties with the GE Hyperlink energy-saving LED bulbs as probably the most cheap connected bulb in the marketplace. For fundamental automated lighting, it is the best option we have examined yet, and our present Editors' Choice winner. Cree tailored its smart bulb design from final 12 months's 4Flow LED, packing a Zigbee radio into the present construct. That signifies that this isn't a bulb that goes out of its way to look fancy or energy-saving LED bulbs newfangled -- instead, it copies the 4Flow's emphasis on mimicking the silhouette of classic incandescents. I preferred that strategy with the 4Flow, and i like it with the brand new Connected LED too, although some may discover the plastic construct to be a bit cheap-wanting, particularly when the bulb is turned off. The new bulb additionally shares the 4Flow's convection cooling trick, which uses vents to circulate air by the body of the bulb, eliminating the necessity for heat sinks.

That helps carry production prices down, and in addition signifies that the bulb is exceptionally gentle for an LED, weighing in at less than 2 ounces. The Cree Connected LED shares the identical lighting specs because the 4Flow LED, too, and that is largely a great thing. Each claim a mild output of 815 lumens, and both clocked in even greater than that in entrance of our spectrometer -- 835 lumens for the 4Flow, and a really impressive 872 for the Linked LED. By way of effectivity, the 4Flow puts its gentle out using 11 watts, however the number rises to 11.5 watts for the Connected LED on account of the Zigbee radio's energy draw. Once we tested it out, the number was truly closer to 11.1 watts, so Cree's executed an excellent job of preserving this bulb relatively efficient. Still, it is price noting that each the Philips Hue Lux LED and the Belkin WeMo LED are much more environment friendly, every one drawing less than 10 watts.

Cree also did an excellent job with shade temperature here, landing extremely close to the stated 2,700K. At 2,696K, the Cree Linked LED lands nearer to the mark than any other good bulb we've examined, so if you're choosy about that good shade of warm, yellowy light, you will like this LED. The one place the place Cree's good bulb lags behind a minimum of among the competition is the colour rendering rating, which measures how accurately a given mild supply illuminates totally different shades. The Cree Linked LED hits a slightly unusual rating of eighty out of 100, and provided that both the WeMo LED and energy-saving LED bulbs the equally inexpensive GE Hyperlink LED hit nearer to 90, I'd have preferred to see Cree do better. To access the Cree LED's smart options, you'll must pair it with a management hub that can translate its Zigbee signal into Wi-Fi. Just like the GE Link LED, the Cree Connected LED got here out the gate trumpeting Wink help at launch, but quickly expanded its third social gathering compatibility to include choices like SmartThings, Staples Connect , and the Philips Hue Bridge .

Totally different platforms supply totally different features -- SmartThings and Philips convey IFTTT support into the image, for instance -- however generally, the automating experience is largely the identical. We examined the bulb on multiple platforms, and by no means ran into any difficulties pairing it or controlling it. No matter which platform you are using, you'll be in a position to show the Cree Connected 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, energy-saving LED bulbs or syncing them up with things like motion sensors. The bulb paired easily with every of the above-talked about platforms. Wink and SmartThings each have devoted settings and pairing directions for the Cree LED right within the app, which helps. Staples Join does not provide system-particular help for Cree simply but, nevertheless it was able to detect the bulb as a generic Zigbee machine on the primary try. Syncing the Cree LED with a Philips Hue setup was pretty painless, EcoLight too, although I wanted to manually reset the bulb during the pairing process in order to assist the bridge find it.