Here at Smart Home Reviews Eh!, we have reviewed so many smart light bulbs. But out of all the light bulbs we have reviewed, Lifx is our favourite. In this Lifx/ Lifx + review, we will discuss why we think the Lifx’s app, the night vision helper on the Lifx + and the lack of base station makes the Lifx and Lifx + our favorite among them.
Lifx/Lifx+ Review – Go ahead, rock out with your lights
What’s the best way to test a set of smart home light bulbs? It’s to test them on your own home, of course! For this Lifx/Lifx+ Review, we’ve installed the bulbs in several different rooms. We actually liked them so much that they’ve ended up as our go-to-lights for our work area.
In this Lifx and Lifx+ Review, we’ve given the regular bulbs a score of 4.3 Eh’s out of 5 and the Lifx+ a score of 4.7 Eh’s out of 5. On average, these bulbs score better than most Philips Hue bulbs. With the Color Ambiance Bulbs being close in terms of score to the Lifx+ bulbs.
(Press for the full comparison table)
Currently, the Lifx+ bulbs are the king of the smart home lights. But not the case if you are running Apple Home. In that case, the Philips Hue are still better since you can control the bulbs through the Home App and Siri.
Design – Different but not TOO different
The Lifx bulbs look a little different than your normal smart home light bulb. It is flatter and taller. But the look does not really matter when the Lifx is installed in your lamps or pot lights.
The Lifx bulbs are dimmable. It can be set to whatever color you want quite easily. The Lifx is also the brightest smart home light bulb we have reviewed so far at 1100 lumens. The color of the bulbs are also quite consistent between different bulbs.
The extra brightness and the color settings are PERFECT for our home office. We were able to change the setting depending on the type of activity we do. We put up a warm color whenever we do mobility work on our basement while we put 8000k light setting to set the mood for our work.
Functionality – Works well enough to compete with the Philips Hue
The Lifx app is quite nice. It is on the same level as the Philips Hue in terms of ease of use. But Lifx has added a few more settings that make the bulbs a little more attractive than the Philips Hue.
A standout feature on the Lifx is the changing of the lights depending on the music. The feature is great for an area where you entertain people. If you plan on spending some serious cash on smart home lighting, we suggest you consider adding a Nanoleaf Aurora to your set of Lifx bulbs.
For connectivity, the Lifx bulbs do not require a base station which is nice. However, Lifx bulbs cannot be accessed remotely through their app. If you need that feature, you’ll need to integrate the bulbs with Alexa or Google Home.
We personally didn’t come across many instances where the bulbs would not connect. We only experience two instances where the colours of the bulbs didn’t match. A quick adjustment in color settings fix the problem so it wasn’t a big deal.
When it comes to automations, Lifx’s API integrates well with a plethora of different services such as IFTTT and Stringify.
Lifx vs Lifx+ – Are the extra $ 20 for a Lifx + worth it?
The biggest differences between the regular Lifx bulb and Lifx+ is the InfaRed (IR) lighting and the slightly improved weather resistance.
These extra features are quite handy especially if you’re pairing the Lifx+ with smart home camera that has night vision through IR LED’s like a Nest Cam Indoor, Cam IQ, or D-Link Omna. This combination allows you to have a camera on the inside of your home, pointed outside into your backyard and have the camera monitor everything that goes on at night.
The extra features, however, costs 20 dollars more than a regular Lifx. But compared to Philips Hue, the total install cost is more cheaper. The reason for that is because buying Lifx bulbs are cheaper in bulk than buying the light bulb per bulb. We actually elaborated it more on the Lifx vs Philips Hue comparison review.
Compatibility – Not the best choice for a Homekit user
The Lifx bulbs work with IFTTT, Alexa, Smart Things and Google Home. However, It doesn’t work with HomeKit. Which is odd since Lifx has a working Apple Watch app.
Apple removed their hardware requirements for Homekit devices so we’re hoping that Lifx will be able to release an update for the bulbs that includes HomeKit compatibility.
Bur until then, if you’re planning on going with Apple Home as your Smart Home Platform, don’t get a set of Lifx bulbs. Unlike Smart Home Cameras, we recommend keeping the light bulbs within your chosen smart home platform. Being able to remotely access your light bulbs through Siri will come in handy since lights are used a lot throughout the day. But if you’re running Alexa or Google Home, knock yourself out.
We hope our Lifx and Lifx+ Review and comparison has helped you out. If you liked this post and are considering getting some for yourself, check out our links to purchase your products. Let us know if you have any comments or questions in the comments below!
