Smart lighting is a really easy and quick way to turn your house into a smart house.
But some of these smart light bulbs are really quite expensive to buy.
It's hard to justify the high price that some of these companies charge for a single light bulb, but there is an alternative.
Today, I'm taking a look at a smart light bulb which I purchased from Kmart here in Australia.
This is the Mirabella Genio smart light bulb; it's a colored light bulb and it has the option to control in the app just like the expensive brands.
In this video I'm going to show you an overview of this light bulb and I'm going to show you how to set it up
and do a comparison of how this light performs when compared to a more high end bulb.
So, let's take a look at this budget bulb and see if it's worth your while.
Let's get started.
So here it is folks, the Mirabella Genio smart light.
This light bulb does come in two different options; you can buy the non-color version which is a bit cheaper, but this version here is the colored version.
You can buy this bulb either with the screw type fitting or the bayonet style.
If you do buy the wrong type, you can always use an adapter like this one allowing you to still use the bulb.
Let's take a look at the setup process. The first thing that you'll need to do is download the Genio app from the App store.
After you've downloaded the app, you will need to create an account or you can sign in if you already have one.
To pair the bulb, switch the light bulb on and off a few times until it blinks rapidly.
Then just follow the pairing instructions in the app and you should be able to connect pretty easily.
To be honest, it did take me a couple of goes to get this bulb up and running and the reason is because this bulb has a problem with five gigahertz wi-fi.
It'll only work with 2.4. So what that means is if you have a router that delivers both 5 gigahertz wi-fi and 2.4 gigahertz,
to connect this bulb you may need to disable your 5 gigahertz wi-fi just while you connect the bulb and then after it's connected, you can re-enable it.
If you keep that in mind and follow the setup instructions on the app, you shouldn't have any problems getting your bulb connected.
This light bulb works with the Google Assistant and also Amazon Alexa.
Setting this up with Google was pretty easy; you go to the Google Home app, click on 'Add device' click on 'Works with Google Assistant'
and then search for Mirabella Genio link in your account and then you'll be good to go.
In my opinion, it's really beneficial that you can control this light bulb with Google Home.
If you have different light bulbs from different brands, you don't want to be constantly jumping in and out of different apps to control the different bulbs,
you just want to be able to control everything that's smart in your house from one location.
Personally, I wouldn't use the app to control the light, only just to set it up.
Once it's set up, I'll be controlling this light using the Google Assistant either on my phone or using voice commands.
So in order to test how good this cheap light bulb is, I'm going to compare it against a much more expensive bulb.
This is the Lifx Mini which should in theory have about the same output as this other bulb, but this Lifx Mini costs about three times as much as this Mirabella Genio bulb.
I'm going to show you both these bulbs switched onto 100 percent brightness next to each other so you can compare the effectiveness of each bulb.
Here are both the bulbs on the white setting.
When i reviewed the footage comparing the bulbs, it was obvious that the Lifx bulb was more vibrant and deep rich colors.
The colors on the more expensive bulb, you know they were definitely better but it's definitely not three times better which is how much more this bulb costs to buy.
Also, there are a lot more features in the app for the Lifx bulb, but I think for most people, or at least for me,
I'm only going to control the app using the Google app anyway.
So, I don't know if I really need those extra features that come with the app.
Now on the forums and review sites, I did find some users complaining about this light bulb dropping out and having issues where the connection wouldn't be stable.
I didn't have any problems at all. There have been firmware updates that have come out more recently so hopefully they've fixed those problems.
I didn't experience any problems at all; it could be to do with how far you are from your wireless device,
so if you have a weak wi-fi signal, maybe you'll experience dropouts with your light so keep that in mind.
If it's really important to you to be able to adjust the different types of whites that you have in your house, then this bulb is not going to be suitable for you.
But if you can overlook those things and you don't really mind that the color isn't quite as vivid or bright as it is on the more expensive bulb,
then you'll probably be absolutely fine with this cheaper one.
And to be honest, how often are you going to use your smart light bulb with colors?
It seems like a great idea at the time, but in the real world you probably won't use the colors that often.
That's about all I can tell you about the Mirabella Genio light bulb.
I'm not here to tell you whether you should buy this or not, I'm just here to give you the information and you can make up your own mind.
I hope that you did find that video to be helpful. If you did, please subscribe, check out some other videos over here.
I'll see you in the next one.