PACKAGING | CONTENTS

The Yeelight Cube Smart Lamp exists as three separate models; the ‘Panel’, the ‘Spot’, and the ‘Matrix’. Each of these is the same in terms of size and shape, but each offers something distinct. They can all work together, however. More on the differences in a bit.

To slightly complicate things, each cube can be bought as part of what you might call a basic starter pack, which includes one cube and a base, which both power the Cube(s) and connects to your network, or as an ‘extension’, meaning you get the cube by itself, without the base to power it. In the case of the above, you can see this is the pack that includes the base and one ‘Panel’ cube.

The box for the ‘starter’ pack is larger due to the included power supply and aforementioned base unit.

Starting with the base, which is actually the part that both connects to your smart home and your network. To connect to your home network, it uses standard 2.4GHz WiFi. It would’ve been nice to have seen Thread used here, but Yeelight doesn’t seem to have gone down that route, instead sticking with WiFi and Bluetooth Mesh for some of its other products. The base matches the cubes in terms of two of its three dimensions (square, essentially), with a touch-sensitive indent acting as a multi-function button on the front. The back of the cube is home to a coaxial port for the power supply, and the upper face houses a recessed circle containing four metallic rings. This is what transmits power and data from the base to cubes connected to it in series. The relevant information is etched on this surface as well, which includes not only basic electrical specs but also the Matter QR code. Yes, if you weren’t already aware, whilst this can work with HomeKit, it does so via Matter, so there’s no HomeKit code as such. As regards the aforementioned rings, each cube also has one of these sets of rings, along with an ‘opposing’ connection to pass on the power/data to successive cubes, which I’ll show you in a bit. The underside, which you’ll only see if the base is stood on its side, houses a stylised version of the Yeelight logo.

Onto one of the three cubes now, and as already mentioned, there’s an instance of the four recessed metallic rings on one end. The opposite end features a raised circle that’s home to four retractable pins. These, in case it isn’t obvious by now, correspond to the four rings. The back of the device is blank, and the front with the LED display has nothing of note unless it’s powered up, which we’ll see later.

Finally, the power supply is of a design used by Yeelight many times. I’ve got the North American (Type A) version here, but the power supply has a removable plug, which can be switched out to one of three versions, depending on where you purchase this or where it’s shipping to, so you’ll get either a European adaptor (Type C) or a UK adaptor (Type G).

THE THREE CUBE VARIANTS

I’ve got all three variants here, starting with the…

• PANEL: you can see it’s one large colour…panel, although underneath the diffuser it still has 25 individual LEDs like the Matrix. The diffuser merely blends the lights so that they create a uniform look. As it has 25 LEDs, it can display multiple colours at once.
• MATRIX: This comes with the name for obvious reasons, and with this display, you get 25 dots each capable of producing different colours. As there’s no diffuser as is found with the Panel, you can create graphics and other images very clearly.
• SPOT: This option is only capable of one colour at a time, as it’s one large and powerful LED, with a built-in reflector to maximise brightness. What it does offer is the ability to act as a light to shed colour onto a wall or a ceiling, but it can also be angled to a certain degree.

PUTTING THEM TOGETHER

As you can see from the promotional image above, these can connect using the rings and pins I showed earlier, with a maximum of six cubes of any type connected to one base at any time. If you want more than six cubes, then you just set up another base unit, and add cubes to that base. Each Cube has magnets to help keep them stuck together.

The base unit, as previously stated, is what connects the Cubes to your smart home platform of choice with the included Matter code. In my case, I added the base unit to the Yeelight Station app, which is a new and separate application from the standard Yeelight app. This is specifically for the Cube at this time, but I’m sure it’ll be home to future smart home lighting products of this type at some point later.

YEELIGHT STATION APP

In the app, the main screen will show each base unit you have in a separate block, so in the example above there’s only one base unit. From there you can turn the base (and by extension any Cubes connected to it) on or off, or select one of thirteen preset ‘modes’ as they’re labelled, although I’d tend to refer to these as preset themes. Tapping anywhere else on the main device panel opens up more options, so the same 13 modes are available as floating ‘bubbles’ (spread over two screens) that give you a better idea of what each mode might look like, along with the descriptive name. Each mode also comes with an edit button to allow customisation of each mode. Depending on the mode’s theme, you can edit overall or individual colours, the speed of the animation, and change the direction of the animation, where available.

As the Yeelight Cubes are modular, allowing for a mix of types and amounts, you do need to let the app know the layout of the set of Cubes. Within the Device Settings menu, the Module Splicing option does just this, with a visual UI to allow you to add or remove different Cube types, rearrange the order, and select the orientation of the base unit. As previously stated, the maximum amount of Cubes you can add to a base unit is six. I assume this is due to power constraints, although if you set these to be upright, like a tower block, then any more than six cubes is likely an accident waiting to happen, which at worst, could injure a toddler if one of these cubes landed on their head (they’re not light and the corners are reasonably sharp) or at the least could leave you with a damaged, non-functional Cube.

The touch-sensitive button on the base unit serves three main functions;

• a single tap turns the unit and the Cubes on if they’re off.
• a 2-second press turns the unit/cubes off
• a 5-second press factory resets the base unit
• a single tap when the unit is on, cycles through up to eight different modes

By default, six of the modes are already assigned, but you can assign any of the modes as well as your own designs if you wish. This is achieved via the ‘Custom Button Switching’ option.

For a few other settings, the Device Settings panel allows for firmware updates, LAN control, and Pairing Mode for Matter. Even though the base units come with a Matter code, once that code has been used for one smart home platform (in this case Yeelight’s own system), it can’t be reused to add the device to additional platforms, so in my case when the base unit was added to the Yeelight Station app, in order to get it into HomeKit, I needed to generate a new code, that I could then paste into the Home app when adding it to HomeKit. This code changes each time the Pairing mode has been activated.

If you were to add the base unit to HomeKit first, you’d use the provided Matter QR code, then enable Pairing mode in the Home app for other platforms. This appears to be pretty much the same arrangement with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, although, at the time of writing, you can’t add Matter devices to these two platforms unless you do so via an Android phone.

Even though the Cubes come with some nice preset modes, you can create your own, so in the case of both the Panel and Matrix, you can draw your designs on a 25-dot artboard, with each dot representing a colour LED in both of these Cubes. The UI allows you to colour each ‘dot’ individually, which you can see easily reflected on the display for the Matrix, although less so on the Panel, as it has a diffuser, so the dots are far less obvious. The Spot is a different story, as it can only do one colour at a time, so it’s really just a case of selecting a colour. There’s also a ‘Dynamic Effects’ option that can be applied to both preset modes and your own creations. These are;

• None (off basically)
• Translation – scrolling from the top, bottom, left, or right
• Breath – the brightness of the Cubes pulsates slowly
• Flashing – the cubes turn on and off
• Accumulation – the design is gradually built up with the relevant LEDs turning on bit by bit

In addition to the option to create your own visuals, you get a large selection of presets that are grouped into different areas;

• Graphics – these consist of icons of all types, like arrows, patterns, hearts, and even those ghost creatures found in Pacman
• Alphabet – this is simply the 26 letters of the English alphabet
• Numbers – zero to nine basically.

These all come with preset colours, although the colours can be changed simply by selecting the ‘edit’ button at the bottom.

And finally, you get some presets designed to work best with certain dynamic effects;

• Transition
• Horizontal combination
• Vertical combination

These allow you to set up a set of Cubes (using only Matrix Cubes for the best effect) and have them move in sequence to create a sort of animated effect, as the designs roll either vertically or horizontally across all of the Cubes.

CLOCK FUNCTION

Many people asked me on social media if the clock feature would actually work once these were released, and I’m happy to say it works as hoped.

There’s nothing you need to do other than to turn the feature on in the Yeelight Station app, although to be clear, this feature cannot be activated unless you have at least four Matrix cubes available and set up in the app. Once that’s sorted, you can then just turn the option on and the current time will immediately take over from whatever was there previously. Tapping on the clock theme opens up a second screen that offers a choice of 8 preset colour options, ranging from multi-coloured, tinted, or regular colours. These cannot be altered, other than for brightness, so if you don’t particularly like the choice of yellow in the particular preset, that’s too bad.

You also have the option to choose from just the time, the date, or both date and time. The latter option switches between time and date every few seconds. If you add other Matrix or Panel Cubes to the lineup whilst the clock is active, they won’t do anything and will be inactive. The Spot is the exception to this and will beam a solid colour in the same hue as the clock, and at the same brightness.

IN THE HOME APP

If you’ve ever owned any multicolour devices before (like the Onvis K1 Kameleon light strip for example), you’ll know that HomeKit is confined to one colour at a time, so if you choose a colour in the Home app UI, all the cubes will change to this colour. Any special designs will also be replaced by a solid colour, whether it’s the Panel, Matrix, or Spot. You can adjust the brightness as normal, and in fact, if the Cubes are set to a specific Yeelight Station ‘Mode’, turning the cubes on within Home will retain that design, and even allow you to adjust the overall brightness of that design, but the moment you choose a colour, the design is gone. Companies like the aforementioned Onvis get around this by allowing you to create multicolour designs in their own app and save them as ‘Scenes’ which also show up as scenes in the Home app, thereby allowing you to recall these multicolour creations within automations etc. Yeelight’s app is not currently capable of such a feat, at least not right now, which is a shame.

This points to the larger limitations of the Yeelight Station app, as you don’t even have options to trigger the cubes to turn on or off via schedules. Even if the app was only capable of turning a design on or off at specific times or days, it would be something, but it can’t do anything like that, which means a lot of these changes have to be performed manually, via the app or the button on the base unit.

Hopefully, based on my conversations with Yeelight so far, this will change with future updates to the app, that’ll add more functionality, and likely even more ‘Themes’, so we’ll have to wait and see. It’s also entirely possible that even more types of Cube will be released down the line, although what form these would take I’m not sure.

MATTER

When it comes to Matter, things worked fine when it came to adding the base unit to HomeKit, and it was pretty much like adding any natively HomeKit-compatible device. That said, when it came to adding it to other platforms, it was – as you’ve probably seen is the case with some other reviewers – a bit of a mixed bag. I currently have devices from Google, Amazon, and Samsung* that will all allow Matter over WiFi devices, although in the case of the former two, you can currently only add a Matter device via their respective Android apps. This was a success when it came to Alexa, and I am now able to control the Cube lights via Alexa or the app – even on iOS now that it has been added to my account. Sadly it wasn’t the case when it came to Google, for whatever reason, but I’m not going to dwell on it for now.

*I have yet to set up the Samsung SmartThing Station…lazy

IN USE

I’ve had a fair bit of fun exploring the options available, and generally speaking, I think Yeelight has scored a large win with this set of lights. The obvious comparison to the recently released Twinkly Squares can’t be ignored, although they are in many ways quite different products – the Twinkly offering is designed for being wall mounted, whilst these Cubes are meant for a desktop or shelf. The Twinkly Squares do offer a higher ‘resolution’ if you can call it that, as they offer an 8 x 8 matrix, which gives you a total of 64 individually controllable LEDs compared to Yeelight’s 5 x 5 matrix (25 LEDs), but importantly, Yeelight offers three different models, not just a matrix-type tile. Both use WiFi, but if you were ever concerned about futureproofing, then Yeelight, with its Matter support offers local control for all compatible platforms. Both offer Razer connectivity, and even though I don’t have a PC, for any gamer out there, these would undoubtedly be a welcome addition – not just for gaming, but music and video too.

The build quality is in all honesty, second to none. The cubes are really well manufactured, and just by holding one in your hand, it just feels really premium. Likewise, the colours are richly saturated and bright to the extent they need to be, and as it uses WiFi, you generally get fast response times, although I’d really have liked to have seen Thread in use here.

My only frustration is the lack of any form of automation or scheduling options within the Yeelight app, so I do hope they come up with something in this respect, even if it’s basic, as without this, it can be tiresome to go into the app or get up to turn the Cubes on or off.

Some have said they don’t see the point of these, and whilst I get the argument, I think as I’ve already said, these work best when paired with a PC, but I think there’s a lot of mileage still to be had with these. Sure, it’s a bit of a novelty in many ways, but then I’m not Amish, so I think I can afford to experience some colourful smart lights once in a while without the need to question its role in society!

If you’re looking for functional lighting, these are almost definitely not for you, but if you have kids, like to entertain, or play games on your PC, these are some of the better products on the market right now.

The post Yeelight Cube Smart Lamps w/ Matter (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

What’s great is that these work with Matter out of the box, meaning they’re instantly compatible with All the main ecosystems too – Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.

These cubes come in three different types – Panel, Matrix, and Spot, with each offering unique attributes, but When combining them, you get a lot of options to present some wild effects. In order for them to function, you’ll need at least one base sold either as a starter pack or available for purchase separately, which is the device that connects to your smart home.

You can save some money by pre-ordering these cubes as part of an “Early Bird” pricing option from Yeelight’s own IndieGogo crowdfunding page via the link below;

Yeelight IndieGogo

The super early bird price of a cube standard pack (containing 1 x Cube, 1 x base, and 1 x power adapter) is under US$60; a single extension pack is under US$35. There are also several combos offering more discounts, which you can check out on the website for further info.

The post Yeelight Cube Smart Lamp with Matter appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

PACKAGING/UNBOXING

The Vision Pro, as I’ll refer to it as going forward, is quite a large lamp and so the packaging matches that aspect, despite doing a great job of minimising wasted space. The front shows off the lamp’s main visual feature, which is the dual sets of LEDs that are pretty reminiscent of the face of a Praying Mantis! As this product was purchased in China, all text and manuals are in Simplified Chinese, although as this is readily available in parts of Europe, it’s likely you’ll find this with a manual in English (and other languages) at the very least. The front of the box only sports the HomeKit logo, but it’s actually exposed to Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and even Samsung SmartThings.

The rear of the box has some specs, although once again, they are all in Chinese, so not a lot to see if you can’t read the language.

One side of the box shows off a series of icons to push the lamp’s many features, which includes;

• Auto light Sensing
• ‘SunLike’ technology to closely simulate natural light
• Front-facing controls
• High colour rendering index
• Anti-Strobing technology

Of course, as this is a smart lamp, you can also include it in scenes and automations in HomeKit, Yeelight, Mi Home etc.

Everything is nicely packaged and protected – something I’m always on the lookout for, so considering the distance it had to cover to get to me, even the packaging did pretty well, not to mention the contents of the box.

THE LAMP PARTS

We’ll come to the lamp itself shortly, but the first things you’ll encounter are a manual, which has one of two instances of the HomeKit code, along with a quick start guide, that explains the functions of the lamp (yes, there’s more to the lamp than you think). You also get a power supply, and in this case, as the lamp doesn’t use a ground/earth wire, the plug only has two pins. Luckily for me in Taiwan, and any potential customers in North America, Japan, and the Philippines, the two-pin plug is compatible with our sockets too, as it’s essentially a Type A plug.

The base of the stand is fairly weighty, as required, and comes with a circular slot to affix the lamp into. The lamp is secured with a screw at the back. The underside of the base comes with another instance of the HomeKit code, and three rubber feet.

THE LAMP

The stalk of the lamp that fits into the lamp base is one of only two slight disappointments I can find, in that the plastic feels a little soft and could quickly be prone to wear, making the stand a bit loose, but we’ll have to see how it fares. As you can see, the lamp slots in nicely enough, to make it all look like a unified piece.

The cable that connects the lamp to the power supply isn’t, as you might expect, connected at the base, but on the lower portion of the lamp arm itself, with a cable coming out, ending in a coaxial port for the previously mentioned power supply to connect to. The reason for this is that the Vision Pro actually comes in two varieties – one with the standard base I have here, or a clamp base for those with less desk space to spare.

As you can see, the design of the Vision Pro is fairly different, with a wide lamp section that is possibly more suited to work use than anything else. As the base has no connection to electricity, all control is to be found on the lamp itself.

The controls on the lamp are all touch-sensitive, and only require a light touch in order to utilise them, so there are effectively no mechanical parts to the lamp in respect of buttons. These controls cover all of the basic and intermediary functions of the lamp. On your left (as you face the lamp) you have colour temperature control, as indicated by the orange and blue dots, which represent warm to cool white. To change the colour temperature, you simply slide your finger along the line between the two dots. You can also just tap at either end of the line to ‘fast track’ to 100% cool or warm white, which is also the case with the brightness slider on your right, which functions in just the same way – slide to adjust the brightness.

The middle controls are more specific in the way they are controlled; for example whilst the middle control just requires a tap to turn the lamp on or off, the controls on either side require a long press in order to activate their specific functions. The small button resembling a clock is essentially a sort of countdown timer, although it’s not connected to the standard countdown timer option, which I’ll go into in a bit more depth later.

The button with the ‘A’ in the centre is connected to light sensors located on the top of the lamp as well as the underside, between the two LED sections. Essentially, the two light sensors work in tandem to monitor the brightness of the ambient light in the room and the light coming from the lamp. When the light-sensing function is active, a small colour LED will light up the button. If the brightness of the room and the lamp are not too at odds with each other, then the small LED will be green. The lamp will also automatically adjust its brightness for optimum performance. If the room is too dark and the lamp too bright, then the LED will show as red indicating that the lamp is too bright for use in a dark room, and action should be taken to avoid potential eye strain. When this feature is on, the lamp’s colour temperature and brightness can’t be adjusted.

This is a feature I’ve so far not seen on any other smart lamps, although it may well exist on regular lamps, and certainly new to me. As such, I feel it’s a very good feature if the lamp is going to be used for extended periods of time.

Aside from the two light sensors, the underside of the lamp features proximity sensors that are part of an experimental feature called ‘Human induction mode’. This mode can only be activated in the Mi Home app, so it’s not available via HomeKit (as expected to be honest), or the Yeelight app. As the name might imply, this is designed to detect the presence of a human and turn the light on when someone is close. It’s not designed like a motion sensor, and as such is only designed to work when someone is quite close to the lamp. Strangely enough, whilst the feature is available, I couldn’t actually seem to get it to work, so it really does seem experimental to the point that it’s seemingly not activated!

The underside is where you also find two sets (or rows) of LEDs, covered with a frosted diffuser to soften the glare of the LEDs.

These LEDs are also angled in such a way that they avoid being directed at the eyes, and point down in a way that covers the areas needed more, not just splashing the whole area with light. Of course, the lamp can be directed at someone’s eyes if you wanted them to, but as you can see from the diagram above, Yeelight has paid attention to this detail in ways that most companies making smart lamps haven’t really considered.

On the subject of adjusting the angle of the lighting, the Vision Pro, just like the Mi Desk Lamp Pro (also made by Yeelight) has three main joints – one at the base, which we’ve already seen, a mid-joint, and a joint where the arm meets the lighting section itself.

Unlike the aforementioned Mi Desk Lamp Pro, the Vision Pro can move the lighting section in three planes – it can rotate almost 360º, with the only limitation being the power cable at the back. It can tilt forward or back, and it can even rotate to a small degree so that you can angle the lamp to be lopsided if you so desire, due to the ball joint. In practice, I don’t find myself adjusting the light too often, to be honest, but given that this lamp can serve multiple people in the family, each with different requirements, it’s still great to have the option.

IN HOMEKIT

The Vision Pro in HomeKit is a fairly standard affair, with a single tile to turn the lamp on or off, and access to a slider control for adjusting brightness or selecting one of six preset colour temperatures, all as expected. Prior to the release of iO15, the colour temperature wheel would strangely, only show what appeared to be warm white even though you could select the lower portion of the circle to generate cool white. That has thankfully been fixed in iOS15.

IN MI HOME

You can add the Vision Pro to the Yeelight app, and assuming you use the same Xioami account as the Mi Home app, should you use it, the lamp will automatically be exposed to Mi Home. Between the two apps, nearly all of the same controls are available, but I actually prefer the basic UI in Mi Home on this occasion. Like with the Home app, in Mi Home, there’s a single tile for the lamp. Tapping on the tile brings up the main interface, which has sliders for both brightness and colour temperature. In addition, you can control the power from here, as well as activate a scheduled timer, and the Auto Light Sensing function mentioned previously.

There are more functions available in Mi Home that aren’t exposed to HomeKit, such as Timers, and Schedules. The timer function allows you to set an instant countdown any time between 1 to 60 minutes. Once set, the timer will automatically begin counting down. Schedules, on the other hand, allow you to set a period of time for when the lamp will turn on, before turning off again. You can set the frequency of the schedule by day or week etc. You can also set scheduled on and off times, with all the same parameter options.

As the lamp can be used for almost anyone, Yeelight has gone to some lengths to ensure the light works best in a given situation; There are two basic modes to choose from – Kids mode, and Adult mode, both of which adjust the brightness and colour temperature based on the mode selected, as our eyes are different when we’re young to when we’re older – or so goes the theory. The company also try to ensure that the lamp doesn’t blind you with light, should the power go off, and come back with the lamp coming on unexpectedly at full brightness, so they’ve provided an option to set the power state, including colour temperature and brightness. This is something other companies now provide of course, but it’s still good to see.

Going back to the section where we looked at the controls on the front of the lamp, and if you recall, there was a button with an ‘A’ in the middle. This button relates to the Default Schedule section in the options for the lamp, of which there are a selection of schedules to choose from;

• Eye-care for Child
• Class Schedule
• Examination Schedule
• Pomodoro
• Focus

As you can see in the screenshot above, each of these preset schedules is different, and have work and rest times relevant to the type of use they offer. When a work period comes to an end, the lights will pulsate, reminding you to take a break. This kind of option is seen on some other smart lamps, even from Yeelight themselves, although they don’t have the kinds of presets offered here.

The only other special feature is listed as ‘experimental’ and actually doesn’t seem to work! The feature is labelled Human Induction mode and is designed to detect when someone is close by the lamp and turns the lamp on. Conversely, if there has been no one detected near the lamp for a certain period of time, the lamp turns off. this isn’t a motion sensor as such, as otherwise, the lamp would detect movement all the time, turning on unnecessarily. In the details for this feature, it mentions that the human induction indicator light should be on when the feature is active, but I’ve never seen any light once since I’ve had the lamp. The fact that this feature isn’t mentioned in the Yeelight app, suggests that it simply hasn’t been activated for whatever reason.

DAY-TO-DAY USE / SUMMING UP

In my humble opinion, Yeelight has a really good industrial design team, as every lamp they’ve made so far, whether it be under their own brand or not, has trodden that thin line between looking modern, and minimalist, whilst also giving a nod to the classic designs of times gone by. None of this would be of much use if the lamps didn’t perform well, but I’ve never really had any issue with this or the other lamps that I’ve owned. When you factor in their attempts to bring accurate lighting to the table, it’s hard not to appreciate what they do. As for this lamp, it’s more of the same in many ways which I mean in a positive way, but with a lamp that goes a fair bit further with the layout of the lamp section itself. I remember seeing evidence of this lamp long before it actually got released, and was intrigued with the design from the start. I actually bought this lamp almost a year ago, and so have had ample time to get used to it, and encounter any potential issues or foibles, but aside from the previously mentioned Human Induction function which has never worked, it has been a very reliable lamp.

The one downside, which seems unavoidable is that even though the controls are touch-sensitive, the lamp can wobble a little when you slide your finger along the strips for brightness or colour temperature, although this is not the fault of the lamp base, which is nicely weighted, more the kind of ‘give’ that comes with a lamp that has these kinds of joints, that themselves have to ‘give’ a little in order for the user to adjust the angle without a lot of effort. Still, given that one of the goals of a smart home is to make things as automated as possible, I’ve generally found that I don’t use the controls a lot, although my mother-in-law is fairly traditional, and uses the on/off control all the time – It works for her, so it must be good!

I mentioned it’s not my favourite, as that accolade must go to the Mi Desk Lamp Pro (made by Yeelight for Xiaomi), but this is only because the controls are on the base of the device, for quick – although fairly basic – control. As such, I don’t experience the slight wobble associated with having the controls on the lamp section. Still, the Vision Pro has a lot more in terms of functionality, so overall I would say it’s the better of the two in many other respects, and should you want a pro lamp for the family, this is the one to consider.

The post Yeelight Vision Pro Desk Lamp (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

COMPONENT PARTS

Above is a promotional image of the lamp fully constructed, so you can see the final set up version.

the lamp comes semi-assembled, so the lampshade containing the LEDs comes with 1/3rd of the lampstand built into the shade itself. The top of the lampshade has a clear plastic lens with what appears to be a bulb underneath, although it’s not clear if this is a bulb or merely a lens that pushes out the light from the internal LEDs. The shade is made from a matt-feel plastic, whilst the tube is made of a metal substance. There’s a power cable that comes from the inside of the shade and through the tube.

The remaining parts of the stand are two separate hollow tubes. They’re hollow for keeping the weight and price down of course, but the power cable that comes out of the tube that’s connected to the lampshade, has to feed through these tubes, right through to the underside of the base, so there’s no unsightly dangling cable to worry about.

The lamp base is the heaviest part and has a thread for the tubes to connect to. There’s a hole in the centre of this screw thread so that the power cable can be passed through to the underside of the lamp base. The stand and the base are tightened via a bolt on the underside of the base. The base also has a cutout groove to feed the power cable through.

The power supply is suitable for North America, using a two-pin, Type A (non-polarised) plug. The end of the cable from the power supply connects to the barrel connector of the cable that’s connected to the lampshade.

The final part is the physical controller for the lamp, which is actually built into the first 3rd of the stand that’s connected to the lampshade.

This controller is touch-sensitive, so there are no mechanical buttons involved, which is just as well, as the stand being so tall and thin, actually wobbles a fair bit whenever it’s touched. This is an unavoidable part of the physics of the device and isn’t a criticism as such, but it’s something to be aware of.

The controller consists of two buttons and a strip;

• The lower button simply turns the power to the lamp on or off. The top and bottom buttons are illuminated whenever the lamp is on.
• The central strip is used to adjust the brightness of the lamp’s light output. You can either tap on a specific area of the strip or simply slide your finger along the length of the strip to adjust the brightness.
• The strip has built-in LEDs that light up as each section is touched in turn.
• There are 9 LEDs in total, with each position representing a preset brightness level, at least in HomeKit.
• The upper button is the mode button. If you’re in White Light Mode, tapping this cycles through preset colour temperature levels – cool white, mid white, and warm white.
• If you long-press the button, you enter Colour Mode.
• When you tap the mode button in Colour Mode, the lamp cycles through five preset colours. These can’t be changed, but you can still adjust the colour of the lamp as you would any smart colour bulb in either the Home app, Yeelight app, Mi Home app, or any 3rd party HomeKit app.

INITIAL SETUP

constructing the lamp wasn’t difficult at all, although you do need a bit of space due to the size of the lamp. It would also be prudent to make sure the stand and lampshade are suitably supported to avoid bending or otherwise putting strain on certain parts of the lamp.

At this point, it’s useful to reiterate that this lamp is capable of the white colour temperature range, as well as full-colour light. However, the colour side of things, for whatever reason, is not exposed to HomeKit. This is not the case with Amazon or Google control, so it’s an odd omission from Yeelight.

COLOUR TEMPERATURE

In standard mode, the lamp is set to white, with control over the colour temperature. Here you can see the three basic preset levels – cool, mid, and warm white. You can of course adjust these levels in all of the aforementioned apps. These presets are achieved via presses of the mode button on the strip controller.

As you can see, it’s much the same case with the light source at the top of the lamp.

BRIGHTNESS LEVELS – STANDARD MODE (WHITE)

The lamp has two modes – standard mode, and night mode. Above are images of the lamp at 100, 50, and 1 per cent brightness in standard mode.

BRIGHTNESS LEVELS – NIGHT MODE

When you compare the lamp in Night mode at 100% compared to the lamp in Standard mode at 1%, you can see a large difference in brightness. Needless to say, Night mode at 1% is almost invisible when photographed. I’ve seen this mode on a number of Yeelight products and the results are much the same, and it really is a handy option for late-night reading in bed where you don’t want to keep your partner awake. This mode is not exposed to HomeKit unfortunately, and is also unavailable via the physical controller, so the only way to access this is via the Yeelight app, via Siri (Shortcuts), or via the Shortcuts app. However, if you have added this lamp to the Yeelight app, it’ll also appear in the Mi Home app, assuming you use the same account for both apps. The advantage of this is that you can program an Aqara or Mijia smart button to trigger the night mode scene, and as the aforementioned buttons are also HomeKit compatible, you can also program them to do other things in HomeKit if you so wish.

COLOUR LIGHTING

As previously mentioned, when you enter Colour mode, you can cycle through five preset colours, all shown above. You can adjust these colours via the respective apps to your hearts’ content, as well as adjust the brightness via the physical control strip. You can also create your own colours in the Home or Yeelight apps, and save them as favourites if you wish.

IN THE HOME APP

IN THE YEELIGHT APP

If you’ve used the Yeelight app before, you might agree that whilst it’s not a fully-fledged app for programming automations, it does offer a reasonably nice interface and a few extra options. In the Devices screen, you get basic control over the power state of the devices, whilst Scenes has a few preset lighting scenes you can access quickly. Control over the colour and colour temperature have their own separate screens, as does the Colour Flow mode. The app also offers a colour picker option to match the lamp colour with something in the camera’s viewfinder. You have Schedules, default state options, night mode, timers, and music flow, which can create colour effects based on audio from your phone.

THE LAMP IN USE

I already have two instances of the Star Desk Lamp Pro, and I’ve been very happy with them, so I was fully expecting the same level of satisfaction with the Floor Lamp. It has been just as reliable, and although it has many differences, you can tell from the design, it’s clearly part of the same family as the desk lamp variety. It is a bit of a pain that the colour aspect isn’t exposed to HomeKit, and I’m at a loss to wonder why, given the price of the lamp. Still, with Shortcuts and my new HomePod Minis (HomePods Mini..?), I’ve found myself using Hey Siri a lot more than before, so I’m ok with controlling the colour aspect of the lamp, to a reasonable degree. The wobble associated with such a slender device is simply unavoidable, and so I can’t really blame Yeelight for something that seemingly has no solution, although if these lamps were placed near to a wall, maybe some form of stabilising bracket attached the wall and the stand could be a fix of sorts.

The on-device controls are the dealbreaker in many ways, and so I’m really glad they were included, and in all honesty, if they weren’t, you really may as well just have a standard floor lamp and smart bulb to save yourself some money. These controls feel natural and responsive, so I can’t fault them at all. I have in fact already experienced this control via the Mi Bedside Lamp II (review HERE), so it was quite familiar really.

The other thing that this lamp has over a standard floor lamp, with either a smart or dumb bulb, is that a standard lamp has the bulb at the top end, with the light going out in the upward and outward direction. With the Star Floor Lamp, the light is directed downwards, where it’s needed for the most part, with the lampshade casing barely letting out any light at all. This alone, to me, makes a lot more sense and makes me feel the price is a lot more palatable, even when compared to the budget option I mention. Still, it’s down to the individual, but the design, control and smarts of this lamp, with the absentee colour option in HomeKit are worth it.

The post Yeelight Star Floor Lamp (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Before we start looking at this new product, Yeelight and HomeKit News have teamed up to offer a giveaway of one each these bulbs, so if you fancy trying your luck, click on the link below to enter the giveaway competition. Good luck!

https://cutt.ly/hdERyo3

PACKAGING

I’m honestly not sure if these bulbs are made of glass (probably not when I think about it), but even so, the packaging is decent enough to protect the bulb. On the front is the image all by itself, which is the result of the long shadow cast by Apple’s design department, for sure. The front lists Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, and SmartThings as compatible platforms, but I’m informed that the bulb should also work with Amazon Alexa, IFTTT, and of course the Yeelight and Mi Home apps, which share login details.

The side of the box has some basic specs, along with a few features, although to be honest, with most bulbs, there’s not a lot of difference between any of them, with the exception of being capable of either colour, colour temperature or fixed at warm white, which this bulb is.

LISTED SPECS:

• Luminous flux: 700lm
• Rated power: 6W
• Rate input: 120V @ 60Hz (for the US version)
• Lamp fitting: E26
• Colour temperature: 2700K
• Connectivity: Wifi 2.4GHz
• Size: 60 x 60 x 116mm / 2.36 x 2.36 x 4.57in (my measurements had the bulb height at 110mm / 4.33in)

So as this is a WiFi bulb, unlike the Hue equivalent, there’s no requirement for a hub. Although I don’t have the A19 version of the Hue Filament bulb, I personally prefer to have the Hue Bridge for my bulbs, which are nearly all Hue now, but I can easily see why some people would prefer to not use a hub in certain circumstances, and with Filament bulbs probably confined to a few bulbs, in a specific area, for visually pleasing purposes, having a few bulbs on WiFi isn’t going to be a big deal. Of course, the latest versions of Hue lights all come with Zigbee and Bluetooth connectivity, but as you may be aware, if you go down the Bluetooth route with Hue bulbs (if you don’t have the Bridge), then there’s going to be no HomeKit connectivity at all.

THE BULB

The bulb itself is fairly non-descript in many ways, save for the fact that the housing for the filaments is clear and not any form of diffusion for the light. In fact, unlike the Hue equivalent, the glass isn’t at all tinted, so the filaments themselves do all the work of creating the warm white light. The base of the light is reasonably small compared to many smart lights you tend to see, including Yeelight’s own colour and tunable white bulbs, and the base also serves as the place for the permanently printed HomeKit code.

Now that manufacturers have mastered (to a degree) the art of making LEDs look like filaments, there’s all manner of patterns out there. The A19 goes with four straight strips, set at slight angles, so that they cross each others’ path to a small extent, giving you an ‘X’ at certain positions. The company’s ST64, which we review separately, has the same four strips pointing vertically, but going inwards towards the top. By contrast, Hue has gone for something a bit more adventurous, with what I can only describe as something akin to strands of DNA or orange peel! I’ll be honest, and say that the Hue filaments win in this respect, but it’s also fair to say that it’s not something you will notice so much when the bulb is at 100% brightness, and of course, it’s all down to personal taste.

THE YEELIGHT FILAMENT BULB IN THE HOME AND YEELIGHT APPS

Adding the Yeelight bulb is easy, due to the fact it comes with a standard HomeKit code, however, if you plan on using any of the presets available in the Yeelight app, or want any future firmware updates, you should add the bulb to the Yeelight app first, then add it to HomeKit after, using the option to do so within the Yeelight app itself.

As the bulb isn’t capable of either colour or a change in colour temperature, being fixed at warm white, in the Home app you get your single tile to represent the bulb, and a slider, coloured yellow to drive home the point that it’s set to one temperature. The slider only controls brightness for this very reason, so beyond controlling the levels, there’s not much else to control.

By contrast, whilst the Yeelight app can’t do any more with the bulb in terms of basic brightness control, it does offer a few preset lighting conditions, which for the most part are simply set brightness levels essentially, with some labelled as such (50% Bright, 25% Bright etc). Two presets that could be handy are the Flash Notify option and the Candle Flicker option. The former simply allows the bulb to flash for a set amount, whilst the latter option allows the light’s brightness to fluctuate, thereby attempting to imitate a flickering candle. These presets don’t get exposed to HomeKit unfortunately, but you can still trigger these presets, either via an automation in the Yeelight app or by creating a scene with the presets, which can then be converted into a Siri Shortcut, so at least you can trigger these presets with your voice.

DIMMING CAPABILITIES

The Yeelight A19 Filament is capable of dimming, which is of no surprise, but when compared to the Hue equivalent, the Hue can ‘officially’ go as low as 5%, with the Hue a19 only able to get as low as 10%. What I did find is that even though the A19 was able to get as low as 5%, in the test you can see in the video for this product, I seemed to get as low as 1%, even though there’s no mention of it being capable of this.

In my testing, it would seem that between 100% and 50% it’s harder to tell a massive difference in brightness levels, but once past that, it becomes more apparent. Regarding getting to 1%, I’m not sure how this occurred, and whether it’s something I could replicate again (I’ve since given the bulb to someone as a gift), but even at 5% it goes further than the Hue A19, and is brighter too, with the Hue filament topping out at 530lm/550lm (US/EU), compared to the Yeelight A19 providing 700lm. Whether that extra 150lm or so makes a massive difference, I’m not sure, but it’s there all the same.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

Whilst I’m a fan of Hue products and find them pretty reliable, it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate other bulbs and manufacturers. Yeelight have been doing some great products for a while now, especially when it comes to lamps, albeit under the Mi brand at times, and the bulbs are no exception. Until recently I had Yeelight tunable white bulbs in the hanging counter lamps of our kitchen, and they were rock solid. Admittedly, their LED Strip light hasn’t been as reliable, but I’m going to put that down to an issue with communication between the Yeelight app and HomeKit, and as the A19 is a fully-fledged HomeKit device, you can omit the Yeelight app altogether if you so wish. I’ve had these bulbs for the past two weeks, and although they’ve not been on ‘active duty’ as such, they have been set up in a test environment, with regular automations turning them on and off at specific times, as well as setting a door sensor to trigger them for random times. In that time, I checked their status to see if they’d gone offline, which if you’re a HomeKit user, you may find yourself doing many times throughout the course of the day – Which I blame on the early versions of iOS13. Still, in the two weeks, there were zero instances of a ‘No Response’. Of course, two weeks is probably less than the ideal amount of time to truly test a product, but in my experience thus far, devices with connection issues, tend to reveal themselves very soon. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to be the case at all with the A19.

I think if you’ve not gone into the Hue side of things, or maybe have, but want a couple of cheaper Wifi Filament bulbs for a specific area, you could do a lot worse than the Yeelight offering. I do already have ST19 (pear-shaped) filament bulbs from Hue, and I love the design of them, so they’re already in place, and as such there’s no room for any more filaments at this time. Would I have bought these before I had the ST19s from Hue? Probably, but mostly due to the extra lumens that the A19 gives. I’ve had complaints about the brightness, or lack thereof from the Hue ST19s, which push out just 530lm, so these would probably have done the job, had I not already bought the Hues. If you’ve not tried any Yeelight products before, I’d urge you to at least have a look at their website, as they do make some really nice products, of which the A19 is one.

The post Yeelight A19 Filament Smart Bulb (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Before we start looking at this new product, Yeelight and HomeKit News have teamed up to offer a giveaway of one each these bulbs, so if you fancy trying your luck, click on the link below to enter the giveaway competition. Good luck!

https://cutt.ly/hdERyo3

PACKAGING

The ST64 is quite large, and therefore so is the box, but it follows the same design rules of their other products, with a clean simple image of the bulb on the front, along with three of the systems it’s compatible with; namely Google Home, Apple HomeKit, and Samsung SmartThings. I believe it’s also compatible with other systems as well, including Amazon Alexa, but as this is a HomeKit site, I’ll leave that for others to worry about.

As with the A19 we reviewed, the side of the box lists a few features, all of which are fairly standard, with the other side of the box simply listing some legal text and specifications;

• Model: YLDP23YL
• Luminous flux: 500lm
• Rated power: 6W
• Lamp holder: E27
• Rated input: 220-240V @ 50/60Hz
• Colour temperature: 2000K
• Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Size: 64 x 64 x 158mm / 2.52 x 2.52 x 6.22in

As you can see, at present this bulb is only designed for regions that use 220-240V, like Europe, China, The Philippines etc, although there are plenty of instances where these types of products are actually also compatible with 110-120V regions. Sadly this is not the case here, having tested it in a 110-120V situation. Luckily I have a voltage converter to allow me to test it at 220-240V, so that didn’t stop me.

Yeelight have done a great job of protecting the product, with a foam insert to not only protect it from impacts, but also keep it all firmly in place, so it won’t start rolling around in the box. This is especially important now that many shops are online and deliver, rather than you being able to pick something like this off the shelf.

THE BULB

The ST64’s four filaments are vertically arranged but going inward from bottom to top, which is also the case with another version of the Yeelight A19 (not the one we reviewed). Compared the Hue versions I currently have the layout of the filaments is a bit pedestrian, but to be fair, you’re unlikely to be looking at it that much, and even if the bulbs are on show, once they’re on at 100%, I don’t think your eyes would take staring at them for too long anyway.

As with the A19 Filament, the ST64 has a HomeKit code printed on the base, so it can’t be peeled off and subsequently lost. As with many of Yeelight’s bulbs, this uses WiFi only, so no hub is required. The Hue equivalent can also function without a hub, just using Bluetooth, but then that stops them from being exposed to HomeKit, as well as limiting you to just ten bulbs. So, if you don’t already have a Hue Bridge, these could be of some interest to you.

The bulb has slightly fewer lumens compared to the Hue version, with the Yeelight coming in at 500lm, compared to the Hue’s 530lm, although I doubt very much the 30 extra lumens will make a noticeable difference. The Yeelight option is larger, however, so unless you have these in a hanging lamp or something open it may be too large. Aside from that, the shape is basically the same, which does conjure up the Victorian period a lot more than say the A19.

THE YEELIGHT ST64 FILAMENT BULB IN THE HOME AND YEELIGHT APPS

Adding the Yeelight ST64 is a doddle, due to it being a standard HomeKit product with its own code, however, if you plan on using any of the presets available in the Yeelight app, or want any future firmware updates, you should add the bulb to the Yeelight app first, then add it to HomeKit after, using the option to do so within the Yeelight app itself.

As the bulb isn’t capable of either colour or a change in colour temperature, being fixed at warm white, in the Home app you get your single tile to represent the bulb, and a slider, coloured yellow to drive home the point that it’s set to one temperature. The slider only controls brightness for this very reason, so beyond controlling the levels, there’s not much else to control.

One thing that is a little strange, is that the ST64 isn’t currently listed in the Yeelight as a separate device. However, you can still add it, and it’ll still be ‘discovered’ by the Yeelight app by simply selecting the ‘Filament bulb’ option, which depicts an A19 in this case.

Whilst the Yeelight app can’t do any more with the bulb in terms of basic brightness control, it does offer a few preset lighting conditions, which for the most part are simple preset brightness levels essentially, with some labelled as such (50% Bright, 25% Bright etc). Two presets that could be handy are the Flash Notify option and the Candle Flicker option. The former simply allows the bulb to flash for a set amount, whilst the latter option allows the light’s brightness to fluctuate, thereby attempting to imitate a flickering candle. These presets don’t get exposed to HomeKit unfortunately, but you can still trigger these presets, either via an automation in the Yeelight app or by creating a scene with the presets, which can then be converted into a Siri Shortcut, so at least you can trigger these presets with your voice.

DIMMING CAPABILITIES

The Yeelight ST64 Filament is capable of dimming, but it can go as low as 5%, with the Hue ST19 only capable of 10% at its lowest. As I also found with my tests on the Yeelight A19, it would seem that between 100% and 50% it’s harder to tell any major difference in brightness levels, but from 50% down to 10%, it becomes more apparent. 10% and 5% don’t look very different in terms of brightness either.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

I’m a fan of both Yeelight products and Hue, so in some senses, it’s hard to make a choice. Right now, however, Yeelight reigns when it comes to desk lamps and bedside lamps in my home, with Hue being the workhorse for most of the basic lighting needs. This also includes the ST19s from Hue that I have in the kitchen. If Hue didn’t make filament bulbs, I’d certainly be buying the Yeelight ones, for both the price point and the design. Even though companies like Sylvania do their own versions, they are Bluetooth, which at this time simply doesn’t work for me. I’ve stuck with Hue do to limitations with my current WiFi setup, which, with the number of bulbs in my home, could quite easily overload the network, which is why Hue and its associated bridge is essential in my case. As I’ve stated in the review for the A19 filament, Yeelight bulbs have been very solid in my experience, and on that basis, if you’re not in the Hue camp already, these are a great and cost-effective offering.

Full disclosure: Yeelight provided HomeKit News with the Yeelight ST64 Filament Bulb for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was made or requested and has in no way influenced our opinion of this product.

The post Yeelight ST64 Filament Smart Bulb (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Brand: Yeelight
• Material: ABS
• Power: 5W(downlight/spotlight)
• Luminous flux: downlight–350lm; spotlight–300lm
• Colour temperature range: 2700K – 6500K
• Opening size: 70 – 80mm
• Luminous angle: 24º
• Rated input: 220V 50Hz
• Size:93*73.5mm

The post Yeelight M2 Spotlight Bluetooth Mesh Smart Bulb appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Brand: Yeelight
• Material: ABS
• Power: 5W(downlight/spotlight)
• Luminous flux: downlight–350lm; spotlight–300lm
• Color temperature range: 2700K – 6500K
• Opening size: 70 – 80mm
• Luminous angle: 70º
• Rated input: 220V 50Hz
• Size:93*73.5mm

The post Yeelight M2 Downlight Bluetooth Mesh Smart Bulb appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Product Name: Yeelight Color Temperature Bulb M2
• Product model: YLDP26YL
• Product size: 43x112mm
• Screw model: E27
• Power: 4W
• Standby power: 0.5W
• Luminous flux: 450lm
• Colour temperature range: 2700K-6500K
• Brightness range: 5%-100%
• Colour rendering index: Ra80

The post Yeelight M2 E27 Bluetooth Mesh Smart Bulb appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Product model: YLSD04YL
• Material: ABS
• Power: 5W
• Luminous flux: 400lm
• Colour temperature range: 2700K – 6500K
• Opening size: 70 – 80mm
• Luminous angle: 30 degrees
• Rotation angle: -30 – 30 degrees
• Brightness range: 5 – 100 per cent
• Rated input: 220V 50Hz

The post Yeelight Bluetooth Mesh Spotlight appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.