Gabe: Hi folks, this is Gabe with Security Baron. If you're in the market for a hubless
affordable smart bulb, we may have just the solution for you as we review the Bulbrite
Solana Smart LED Bulb.
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Gabe: In today's review of the Solana Smart LED Bulb we're going to go over some pros
and cons, its design, its features set, the installation experience before diving into
its mobile application to make sure you have all the information you need to make the right
decision.
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Gabe: If you'd like to see a 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 off today's review of the Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb going over
some pros and cons, beginning with the pros.
In terms of setting it up, it's really easy. You probably can get it done within three
minutes just using your mobile device, the Solana app and the actual bulb and device
itself. Overall, really enjoyed that process.
On top of that, if you want to integrate with the voice assistance of Amazon or Google you
can do so pretty easily within the app. You can set, not only the scenes in terms of colors,
but also turn your bulb on and off just using your voice.
On the cons side, while you get some really nice white brightness from the Solana Bulb,
you're not going to get that as soon as you move to color. There's a severe decline. It's
a dramatic difference between what you get in terms of brightness for your lights and
what you get in terms of brightness for any of your colors.
If you move from purple to green to red, you're just not going to get that bright of a bulb,
to the point when it's really noticeable when using a Smart Solana LED Bulb.
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Gabe: Now that we've gone over the pros and cons for the Solana LED Bulb, let's look at
its design. Right off the bat you note that it's got your typical A19 profile. It looks
pretty much like a traditional bulb in terms of size. That is the E26 lamp base so it should
fit into any of your traditional lamps.
It has a large base with the Bulbrite Solana logo and a translucent place where you would
find glass in your traditional bulb.
I don't think it's particularly remarkable in terms of design but that's what we're expecting
from a smart bulb. You want it to, essentially, look like anything else that you've had so
it doesn't really drag down any of other aesthetic choices in your space. Overall, I'm not at
all upset with the design on the Solana Smart LED Bulb.
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Gabe: Whoa, hold on. I hope you're enjoying today's review of the Bulbrite Solana Smart
LED Bulb. If you want to be kept up to date on the newest in smart bulbs, smart home security,
and cyber security, subscribe to our channel, Security Baron. We're dropping new content
weekly. Let's get back to the video.
Now that we've gone over the pros and cons and design on the Solana Smart LED Bulb, let's
talk about its features set. Of course, the most important feature maybe is the fact that
you can control it remotely. Using the Bulbrite Solana app, you'll be able to turn them off
and on, but beyond that, change the color.
You have that full RGB spectrum so you can really dial in the color that you want for
the room to get that vibe just right. In addition to having that, you can change the brightness
and the temperature. You're looking at 2,200 to 6,500 Kelvin in whites. You're really going
to get exactly that brightness and that feeling that you want to have flowing throughout your
space.
If you don't want to use your hands, well, guess what? You can use your voice when you
integrate it with Amazon or Google's Virtual Assistant. You can turn the bulb on to off.
You can change the color. You have a lot of abilities with the integration of Amazon and
Google with the Bulbrite Solana app.
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Gabe: Beyond remote and voice control, with the Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb, you can
get scenes and schedules. Schedules are useful for giving you that visual reminder for something
you'd like to do or follow up on. For me, it's 10:30 Sunday through Thursday, I want
this light to go off to remind me, "Hey, go to bed, you need a great night's sleep." You
can do so just by setting up that schedule.
Scenes are even more fun. If there's a certain mood I'm trying to go for in a room, for example
I want it to be blue, I can set up a scene and call it Blue. Then whenever I tap on that
scene, all the light bulbs will go blue which is really useful. Even more useful maybe is
when you have a night, like a movie night. You want there to be some light but you don't
want it to overtake your movie watching experience.
You can set up the Movie Night scene. Once you have that Movie Night scene, you tap on
that and then you're ready to go. It's going to go directly to the level of light that
everyone in your family enjoys and appreciates. Scenes and schedules are really fun and useful
elements of the Bulbrite Solana app. Overall, you get a pretty impressive feature set with
your Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb.
Let's talk about the installation experience with your Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb.
It's pretty straightforward. You're going to make sure you have the Bulbrite Solana
app downloaded, your account set up and then it's pretty straightforward. You'll take your
bulb, you'll make sure that the lamp is on.
Once you've got it screwed in, it'll actually start to blink pretty quickly. Once you see
it blinking, you'll hit Add New Bulb on the app. It'll ask you, "Do you see the blinking
happening?" You'll say, "Yes." From there it asks you, "OK, can we input your WiFi information?"
Once you put the WiFi in, it'll connect and that's it.
It's a really easy, straightforward process that shouldn't take you any long than three
minutes from beginning to end in terms of setting up your Bulbrite Solana Smart LED
Bulb.
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Gabe: Now that we've installed our Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb, let's jump into its
mobile app, the Bulbrite Solana app. This is where you're going to be interfacing with
your bulb in terms of turning it off, changing the brightness and the color, the temperature.
All of those things you want to be an intuitive, easy process.
It's pretty early for Bulbrite Solana to the extent that they have very few reviews out
there. Of the reviews that we have seen in both the Google Play and Apple App Stores,
the vast majority are five-star ratings. Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone.
Here I'm checking out the Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb on the Bulbrite Solana mobile
application. If I jump straight into the app itself, I'm going into my group, what I've
called Living Room. In here, if you note, I can turn it directly off just by tapping
on Off.
Fortunately, it does have voice control with Amazon's Virtual Assistant so I can just say,
"Turn on color bulb." Voila! Now, I've got the color bulb. Let's go ahead and check out
some of these whites that I'm getting. I'm at 6,500 Kelvin, I go down a little bit, can
change the color as much as I'd like to. All the way down to 2,200.
One thing I will note is that during this process, it's not exactly immediate oftentimes
in terms of what you see on the mobile app and what you'll actually see physically manifested
by the bulb itself. While these are pretty nice brights, if you go to color you'll note
that, now we're in blue, you're not really getting a lot of color emanating from this
bulb.
Change it to green, it's not particularly that bright. I can change it to yellow, also
not that bright. Orange, red. It's a little bit disappointing in terms of how bright it
is going to emanate those colors that we want to see.
There are other elements with this app that you get, like scenes. For example, here you
see I've got Blue, Red, and Yellow. If I tap on Yellow, it changes the scene to yellow.
I can change it to blue by tapping on Blue. I can set any new scene I'd like. I can decide
just the color bulb. Let's name this scene Purple, for example. Go to the color, let's
change that color to purple.
Now I've set this as a scene and I'll have access to it along...It looks like I misspelled
purple but you guys get the idea. Alexa now understands that that is an element of a scene
and I can say directly to it that it needs to play Purple and I would actually get that
scene playing on my Bulbrite Solana app.
If I go to schedule, you'll note that I've set up a number of schedules here. I can set
up a bed time schedule, a work schedule. Basically that's when anytime you're going to be away
at work. You can have that set up. Let me edit this one. Now it says from 8:00 PM to
7:00 PM and I actually want that to be AM.
I can adapt that work schedule and now you'll see that it says every weekday from 8:00 PM
to 7:00 AM. It's going to know to turn itself off because I'll be at work. Beyond that,
you'll note that you have your groups, you have your actual space itself. They make it
really easy for you to go in and out, setting up your scenes and schedules and controlling
your actual devices in the Bulbrite Solana mobile application.
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Gabe: We've come a long way with our Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb. But you want to know,
"Gabe, is this the right bulb for me?" If you're looking for an easy to set up bulb
that has great integration with Amazon and Google in terms of voice controlling your
smart bulb, then the Solana might be the move for you.
However, if you're looking for a nice bright color wheel when it comes to using your Smart
LED bulb, you're just not going to get that with the Solana. We felt that it was a bit
disappointing when it comes to how nice and bright its whites were and then how dull and
ultimately lacking its colors were.
Overall, if you're going to spend $29.99 on a smart LED bulb, you may want to look somewhere
else if you're looking for that nice bright vivid color.
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Gabe: That concludes our view of the Bulbrite Solana Smart LED Bulb. If you appreciate today's
video, give us a like and hit that subscribe button. As always, this is Gabe with Security
Baron. Be secure.
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