A great option for smart bulbs.
I was an early adopter of all things smart home. One of my first purchases was actually smart lighting. I loved the idea of being able to have my phone control the lights in my house and not having to worry about forgetting to turn them off when I left the house. My phone connected to the lights seamlessly and I was able to have control of the devices even when I was away from the home. Because I was an early adopter, I have seen smart lighting evolve over the years and new products emerge. The Peace by Hampton Light Bulbs is a welcome addition to the market. They are easy to set-up and produce bright, vibrant light.
DETAILS
The Peace by Hampton Smart LED Bulbs are available exclusively through Best Buy. They don’t require a hub or bridge to operate and they can be controlled by voice assistants or a smartphone app. The lights allow users to be able to customize their home’s lighting modes by creating scenes, adjusting light levels, and, of course, changing the light’s colors. The LED bulbs are available in the standard A19 bulb size. According to Hampton, users can group and control lighting, create scenes, and dim or brighten lights from anywhere just by connecting the bulbs to a home’s Wi-Fi network. Using the Peace By Hampton app, users can seamlessly adjust the white light color temperature settings for each bulb anywhere up to 5000K from 2700K. These bulbs can also be changed to the color-changing, RGB mode, which offers up to 16 million color choices.
“Hampton Products’ LED smart bulbs and smart wall plugs provide an easy and affordable way to take first steps into building out a connected home, or enhancing a home that already has a smart lock or thermostat controlled by Siri, Alexa or Google Home smart assistants,” said Kim Kelley, president and CEO, Hampton Products. “The ability to quickly add a top tier lighting system and automation with minimal investment – by just replacing a bulb or adding a smart plug to an outlet – is a smart way to begin building out a more connected living space.”
USER EXPERIENCE
The light bulbs are standard A19 sized bulbs. They should work in most standard light sockets in your home. The bulbs come in a 4-pack and cost 25-30% less than other popular smart lights. Another differentiator for the lights is that they don’t require a hub to work. They will connect to your Wi-Fi network independently and communicate directly with the app on your mobile device. One thing that I noticed right away was that this set is not compatible with Apple HomeKit set-up, but it does work with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa services. Even though it’s not compatible with HomeKit, the app to control the lights is still available for iOS devices as well was Android-based ones.
The light bulbs are very lightweight. They seem to be made out of plastic or another composite material rather than actual glass. The specs for the lights on their product page state that they are dimmable, but the information on the box clarifies that the light bulbs are only dimmable by using the app. They are not supposed to be used with a dimmer switch. Most smart lights are like this so it didn’t phase me in the least. We decided to install the light bulbs into a light bar that’s located over a bar in our kitchen. The light bar happens to hold 4 light bulbs, which was perfect for this kit. The lights were replacing some basic efficiency light bulbs that always had to be controlled by the light switch. I had been looking at swapping them out for quite some time, but didn’t want to spend nearly 3 times as much as these bulbs to match my other lights. The lights do everything my other lights do – they just don’t connect to my digital assistant of choice — Apple HomeKit. Since they were so easy to install and so easy to work with, I was willing to overlook the difference.
I was actually shocked at how colorful these light bulbs ended up being. Since I have used other types of smart lights, I was expecting the lights to be close to what the others look like. I was surprised by how vibrant the colors were. The light bulbs do feature a full-color spectrum of 16 million colors and shades of white so that you can make the colors as cool or warm as you want. The lights will last up to 25,000 hours, which is equivalent to 3,125 days (or 8.5 years) of use at 8 hours a day. That is a vast difference from older incandescent bulbs that only last 1,000-2,000 hours.
When I first installed them I had a firmware update that needed to take place. I thought for sure it was going to be clunky but to my surprise, the update was super quick and I had no issues even with four bulbs updating. it was awesome. I would like to see Siri control intergraded but I can see myself moving all my home lights over to these because the color is just so good.
CONCLUSION
The set-up was very easy. The app walks you through the process and once the lights are connected, you can set up automations and create groups to make it easier to control them. Because I’ve had experience with some other smart lighting I was completely blown away by these lights. Not only are they cost-effective (as far as smart lighting goes), they are also very easy to work with. I would for sure recommend these and look forward to seeing how these evolve in the future.
For more information on Hampton products, visit BuyHampton.com, Facebook, or Twitter.