Gabe Turner: Hey folks, this is Gabe at Security Baron and sometimes I have different moods.
Sometimes I'm feeling a little purple, maybe a little green, or even at times some might
say a little blue, but today I'm checking out a bulb that purports to cover all my colors,
the TP-Link Smart WiFi LED Bulb.
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Gabe: In today's review of the TP-Link Smart Bulb, we're going to into its design, its
feature set, the installation experience, and its mobile application, the KASA app,
to make sure you all have the information you need to make the right decision.
If you like to see the list of our favorite smart bulbs, google "Security Baron best smart
bulbs". If you have a question about today's review, leave us a comment, and I'll get back
to you.
Let's kick of today's review of the TP-Link Smart Bulb checking out its design. Now the
design is something you've probably seen before with your A19 shape, but there are some distinctions
like while the bottom has that metal piece, that we're used to, and right above that you
have this nice purple element, and right above that you'll see this almost eggshell design
that looks almost like a golf ball.
The one thing that I want to note is that it has that same hardy substantive feel of
a golf ball. It feels actually quite heavy when it comes to bulbs, and it has a TP-Link
logo, and you'll note that the actual bulb itself it looks a little bit different than
your typical incandescent bulb.
While they're both going to give you the equivalent of 60 watts, in terms of what they're giving
off, this is going to be significantly less in terms of energy that it's actually taking
from your home and your savings are going to really add up over time because of that.
Now you'll also note that the surface area is just that much less because it's just an
LED bulb.
It doesn't need all that space to give off light that you're accustomed to, and it's
just going to be your typical 800 Lumens that we've seen with a lot of the smart bulbs on
the market. This is one of my favorite designs for any of the smart bulbs that we've seen
here at Security Baron.
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Gabe: Now that we've gone over the design of the TP-Link Smart Bulb, let's talk about
its features set. Now right off the bat, I want to say that you have a remarkable range
of temperature when it comes to your lights with the TP-Link Smart Bulb. We're talking
2,500 to 9,000 Kelvin, which is significantly more than we've seen with other smart bulbs
on the market.
On top of that, you've got the full RGB color range, so we can go from crimson to salmon,
to teal, to aqua. You're really going to get the colors that you want for any particular
scene that you like. What is a scene? We can set up scenes up with our TP-Link Smart Bulb.
By that I mean maybe you have a certain dimness level and a certain color for whenever you
watch a horror movie in your home because you don't want it to be completely dark. That's
just a little bit too much because you don't want there to be too much light to preserve
that feeling of dread from your favorite horror flicks.
You can just set that up, tap on it each time you're watching a film, and boom, [snaps finger]
that exact dimness and color comes into your room. Overall, really big fan of that element.
Now in terms of schedules, you can set it up to even be on the circadian calendar so
you can rise with the sun itself. I personally like that. I like knowing exactly when the
sun is rising and if my lights can help me with that, well all the better.
In terms of scheduling, that's an option and if you would like to even go beyond your scenes
and schedules you can even setup your TP-Link smart bulb with other devices and bulbs in
the Kasa smart app.
Beyond that, you have the ability to setup a host of home automations and routines using
Amazon, Google, IFTTT, Microsoft. It even coordinates with your Nest products. Overall,
we're pretty big fans of the feature set on the TP-Link smart bulb.
[music]
Gabe: Hold on, I hope you're enjoying today's review of the TP-Link Smart WiFi LED bulb.
If you want to be kept up to date on the newest in smart bulbs, smart plugs, and smart home
security, subscribed to our channel, Security Baron. We're dropping new content weekly.
All right, let's get back to the video.
Now that we've gone over the design and feature set for the TP-Link smart bulb, let's talk
about that installation experience, which is honestly quite easy and straightforward.
You're going to want to go to your mobile device, download the Kasa app, and make sure
you're on your homes network, the same network that you'll be on for your TP-Link smart bulb.
You're going to want to go ahead and plug in your smart bulb and notice I'm just playing
in the smart bulb. There's no hub around, I don't have to fiddle with that, make sure
that's connected to router. I'm just directly putting in the bulb into my lamp.
From here, you're going to go to the mobile app. In the upper right hand corner you'll
see a plus sign, you'll tap there, tap "Add Device," pick bulb, and from there it will
walk you through the installation process.
You'll put your TP-Link smart bulb on your home's WiFi and you're ready to go. Considering
it's a hubless design, you're going to be done with the entire process in fewer than
three minutes. Overall, it's a real straightforward easy process of setting up your TP-Link smart
bulb with the Kasa app.
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Gabe: Now I want to delve into the mobile app for the TP-Link smart bulb, the Kasa app.
This is where you're going to do most of your interfacing with your bulb, especially if
you're not doing it with your voice. Fortunately, people seem to meet loving their experiences
with the Kasa app, where it has a 4.7 in the Google Play Store and a 4.8 in the Apple App
Store which is phenomenal.
Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone 7 Plus. Here I am checking out the TP-Link
bulb in the Kasa mobile application. Now it's a pretty good-looking app and you get that
remote functionality out of it. You look at here on the top you have the Baron TP-Link
bulb. Of course, I've named it The Baron TP-Link bulb.
I can just turn it off just by tapping on that home page on the far right where that
green power button is, turn it off and turn it back on.
Let's go ahead and dive deeper into the app. I'll tap on Baron TP-Link bulb and there you
can see the brightness level, 94 percent and you can see that I already have a schedule
setup. Now I'm in the actual bulb. The first thing you see is the power. I've already turned
it off and on from the home page.
Let's move over to the brightness level. The brightness level is more like a semi-circle
wheel. I can turn it all the way down, 1 percent, and turn it all the way back up to 100 percent
just using my thumb.
The next part over is the white. Here you can look at your Kelvin level. You can go
from 9,000 Kelvin to 2,500 Kelvin. This gives you a different warmth and tone in the room.
The final thing you'll note on that bottom spectrum is color. Color allows you to go
in and change the colors as you see fit from red, to green, to blue, to a magenta-purple,
pinkish color.
Below that, you'll note that you have a few different options. You have presets, which
will allow you to change the preset. I've changed my white preset to 73 percent. I could
change my red preset to more of a pink. Now, you see here, I've changed it to more of a
pink. I can even change my green preset here, is down to 40 percent. There's a few different
options.
The thing I like about setting up a light bulb is schedules. You can see here I've set
up two schedules, one for the morning to give me that early-morning, not too bright. It's
at 50 percent. It's 7:50 AM, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Then, I also want to make sure it turns off. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
I turn it off at 5:54 PM. If I wanted to add more, I go to this plus button in the top,
right-hand corner. You see here, there are different options.
I can set bulb to circadian, or last on-date, or I can decide on a color like blue. I can
say, I'm going to have this turn on every day at 12:30. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and voila, now I have it turning on at 12:30.
If I want to turn off this particular scheduling element, I can toggle it off by tapping on
the right side. The final thing from this part of the mobile application by Kasa, is
the usage. The usage's interesting because here, it tells you the times, how long you've
actually been using it, the energy that's been used, and it gives you energy-savings.
It tells you how much you've saved today and how much you could predict to save yearly.
You can go look at the daily average for the past seven days, the daily average for the
past 30 days. Then, you can go check out your settings. In your settings here, you have
your name and icon. Once again, this is the TP-Link bulb. I've called it the Baron TP-Link
bulb.
You can look at your default states on from the app, on from the power source, or the
device info. You'll note here that we initially set this up in April. Now, we've gotten already
to August and done some experience with the TP-Link bulb. We're in the New York time-zone.
Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of this app.
You have to actually go back to the home page to set up the final element which are, scenes.
I want to go into scenes. You'll see here, I have one called "Good morning." I tap on
that. It changes my light. Then, another one I've called "Red" which is pretty straightforward.
It changes my light bulb to red.
I can create any scenes that I'd like. I can create a new one. I can make movie night which
is pretty straightforward, it dims my light. You can pick an icon for popcorn. It's called
"Generic Movie." Let's call ours "Movies with The Rock."
Now we've setup this scene called "Movies with The Rock," and I can control that with
my voice, or I can control it right here in the app. You see here it turns it all the
way down.
Let's go back to Good Morning. Now speaking of controlling it with your voice, let's go
ahead and check out what you can do with the Amazon smart platform. So now let's say that
I turn off the TP-Link Bulb just using my hands in the Kasa mobile application, but
I would like to turn it back on just using my voice, I can say, "Give me light."
That's able to set that up in the Amazon app. You'll see here I can go into the app. Go
to Baron TP-Link Bulb. I can actually do a lot of the same things I can do in the Kasa
mobile app right there in terms of changing the brightness. I can set the color -- crimson,
orange, or gold.
The interesting thing I can do is actually create a routine. So here I have a couple
routines already setup, in terms of the give me light routine. I also setup a routine where
I actually turn the lights down just by using my voice. If I wanted to change this to 25
percent brightness I would just say, "Turn the lights down low."
Now I've actually changed the brightness just with that routine that I've created. So overall,
I'm really impressed with the Kasa mobile application in its simplicity and the ability
to go into and setup various routines.
[music]
Gabe: All right, so we've gone over all the elements that make the TP-Link Smart Bulb
what it is today. You want to know, "Gabe, is this the right smart bulb for me?" Honestly,
I have to say, "Probably." I'm even finding it hard to critique anything about the TP-Link
smart bulb. I really enjoyed my experience over the past couple of months using it.
One thing to note is that just as a bulb it is bringing a lot to the table. It has that
nice wide range of temperature for whites. It has the full RGB color spectrum. In terms
of using it on your phone, the mobile application Kasa app has phenomenal reviews. It's doing
so well in terms of people on the Google Play and Apple App Store.
The final thing I'll mention is that you're getting all this for under $30. So sure, there
are more affordable bulbs out there but do they bring everything that this bulb brings
to the table? Probably not. So overall, I'm a big fan of the TP-Link Smart Bulb and think
it could really bring a lot of utility to the lamps around your home.
[background music]
Gabe: That concludes our review of the TP-Link Smart WiFi LED Bulb. If you appreciated today's
video, give us a "Like" and hit the "Subscribe" button. As always this is Gabe at Security
Baron. Be secure.