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There’s no shortage of smart lights that work with Amazon’s voice-activated assistant Alexa — fortunately, that now includes at least a couple of decent options that won’t break the bank. One of the latest comes from the team at Anker, a company better known for popular USB chargers. Turns out they make a pretty decent smart bulb, too.
It’s called the Eufy Lumos Smart Bulb, and it costs $20. Eufy (rhymes with “goofy”) is an Anker offshoot of smart home devices that work with Alexa and don’t cost very much, relatively speaking. They’re essentially store-brand Alexa gadgets — and like a lot of store-brand products, they offer pretty decent value.
The Lumos LED is the first of them that I’ve tested, and I’m impressed. It connects directly with Alexa over Wi-Fi and worked like a charm in all of my tests. Plus, with nearly 900 lumens to its name — well above the 800 lumens it claims — it’s noticeably brighter than its main competitor, the TP-Link LB100. That Alexa-friendly bulb also costs $20, but it only claims a light output of 600 lumens.
Like you might expect, the Lumos LED is pretty basic as far as features are concerned. Most notably, it doesn’t change colors (though you can spend an extra $10 to get a “tunable” version that changes color temperatures) and it doesn’t work with much else outside of Alexa — no Google Home, no Apple HomeKit and no IFTTT, among other omissions.
That’s not much of a concern if you’ve already bought in with Amazon’s assistant. If you’re just looking for an affordable light that she can turn on and off or dim up and daftar cahayatogel down, then look no further.
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The Eufy app is simple yet stylish, and it makes it easy to pair with the bulb and control it alongside other Eufy devices.
Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET
Plug-and-play
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You can use the EufyHome app to schedule automated lighting changes, including “away mode” lighting that makes it look like you’re home when you really aren’t.
Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET
I tested two of Eufy’s bulbs on a couple of different Wi-Fi networks, and used a variety of different first- and third-party Alexa gadgets to turn them on and off. I never had a problem with them. Simplicity is a selling point, here — just screw the bulb in, turn it on, pair with it in the Eufy app, enable the Alexa skill in the Alexa app and tell Alexa to discover it. You’ll be up and running within minutes.
You’ll notice that I made no mention of a hub in that last paragraph. The Lumos LED doesn’t need one. It broadcasts using a built-in Wi-Fi radio, so it doesn’t need another device to translate the signal for your router. That makes it a more appealing pick if you don’t have a hub and don’t want to get one.
That said, if you already have a smart home hub from a name like Wink or SmartThings, or if you’re using an Amazon Echo Plus, which includes a built-in Zigbee hub, then you’ll want to shop around. Alexa-compatible Zigbee bulbs from names like Sylvania, Cree, and Philips Hue all cost a little less than the Lumos LED, and should work just as well.
It’s also worth noting that you don’t need to be an Alexa user to connect with this bulb — all you really need is the free EufyHome app on your Android or iOS device. In that case, though, you might be better off going with a competitor that offers some alternative paths to automation. That $20 TP-Link bulb I mentioned earlier works with IFTTT and the Google Assistant, for instance.
Still, Eufy’s app does a really nice job of connecting you with the bulb, then offering you clear, easy-to-use controls. Aside from turning the bulb on and off or dimming it up and down, you can group multiple bulbs together to control them all at once, save a specific lighting setup as a favorite to return to it later with just a tap, or schedule automated lighting changes to run at specific times.
You can also turn on “away mode” lighting, which randomly cycles your lights on and off to make it look like you’re home when you really aren’t. That’s a nice touch.
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