What’s the best affordable smart lighting?
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What would you say is the absolute best smart lighting that can be controlled with the iPhone, but is still very affordable for someone with a very limited income? I only need one lightbulb, but it would be very cool to have two if the price is affordable enough. If I had two, then I would love to be able to control them individually.
I need to be able to manually change the brightness and the color at any time between a very bright alerting type of light for when I’m awake, and a very dim pure red light for when I’m getting ready for bed.
I don’t need scheduling of any kind. The only type of automatic operation I need is being able to control the lighting with just my voice, preferably using ‘Hey Siri’. Of course, this doesn’t mean I would reject recommendations of smart lights that offer scheduling. I just mean that it doesn’t matter whether scheduling is an option because I would never use it.
To give you a clearer idea of what I want, right now I typically swap out both of my bedroom LED lights for my Feit red LED lights (https://www.amazon.com/Feit-Electric-A19-LED-Red/dp/B00FA5UMB2) whenever I’m ready to begin winding down and getting ready for bed. When I am finally ready to go to sleep, I swap them back for my regular LED lights but I don’t turn them on - that way, I’m ready to go to bed knowing that I can just turn those bright lights on when I wake up. So, I would love to be able to do all of this with my iPhone instead, preferably using just my voice.
So, it would be really cool to be able to say to Siri that I want dim red light when I’m ready to begin winding down for bed - or better yet, be able to choose a color temperature like 800K, and then tell Siri to turn the lights off when I’m ready to go to sleep. Then, when I wake up, I would like to be able to tell Siri to turn my lights on at my normal brightness and color for when I’m awake.
I don’t need the lights to gradually reach full brightness either, nor do I need them to gradually change brightness to something very dim at night. I only need the simple operation using just my voice with my iPhone as described above.
I also would love for the lights to emit light as omnidirectionally as possible, like an incandescent light bulb. I see a lot of smart lights out there that look to be very directional, and that would mean all the light will be pointed at my ceiling because I will be putting these lights in floor lamps.
Finally, Bluetooth connectivity would be more than good enough for me.
Thank you for any help you can provide! Don’t forget that I’m on a very limited income.
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Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t have to work with f.lux!
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I'm going to try the LIFX A19: https://www.amazon.com/LIFX-Adjustable-Multicolor-Dimmable-Assistant/dp/B01KY02MS8/
It'll be here tomorrow! (Saturday)
I have to laugh because I didn't expect this decision to come so easily, but all of my searching keeps leading me to this light.
The reason why I chose this instead of a Philips Hue light is, I love the fact that the LIFX light doesn't require a hub!
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So far, I love it! It's everything that I was hoping for and more. It was super easy to set up, and it's a real joy to use. The pure red color looks and feels identical to my beloved red Feit LED light. In addition to that, I can reduce the brightness so far that it's almost too dim. I love having that range. I have always wanted a much dimmer true red LED light.
Of course, it can do much more than that. I can choose literally any color I want - and at any brightness, or I can pick from dozens upon dozens of predefined settings and scenes. This is a fantastic smart light! It has the full range of super simple operation to super fun and fancy operation. Judging from the LIFX app, it seems the only limit is my imagination and creativity.
I am definitely getting another one! I don't know if I should get one now, or wait until I have a little more money, but I am definitely getting one as soon as possible.
