“I just got a couple LIFX Mini (A19) Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulbs [$24.99] for my living room and bedroom lights,” Jim Lynch blogs eponymously. “They installed and integrated easily in HomeKit, and now I can control both lights via Siri on my HomePods.”
“These are my first smart bulbs, and I am very impressed with them. They don’t require a hub, and the LIFX app on my iPhone has some very cool features,” Lynch writes. “It’s easy to change colors, use effects and manage my bulbs.”
“I’m impressed with how well Siri has performed too. Siri gets a lot of negative comments from people, but he has done an excellent job for me,” Lynch writes. “Voice commands work well with these bulbs and Siri has not failed me yet. I was able to tell Siri to change the bulb color to purple, blue, yellow, etc. And it was easy to go back to the regular white or warm white color. Siri didn’t miss a beat and confirmed each change as it happened.”
Read more, and see the screenshots, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good to hear that HomePod and Siri works well with these bulbs!
I have Sylvania A19 bulbs that work great with HomeKit and put out strong light in all colors. I was nervous when I opened the package and found complicated instruction for a hub, activation, etc. But then the instructions said OR “point your Apple device’s camera at the QR code on the box to setup with HomeKit”. I shit the QR code with my iPad and the lights instantly showed up in HomeKit, ready for naming and use. Very simple.
BTW, I set up a routine in HomeKit to turn on and off my lights based on wether my iPhone was present (I live alone). One night my lights would keep coming on randomly. I realize that I had disabled WiFi on my iPhone and reenabled it later, but a bug kept my iPhone occasionally shutting off and in WiFi, triggering the lights to come on. FYI
“I shit the QR code…” LOL
Q. How can you tell it’s a Siri bulb Dad?
A. It’s not too bright!
Looks like the bulbs that change colors referred to in the story are $45 not $25
Expensive compared to Hue white bulbs.
Yeah ok, I spent $15 for each that work by WiFi, no hub, and they have an app where you can group them and also work with echo dot. Wonder if the ones described can do that?
My Philips hue bulbs and strips all work flawlessly with HomeKit, Siri and HomePod. What’s the big story here? MDN is so anti HomePod that they use anything to brute force their point??
I can vouch for Koogeek smart plugs and light bulb sockets.
My home’s internal primary lighting uses Lutron Caseta. It requires a hub, but you get switches where switches belong and fairly inexpensive remotes wherever else you want them. They use Lutron’s own very dependable wireless protocol, Clear Connect. They work every time, which isn’t something you can say for a lot of the Bluetooth and WiFi bulbs. It integrates with HomeKit with ONE code. You can have ceiling lights and plug-in lamps. For secondary lighting (like color changing mood lighting) I do use WiFi bulbs from VOCOlinc and a WiFi plug for a table fan by Koogeek Home. But those two items are nowhere near as reliable as the Lutron lights because they are all controlled by the same single hub. If I decide to add a lot more accent lights, I’ll probably go the Philips Hue route and add a Hue bridge because again you have ONE interface between the lights and HomeKit instead of having each bulb trying to connect which seems to cause some train wrecks with HomeKit and Alexa. But for one or two lights, but WiFi bulb is cheaper. What I’d never do is get a Bluetooth lightbulb. I’ve heard those can be slow to respond.