Since I have a limited number of light sockets in my home, I additionally relied on our at-house testing insights to enhance my own information and expertise regarding bulbs I either haven’t personally used or haven’t used as much. I considered factors like ease of setup and use, app functionality, smart dwelling integration, coloration rendering index (CRI), EcoLight brightness and dimming, and other elements to identify the most effective good bulbs accessible. Color rendering index, or CRI, is a measurement of how shut a light bulb can get to natural gentle. Bulbs with the next CRI provide more natural gentle for extra practical colours, with a CRI of 88 or greater appearing very natural. I’ve used a lot of sensible gentle bulbs over time, and i like the Kasa KL135 probably the most as a result of they’re dependable, with glorious smart residence integration, and have ok colour rendering to use in any room. They’re a little bit larger than quite a lot of the opposite smart bulbs I’ve used, however I’ve by no means had bother getting them to slot in any of my fixtures or lamps.
These bulbs use the Kasa app and sensible ecosystem, which incorporates numerous my favorite smart house devices (just like the Kasa energy strip that I’ve used to automate every little thing from desk fans to a turtle tank heat lamp). That means you can use the bulbs with the phone app and tie them into schedules and routines together with your different Kasa units, however I use Alexa for EcoLight all that. I love the Alexa integration, which I take advantage of to regulate them with voice commands-turning the lights on and off, adjusting brightness, and even switching colors and color temperatures. You may even have the temperature regulate by means of the day, from daylight white within the morning to a stress-free warm white at evening. The shade rendering index (CRI) is pretty excessive at 88 (incandescent lights are 100, for comparability). That’s adequate that the colors of issues around your private home look accurate when the bulbs are set to white gentle, regardless of not having RBGW LEDs like our greatest value decide (which has the next CRI).
You might want a higher CRI option in rooms like your kitchen (preparing and serving food) or bathroom (making use of makeup) where accurate colours are really important, however I don’t discover that much of a difference myself. Brightness is excellent, with a dimming vary between 20 and 1,000 lumens, so I’ve used these bulbs in each room in my home for EcoLight a variety of functions. Color choice is great too, and I love that I can tell Alexa to adjust the brightness and change the shade primarily based on no matter I’m doing on the time-switching from task lighting, to mood lighting, to a splash of colour without ever getting up to contact a change. Change among process lighting, temper lighting, and completely different colours utilizing Alexa. You’ll be able to adjust the shade temperature of this bulb to daylight white within the morning. The brightness of the Kasa KL135 bulb is excellent. The Kasa KL135 bulb is appropriate with Alexa, Google Residence, and Samsung SmartThings.
These bulbs are somewhat greater than many other smart bulbs, however ought to match most fixtures. Switching all your mild bulbs to good bulbs can get expensive, which is why I first tried out these Feit Electric bulbs. They aren’t fairly as shiny as our overall finest suggestion, however they’re about half the value when there aren’t any gross sales going on. I like the app (which has more choices than the Kasa app, however lower than the Philips Hue app), and the tunable white (switching from warm to cool white gentle) works great. One in all my favourite things about these bulbs is they’re RGBW, which means they have separate purple, blue, green, EcoLight and white LEDs (one thing our general finest pick doesn’t have). That means they produce a variety of colours and tunable white gentle that’s a lot nearer to an outdated incandescent bulb. The ninety two CRI of these bulbs is definitely a bit greater than our best improve choose, which ranges between eighty and 91 depending on the shade temperature.