Besides Apple HomeKit, the Makaron can also work with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Tuya SmartLife.

Specs:

• Input: 100-240V AC
• Power: 9W
• Max. brightness: 750lm
• Material: aluminium, plastic
• Standby power consumption: 0.5W
• Wireless protocol: Zigbee 3.0
• Zigbee repeater: Yes
• Working temperature: -20 ~ 45ºC
• Working humidity: <80%

you can buy this lamp on the company’s website – zemismart.com

The post ZemiSmart Makaron Downlight appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Elegant design, perfect bedside companion.
• Control your smart ambient light from anywhere anytime with the Meross app.
• Works with Homekit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, SmartThings.
• Adjust brightness, tune light appearance, and set from multiple RGB colours.
• Works with the Wi-Fi you already have. No hub required.

The post Meross Smart Wi-Fi Ambient Light 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.

No Flicker and Shadow
Consists of 46 LED beads, the eye-caring desk lamp shines soft light with no flicker, no shadow, which avoids eye fatigue and dryness caused by flicking light. It is ideal for work or study for a long time.

Touch Control

• Short press “+” to max brightness.
• Short press “-” to min brightness.
• The slide Touch can change the brightness too.
• Long press “+” to change to cooler light.
• Long press “-” to change to warmer light.

Adjustable Design
The head of the smart led desk light can be rotated up to 180°, so you can adjust it to a large angle to get a better custom light position, which is perfect for working, studying, relaxing and reading.

Remote Control
Control the Meross smart lamp anytime, anywhere (with Internet access) via the Meross app or Home app. Please note that HomeKit remote control needs to set an Apple device as a HomeKit bridge and connect it to your home Wi-Fi network.

Schedule & Timer
With the timer and schedule function of the smart wifi desk lamp, you can set the timer to turn on/off the lamp for the desk based on your routine. Scheduling the smart table lamp to turn on at sunset and turn off at sunrise time automatically.

The post Meross Smart LED Desk Lamp appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Specifications:

The post Meross Smart LED Floor Lamp appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The joint on the halfway section can move 180º vertically, with the base joint having a 90º field of movement, allowing the lamp to lay flat.

On-device controls allow you to turn the device on or off, as well as adjust the brightness. You can also adjust the lamp to one of four different preset colour temperatures with the use of the Mode button.

The post Meross Smart Desk Lamp 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.

UNBOXING

By now, you’ll be familiar with Yeelight, and the other companies having largely got their act together in terms of decent packaging, and this is no exception. The product is pictured on the front with minimal peripheral information – just the product name (in Mandarin), the ‘Works with Apple HomeKit’ logo, and a Red Dot award badge from 2019. The rear of the box features a set of eight icons to depict the features of the D2, which are;

• Full-colour LED lamp
• Streaming mode (light animation in conjunction with sound)
• Colour temperature adjustments (cool to warm whites)
• Touch control
• Dimming
• Timer function
• Night light mode
• Countdown timer

Some of these aren’t really ‘features’ as such, but then there are still lamps out there that barely come with any of these functions, so it’s something to bear in mind if you’re wondering if you want a dumb or smart bedside lamp. The contents of the box are pretty minimal, with the lamp, a manual in Chinese, and the power supply. Speaking of the power supply, you get a Type A (North American) non-polarised two-pin plug, with a USB-C plug on the end, and it’s nice to finally see more devices with USB-C. The D2 works in all regions, as it can work with 100-240V at 50/60Hz.

Specs:

• Material: ABS
• Voltage: AC110-220V, 50-60Hz
• Input: 5V 1A
• Powers: 5W
• Light color: RGBW
• Color temperature: 2700-6000k
• Color rendering index: Ra80
• Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz
• BT: V4.2BLE
• Features: APP control, voice control
• Working temperature: -10℃ to 40℃
• Item weight: 800g / 1.76lb
• Item size: 148 * 148 * 145mm / 5.83 * 5.83 * 5.71in

THE LAMP

The lamp itself is visually in two sections, with the base taking up roughly 25% of the height of the lamp. This light grey base section includes the touch-sensitive button and the two touch-sensitive strips, as well as the USB-C port for powering the D2. The remaining 75% is all diffuser, with just the Yeelight logotype floating above the touch-sensitive button, so it’s almost like a giant smart bulb! The main button does not light up and is simply a white ring.

The strips on the side, which I’ll explain further about in a bit, are a slightly darker grey than the base.

The underside of the lamp has three rubber feet to keep the lamp from sliding around unnecessarily, along with a HomeKit QR code. This is one of two instances of the code, with the other one appearing inside the Chinese manual.

INITIAL SETUP

As with almost all Yeelight devices, they can be added to the Mi Home app or the Yeelight app and will appear in both when added. I usually go with the Mi Home app, set to the Chinese Mainland server. The process is very easy, with you following the on-screen instructions. The D2 uses 2.4GHz wifi for connection.

After the process is almost complete, with naming the lamp, you’ll be asked if you want to pair it with HomeKit. You then go through the by now familiar procedure of adding the lamp to HomeKit, just as though you’d added it directly from within the Apple Home app.

Once you’re done with the installation, the D2 will appear in all three apps. Just be aware that even if you’ve initially added it to a room in either the Yeelight or Mi Home apps, this information isn’t carried over to the Home app, so you’ll have to assign it to the correct room separately there.

APP FEATURES

In the Home app, it’s fairly standard stuff, with a slider that controls the brightness, along with a colour palette to choose your colours or the colour temperature. The settings page shows all the usual options, except for quick access to the Yeelight app.

Both the Yeelight and Mi Home apps offer pretty much the same functionality, just with different interfaces. both offer a function called Flow, which allows the lamp to cycle through four different user-chosen colours. The only plus in this regard with the Yeelight app is that you can change the speed of the colour transitions, as well as the brightness of your colour choices. The Yeelight app also offers a couple of functions not available in the Mi Home app. One is called Gesture, which, once turned on, allows you to double-tap the top of the D2, or the surface that it’s resting on, to turn the lamp on or off. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but could be useful if you’re in the dark and can feel the lamp, but can’t see the touch button. Tapping the surface that the lamp sits on (the bedside table for example) requires a more forceful tap with the knuckles, and wasn’t consistent in my tests. The other function exclusive to the Yeelight app is called Music Flow. This makes the lamp change colour and brightness in time with sounds – usually music with a definite pulse (like House music). In order for it to work, the Yeelight needs access to your phone’s microphone so that it can pick up music wherever it is playing, although you can also use music on your device too. Another gimmick in my opinion, but still all good-natured fun.

COMPARISON WITH THE MI BEDSIDE LAMP II

As you can see in the image above, the Mi Bedside Lamp II and the Yeelight D2 are definitely ‘cut from the same cloth’ so to speak, with the same base and diameter. That said, they do have different controls, and they are different heights of course. In terms of the lumen count, only the Mi version has any official numbers, set at a maximum of 400lm. The Yeelight D2 has no information on lumens that I’ve found. Still, I’ve taken a few photos to compare the two side by side in both colour and white modes;

Generally, I’d say that the D2 is of lower general brightness, which isn’t entirely surprising, given the size of the diffuser section, but it does hold up fairly well in all colour temperatures, with the cool white only appearing slightly less ‘cool’. The night light in both models is pretty good and work really well as a true night light.

Above are just a couple of examples of the colour side of things, and you can see the D2 holds up really well, which would suggest that whilst there may be less white LEDs in the D2 than the Mi, in terms of colour LEDs, they could be the same or at least close enough not to make a discernable difference. All the other colours matched exactly, which once again is no surprise.

IN USE AND SUMMING UP

I’ve been using the D2 for about four months now, and in that time it has performed well, with only a couple of disconnections in the time I’ve had it up until writing this review. I would suggest unless you have a reasonably sized bedside table, it is a little on the large side, even if it’s not as tall as the Mi model. The main button works really well, but the side strips do take getting used to, and it’s quite easy, depending on how you’ve placed it in relation to how your arms approach the lamp, to get no response when dragging your finger across the strip. It does seem to need the completely flat pad of your finger, to properly register a touch, and in terms of adjusting the brightness, it will take more than one pass to get it from 100% to the lowest setting.

Despite these minor issues, it’s been fun to use and really adds to the ambience of our bedroom when watching TV, along with all of our other colour lights. I would suggest if you can get used to the touch-sensitive nature of the controls, it’s a better option than the Mi version, if only for the less overbearing height. If you’re interested in which other platforms it can work with besides HomeKit, the Yeelight app states that it can work with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, SmartThings, IFTTT, Tasker, and Yandex, so you’re not short of options really.

The post Yeelight Bedside Lamp D2 (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

*Qingdao Yeelink Information Technology Company Ltd. and Lumi United Technology Company Ltd

Whist Yeelight very generously updated the firmware for four legacy products last year (three branded Yeelight and one branded Mi), it seems, for the most part, they are now making sure that many of their ensuing lighting products come with HomeKit compatibility out of the box. One of the more recent products to fit these criteria is the Yeelight Staria (also referred to as ‘Star’) Desk Lamp, which comes in standard and ‘Pro’ versions. Today, we’re looking at the Pro version.

PACKAGING | UNBOXING

I’ve mentioned this a lot, but many of these companies have really embraced the Apple design aesthetic in a big way, which is no bad thing, and in this case, this wouldn’t look out of place on the shelf of any Apple store at all. The whole box is white, with the lamp on the front, accompanied by the ‘Works with Apple HomeKit’ badge and the name of the product in a mix of Chinese and English. When this product first came out in China around four months ago, it was labelled the Star Desk Lamp or Star Desk Lamp Pro depending on which model you bought. However, now that it seems on the verge of being made available to western consumers locally, the name has changed to the Staria Desk Lamp / Staria Desk Lamp Pro.

Just to get the difference between the standard and pro models out of the way, it’s all just down to the wireless charging pad, with the Pro version including the charging pad, while the standard version excludes this.

Back to the packaging, and aside from the specs on the back, the side of the box has icons to show of some of the features of the product itself, albeit in Chinese;

• Delay Light Off
• Night Light
• Foreign Object Detection
• 10W Fast Charge *
• Safety Protection
• Intelligent Linkage Control

We’ll look at some of these features in a bit, but first here are some basic specifications, as per the box’s information;

• Model Nº: YLCT03YL
• Rated input: 20W (website states 22W)
• 350lm
• Operating temperature: -10ºC ~ 40ºC / 14ºF ~ 104ºF (website states -10ºC ~ 35ºC / 14ºF ~ 95ºF)
• Colour temperature: 2700 ~ 6500K
• Max. wireless charging output: 10W
• Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz
• Wireless charging transmission distance < 3.5mm

* Fast charge only applies to certain phones, but not currently the iPhone

The lamp comes with some rather clever internal packaging, that even comes with instructions on how to unpack it properly (I kid you not). This internal protection does a great job of keeping the lamp and power supply all in place, so there’s no chance of this lamp being bounced around inside the box.

THE LAMP

The lamp itself is visually quite utilitarian, being mostly white, with the exception of the charging pad, which is grey. The only moving parts for the lamp are the multifunction power button, which isn’t very easy to spot due to it being flush with the base, and the lampshade itself. The shade can be set to the horizontal position you see in the first image above or any angle fro 0º – 30º, as seen in the second image.

Most parts of the lamp have the now quite familiar matt plastic finish that’s slightly velvety to the touch. The main lamp stem is metal in a matt white painted finish.

The lamp itself has two distinct lighting section, with the main light source being the downlight. The second light source is the top part of the lamp, which has a ring of light. It would appear these two separate sections are in fact sharing the same source, which, according to the packaging specs, is a series of 25 individual 0.5W LEDs.

The lamp is capable of warm to cool whites, and as both sections seem to share the same LEDs, whether you have the lamp set to warm, cool, or any colour temperature in between the two, the top and bottom light sections will be the same. Of course, this also applies to whether the light is turned on or off, as well as the brightness levels, although as the top of the lampshade has a more limited area for the light to be emitted, it will appear lower in brightness. One thing to note is that whilst this does resemble a lampshade, unlike the real thing, the light is unable to be seen through the ‘shade’ itself, so the light only emits from the bottom and top of this shade. Nonetheless, as a bedside lamp (which is what I use mine for), or a lamp for a small desk, this has ample brightness for those two scenarios, which can be also be manually adjusted due to the lampshade being able to be angled. The entire height of the lamp from the top of the shade to the bottom of the base (when the shade is set to an angle of 0º) is 292.5mm / 11.52in, with the wider (bottom) part of the shade section having a diameter of 179.5mm / 7.07in. The lampshade is 93mm / 3.66in in height and the top part of the shade is 104mm / 4.09in in diameter.

This is a lamp first and foremost of course, but with the addition of a Qi charging pad, it does take on extra usefulness. We’ll come to that in a bit, but for the base of the lamp itself, the measurements come in at 164.3mm / 6.46in in diameter, with the depth of the base being 16.4mm / 0.65in.

The multifunction button (which I’ll also explain in a bit) matches the colour of the lamp and is also flush with the lamp base, but while it does look aesthetically pleasing, in practice it does make it hard to find the button, especially in low light situations. On more than a few occasions, I’ve found myself moving my finger over the surface of the lamp base to find the button, and due to it being flush with the base, it’s not easy to even feel it, let alone see it. I can see why either a raised or indented button might not be the best approach, so possibly a slightly larger button would have been the answer, or better still, a tiny LED inside the button itself. The base of the lamp has one of two HomeKit codes, with the other being inside the manual.

For power, the lamp uses a 12V/1.5A supply with a type A, non-polarized plug, and a barrel connection on the end of the power cable. Although it doesn’t specify either on the packaging or on the company’s website, the lamp works in Mainland China, where they use 220-240V and it works here in Taiwan, where we use 110-120V, which is, of course, the same for places like the US, Mexico and Japan, that can also accommodate this type of plug.

The built-in Qi charging pad is quite a handy feature, especially assuming you have this on a work desk or bedside table, where you’ll more likely have your phone with you, and either want it to be charged up whilst working or asleep. The pad itself is rubber and slightly tactile so that your phone doesn’t slip around unnecessarily. The charging pad works with all iPhones that are capable of wireless charging, so that includes; iPhone 8/8 Plus, iPhone X/XR/XS/XS Max, and iPhone 11/11 Pro/11 Pro Max. When you place a suitable Qi-compatible phone on the pad, a small LED within the lamp’s base will light up to indicate charging is taking place. The pad also has a feature that when you place a device that isn’t compatible with the wireless charger, the same LED will start to flash rapidly. Once you remove the incompatible device the LED will cease to flash after a few seconds. Whilst I welcome the chance to power up my phone wirelessly, in my brief tests*, the actual amount of power my iPhone was drawing was lower than I’d expected, coming out at around 4.5 – 5.0W. This is with the lamp turned off. If the lamp is on at full brightness (blue colour temperature) whilst charging, then the readings indicated 10w of power being drawn. For the record, the iPhone used was an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and the battery was at 66%. That doesn’t sound very powerful, given that you can get Qi chargers that can go to 7.5w, but then some of these ‘name brand’ chargers are generally as expensive as the lamp itself, so it’s difficult to complain when you get a lamp and ‘standard’ charger all rolled into one package, for the same price as a standalone charger. It has also been reported that for iOS13.1, Apple capped the speed for wireless charging of their phones to 5w with 3rd party chargers, unless they are fully compliant, so this may explain the relatively low output. Indeed, there’s nothing from stopping you from buying a separate charger, if you want that extra juice, and just stick with the standard version of the Star Desk Lamp. So far, the charger has worked out fine for me, as I tend to place my iPhone on it when I’m ready to go to sleep, and when I wake 7-8 hours later, the phone is always fully charged, even when the iPhone starts out at under 10%.

I haven’t got either the AirPods, or Airpods Pro, but Eric, one of our contributors, attempted to charge his AirPods case with this charger but was unsuccessful. I’m not sure why this is, although the image above taken from Yeelight’s own website indicates it is possible if the case is in fact for either AirPods or AirPods Pro.

* Tested using both an Aqara Smart plug and Vocolinc PM2 power strip,
using the energy monitoring features in their respective apps.

INITIAL SETUP

With Xiaomi smart home ecosystem products, there are a few different ways in which their devices can be added, which sometimes depends on the manufacturer, but if the product comes with a HomeKit code as this product does, then you can generally just add it to the Home app and go from there. It is advisable to get the relevant app for firmware updates or extra functionality though, and as I’m firmly ensconced in the Mi Home app, which will work with Yeelight products, I proceeded to add it to Mi Home first, and from there attempted to add it to HomeKit from within Mi Home. Strangely enough, it didn’t work out this way, with no option for adding it to HomeKit being offered or visible. This may have since changed, as I’ve had this lamp for four months now, but at that time I simply couldn’t do it, at least via the Mi Home app, which has been the norm. Luckily, any Yeelight light (or indeed Mi lamps made by Yeelight) added to Mi Home, will also appear in the Yeelight app, as long as you use the same sign-in credentials that you use for the Mi Home app. This was the case for me, and I was easily able to add the lamp to HomeKit this way, which is indicated in the overview video. I won’t go deeply into the procedure on this occasion, but essentially it’s like this;

• Open the Yeelight app and sign in if you’re signed out
• Select the Star Desk Lamp Pro from the list of devices under the ‘Devices’ tab
• Select the ‘settings’ icon in the top left-hand corner
• Select ‘Add to Home’

You then simply follow the on-screen prompts, which involves all the same steps you would see when adding a HomeKit device directly in the Home app.

IN YEELIGHT | MI HOME | APPLE HOME

The Yeelight is fairly simplistic, but still has many options you might want to access, along with some options you won’t find in the Apple Home app, including animated lighting effecting like Candle Flicker, Sunrise, and Flash Notify. There’s another setting in the Yeelight app that you’ll also find in the Mi Home app, called ‘Moon’ which I’ll get to in a bit. Other options available within the Yeelight app include timers, schedules, default state, and Lan control. All in all, the Yeelight app is actually quite easy to use.

the Mi Home app has pretty much the same kinds of options, just presented in a different way. What the Mi Home app does give you is the ability to control this HomeKit compatible lamp with non-HomeKit devices like the Aqara Cube etc.

The Home app has all the basics that the other two apps have, minus the lighting effects or the ‘Moon’ option. It does have the ability to include your Star Lamp in scenes and automations involving other HomeKit devices, so in that respect, from a HomeKit point of view, it’s probably the most important one.

Going back to the ‘Moon mode’ that you can access it both the Yeelight and Mi Home apps, this acts a very low level night light, so whereas in the normal mode (referred to as Sun mode in both of these apps) you can get down to 1%, brightness, whilst it’s reasonably low in terms of brightness, it’s still not low enough to be called a night light. This is where the Moon mode comes in handy. I’m not sure how it works, but it probably just accesses a small selection of the LEDs to create an even lower level of brightness.

So, you can see from the above images, that the brightness levels can go considerably lower, than what can be achieved with the normal ‘Sun’ mode.

The stark contrast can be seen here when you put the Sun and Moon modes side by side, set to 1%. It’s also good to point out that in the Moon mode, there are still perceivable differences in each brightness level between 10-1%. It’s unfortunate that you can’t access this mode from within the Home app or seemingly other third-party HomeKit apps. The only alternative is to create a shortcut to trigger this mode, which can be done in either app, as both works with Siri Shortcuts.

DAY-TO-DAY USE

Generally speaking, the lamp does a great job, and I’ve found having a lamp that can be adjusted in many ways, quite useful. As I only tend to use it in the evening, the cool lighting doesn’t get much of a look in really, but that’s ok. The charging side of it, whilst not massively powerful, it’s ok for my needs right now, so I have no complaints about that either. The only downside, and it not a dealbreaker, is the button that controls it. Yes, I can control it via an automation, or a trigger of some sort, but when it comes to controlling it manually unless you want to just turn it on or off, it requires a bit of getting used to.

To turn the lamp on or off, you simply press the button, as expected. whenever you turn it on, it will be set to the last brightness and colour temperature it was at when it was last turned off. So far so good. If you want to adjust the colour temperature, then you have to long-press the button. Depending on the state it is in before you perform this action, it will do one of three things;

• If the lamp is at it’s lowest setting (in Sun mode), long-pressing will gradually increase the brightness of the lamp, before switching to cool white, ultimately settle on 100% brightness.
• If the lamp is at it’s highest setting (in Sun mode), long-pressing will first switch over to warm white at 100% brightness, then gradually reduce in brightness to it’s lowest level, set at warm white.
• If the lamp is set to Moon mode, whatever the brightness level, long-pressing on the button will automatically switch to Sun mode, then proceed to brighten up as per the first bullet point here.

This is where button control has its first failure, in that you can only have the lamp reduce in brightness set to warm white, not cool white. You can go into any of the apps and set the lamp to cool white and 50% for example, but with the button, you can only start dimming the light once it has set itself to warm white.

• Double pressing the button will allow the lamp to go into a delayed off state. The light will then turn off after a fixed amount of time, which is 10 minutes. There is a separate timer in the Yeelight app, but then you would most likely set something up in the Home app for a function like this.

For me, turning the light on or off is as much as I need, as the rest of these kinds of functions tend to be automated to some extent, so it’s fine. Ultimately, there’s only so much you can do with one button before things start to get too complicated, so I imagine they’re struck a fair balance for the switch. It would be good if you could program the double press function so that it could be designed to do a custom scene perhaps.

SUMMING UP

The bottom line is that I’m a fan of some of Yeelight’s products, and this is no different. Their industrial designers do seem, to a large extent, know what works and how to make things look modern and conservative at the same time. This, I think does the same. It looks like a traditional lamp, and to a large extent does the same job, but with a bit of understated flair. The fact that the Pro version has the bonus of a wireless charger built-in, also leans the lamp more towards great functionality, if that’s something you’re in need of. In terms of reliability, it has been fine, which hasn’t been easy to monitor due to the last few iterations of the Home app being rather unstable (I’m on 13.3.1 now, and all is well…), so I can’t fault Yeelight for that, but it hasn’t failed so far. There have been reports of problems with one or two of their products, most notably the Yeelight Light Strip Plus (read our review HERE), which seemed to have developed problems after gaining HomeKit support, although for me personally, I’ve not seen such issues on a regular basis, and even then I suspect previous iterations of iOS13 to be largely the culprit here.

The post Yeelight Star/Staria Table Lamp Pro (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

• Lifetime up to
 – 20,000 hr
• Total luminous flux in lumens of fixture
 – 1750 lm
• 

Mains voltage – 
Range 220-240 V
50-60Hz
• Dimmable lamp
 – Yes
• LED
 – Yes
• Number of lamps – 
1
• Wattage lamp included
 – 20 W
• Maximum power replacement lamp – 
20 W
• 

IP rating – 
IP44
. protected against objects larger than 1 mm. 
protected against water splashing
• Protection class – II – double insulated

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