LIFX - Smartphone-Controlled Light Bulb

Product Description

LIFX (pronounced Life-ex) is an energy-efficient, multi-color LED bulb controlled by its user's smartphone. Its basic activation and function proceeds as follows:... [Read more]

Features

• Works with Amazon Alexa to support dimming, shades of white, and color settings through voice control (Alexa device sold separately)
• Easy set up
• Built in Wi-Fi
• Multicolor
• Adjustable and dimmable
• Bright and efficient

Top Reviews

Worked for About 30 Minutes
by bayguy (2 out of 5 stars)
November 8, 2015

The Lifx Original A21 Color bulb was my first ever smart bulb purchase. I have purchased Insteon and X-10 home automation products before, but this bulb is my first venture into Wi-Fi home automation. I use Android phones, and the initial set up was straightforward. I had everything working. I was pretty amazed by the range of colors. The green tones were great. The light blue was very nice, but it seemed to go purple without moving into dark blue tones. Being able to adjust the white tones was fabulous, though. Note that I am using the past tense, because the bulb stopped connecting to my Wi-Fi network after about 30 minutes of use. I tried the reset procedure multiple times, but when I got to the last step of the set up, the bulb still would not connect to my network. During my initial use, I did select to upgrade the bulb's firmware. I never got any confirmation that the update was successful, so I don't know if the connectivity issue was caused by a firmware upgrade. However, I do know that the bulb is basically a brick without Wi-Fi. I can turn it off and on manually, but that is it. It went from being a $50 smart color bulb to a non-dimmable bright white LED, controlled by a light switch, which means it is now worth less than $11.

The newer, more energy-efficient (and smaller) Lifx color bulbs are now available. I just ordered one of those because I still like the concept and the color and brightness is rated better than the Philips Hue. But, this bulb will soon be on its way back to Amazon.
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I Absolutely Wanted To Love This Product But Can't
by Luke Skywalker (3 out of 5 stars)
May 5, 2017

I had purchased a total of 11 of these bulbs when they were first available on Amazon at $99 dollars a piece and have since 2014 provided ongoing feedback on ways to improve their product that would above all else make it more reliable. Unfortunately, even though the product development team and engineers agree with a few of my proposals, they have yet to be implemented. The challenge I have experienced is that as soon as the ISP drops its connection (which for mine was every week) or you do an update on your router and reboot it, I had to get on a step stool and physically unscrew and install the lights in the ceiling. Now to be clear, I had to remove the physical light switches in our living room and den so as to keep my family from turning off the lights lights as the purpose of an automated home was for it to be automated and once a family member turns the device off, it of course, no longer responds to scheduled routines or responses. The other challenge that I had with these lights are the colors of some of them did not match the others that are in the same location. I moved some of the lights around to other rooms in the house in order to correct this issue and it ended up being fruitless not to mention a total pain as to remove and then add the light back into a group with other automation systems such as Harmony Hub, Alexa and Smartthings in the mix which had programmed routines designed to make it "easy". Overall, through three years of working with these lights and directly with the company itself in order to design a completely automated home, you will need to look elsewhere.
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Upgraded back to a "Buy"
by R. Gorham (4 out of 5 stars)
January 29, 2016

Purchased on October 9th, 2015 -- Died on December 4th, 2015. I'm glad I didn't buy more of these things... I purchased it for the novelty at first, just to add a little color to my room. I used it that way for 3 months and now it is my primary light source, which is not dependable. It took an hour of resetting and unplugging repeatedly to get the SSID to finally appear, and if you turn the light bulb up to anything over 60% the wifi stops working. The problems are progressive. In the beginning silly stuff like the the bulb would appear online, but it couldn't be controlled via the app, so I would just flip the light switch and problem would be solved. I didn't think much of it until I started using it like a normal bulb, selecting only the daylight options, which is when the connectivity problems occurred. This thing gets really hot too. I had to reset it 2 times, both of which take an INCREDIBLE amount of time and tinkering, and now on the third reset which will not take. The bulb just flashes red and orange which is an error code for failure.

I contacted Customer Support and they responded:
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(LIFX)

Jan 12, 14:25

Hey Rob!

Thanks for making it LIFX! Sorry about the trouble you are having, let's see if we can get it fixed together.

Unfortunately your bulb will have to be replaced I will need some information to start the RMA process:
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I still not have heard back from customer support yet, and it's January 29.

UPDATE: LIFX did replace the bulb with an upgraded model, it's much more compact and seemed to have worked some bugs out. It's been 6 months and no issues that a power switch cycle can't instantly fix. Overall, I am satisfied with the bulb(s), I purchased a couple of white only 800 model, and mixed it in a group as the Color 1000. Not the same hue, lesson learned, don't mix bulb models.
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Great colors but too dependent on your phone.
by Fuzzles (3 out of 5 stars)
November 13, 2015

This is a good light bulb firstly, but there are some problems with it that hold it back for me. If you simply want to change the brightness and the color, this bulb works great for that. I had some issues getting it to connect through the wifi but after that, it's consistently remained connected. Now I open the app, click on the bulb and adjust it.

However, this bulb has a small amount of features, which could be entertaining, but are unusable due to the reliance this bulb has with your phone. The bulb does not process any effects on it's own, it sources the effects like candle flicker from your phone and should your phone minimize the app or simply go into standby where the screen shuts off, the effect will shut off with it. So if you wanted the comfort of a candle effect through the night or just to set the mood, your phone has to be on and completely dedicated to the bulb at all times. You can't go into any other programs whatsoever.

Besides that effect, the rest aren't all that interesting. A strobe effect that will damage your brain, a color changing effect, and a music visualizer which actually I can't get to work. This would be a 4 or 5 star bulb if it had more effects and didn't depend on your phone to process them.
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Awesome bulb but rediculous to setup
by Bleeksano (3 out of 5 stars)
December 23, 2015

The bulb is really cool, but the setup process is very frustrating and convoluted even for tech savvy people. The Lifx app has a basic setup, but you will still have to google it to figure it out. So, you download the app on your phone, and you expect the app to walk you through the setup. NOPE. I'm using the android version on my Galaxy Note 5. So, I'm not too sure about the Apple version. Screw in the bulb, and turn it on. Download the Lifx mobile app. Once the app is installed, you will be guided through setting up your account and wifi information. I can't remember exactly how the vanilla process goes because I have five bulbs. And, successive bulb setups are vary from the initial setup. But anyway, if the app doesn't guide you through the bulb discovery process, select the gear icon>Start firmware update. The update will literally take about 30 minutes. Out the box the bulb has firmware 1.0. After you do the mobile update, it is only 2.0. To complete the update you need the desktop Lifx app to bring it up to 2.1. "This was my experience yours may vary" But we are not done. Once it is at 2.1, now you can "claim" the bulb on your mobile Lifx app. Open the app, and select your wifi network name menu. For example, if your wifi network is called "Hello World", look for "Hello World Lights". Select the bulb named "LIFX Bulb xxxxxx" (numbers). Next you will see a color wheel. At the top of the screen, you will see "Claim". Select claim. Next you will label it, etc. Finally, you are done!! This. in my opinion is unacceptable and absolutely ridiculous. I can't imagine non-tech people trying to set this thing up. The setup process needs to be streamlined ASAP unless Lifx doesn't want people to buy it. I will recommend this product only if you are tech savvy or have a savvy friend. Otherwise, you will beat your head against the wall. The engineering is on-point, but the software/middleware is still in beta.
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I'm comfortable with technology and did make every attempt to get ...
by trifelife (1 out of 5 stars)
February 21, 2016

I bought two of these. One is going back because it refuses to show up as a wireless network during setup. I'm comfortable with technology and did make every attempt to get the bulb to work, including following all of the suggestions on the LIFX site, doing research on the web, and trying the bulb with two different ipads and two different iphones. Nothing. It would light up and appear to be ready, and a hardware reset produced the expected behavior, but the bulb never broadcasted an SSID. Without that happening, you can go no further.

The bulb that DID work may end up going back eventually also, mainly because the setup is a pain, and the integration with Echo is not fully baked. I have the Phillips HUE system and it outclasses these in every way except one: Color production. These lights are capable of producing great colors, Truthfully, hue can only produce about 20. lol that's exaggeration for comedic effect, but if you have hue you know what I mean. No matter whether you choose hue or LIFX, if you're wanting to use them with Echo you need to get ready for some frustration. While getting Alexa to turn the lights on and off is fairly easily done, changing colors and scenes or dimming the lights are tasks that need to be a lot less cumbersome.
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Connectivity issues after firmware, bulb is useless after FW update 2.x
by J. Benet (1 out of 5 stars)
December 7, 2015

Even if you manage to update the firmware which I did successfully it will now be unable to connect to standard networks. Did dozens of tries and resets and just gave up. The network worked well before the update to FW 2.x from the stock that it shipped with. The bulb is beautiful but the company needs to fix the toxic firmware updates. Instead of gaining functionality you loose connectivity and turns into a standard bulb. If you get one of these originals you should not update the firmware it will cripple the bulb. Tried with android, iOS and Windows to fix the problem with their respective apps and it would not connect and pass the wifi password as it did before, found a lot of guidance in the forums to no avail. The bulb gets also extremely hot rapidly and it will burn your fingers in the metal body. Awesome hardware with horrible software, if they fix it I may get it again but wasting a day of life on connectivity issues is enough for anyone. Leave it at stock firmware and you should be fine even when the functionality will be limited.
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A- colors, B networking and software
by A. Diarra (3 out of 5 stars)
January 3, 2015

mixed feelings about posting this review because I really want this product and company to be successful.

the colors on this bulb are quite good. not great, but pretty good. they blow away the philips hue, which is a gimmicky toy, a piece of junk.

nevertheless I wish this bulb had a little more concentration - I want those deep colors to look like paint pigments, like stage lighting.

anyway, where this bulb falls short is on network implementation - it's buggy, sometimes working, sometimes not., requiring lots of babying to make work properly. maybe it will stabilize over time, but after 2 days with it I've had to spend about 6 hours troubleshooting to make it work. IMO a product this expensive should work instantly when you plug it in. if you go to the website looking for information you'll find long threads discussing subnet mask, IP addresses, router settings, etc.

A. for almost $100 a bulb, one shouldn't have to worry about any of that nonsense. (and with the philips one doesn't have to).

B. if they have any hope of selling these to the average person en masse, they need to make it WAY simpler to get going.

obviously it's indicative of a large portion of the computer industry - put out a product that's not really ready and..., you guessed it - let the USERS find the workarounds! Crazy. and Bill Gates is the richest man in the world behind that philosophy. absolutely stunning.

anyway, I really like this bulb, but I need to love it before I buy another. Please Lifx, make the software and networking better and easier. I'll buy 30 of them.

Update: after having this bulb for a couple of months and buying a number of other multicolor smart bulbs, I can say that IMO it is the best one on the market. I still wish that the colors were a little better, and that the app was better and more flexible, but the initial problems I was having with the app have gone away - now it's simply a little underpowered.

the bulb itself is MUCH brighter than any of the other smart LEDs I've tried, including philips, lumen and several others. I recommend this bulb, but I also think they should be $20 less expensive.
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Great Start, but could be better with updates!
by Corey (3 out of 5 stars)
November 5, 2015

Got this light bulb as part of my smart home project. My Current setup is a Wink hub, Amazon Echo, this LIFX bulb, and some Ge Link bulbs. The construction of the bulb is very nice, and was very easy to setup. Had to update the firmware three times for everything to work and then setup an account for online access. The color hues are very nice, and it gets extremely bright. I currently have it in a big corner lamp in my living room. I am very glad it can now be controlled by Echo, buuuuuut I hate having to say the special commands to have it work. For example you say "Alexa tell LIFX to turn lights on" versus my GE link bulbs where I just say "Alexa turn living room lights on". ( With the commands you can turn on/off , cahnge color, and dim) What would make this a 5 star product is better integration with Amazon Echo and being compatible with the Wink Hub and App that way I could include it in the groups. Though I am confident these could be easily added with future firmware updates. Finally like most Smart home products I wish it was cheaper.
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I did get an email from Lifx after I had shipped the bulb back saying that it sounds like I got a ba
by Tim (2 out of 5 stars)
January 11, 2016

While a novel concept, the implementation of this wireless lightbulb has some problems. I bought the A21 light as a splurge while on sale. I followed the instructions and downloaded the control app to my iphone. The bulb has some problems. It would ghost in and out of the app ... it's there, now it's gone, now it's back. But it did work. The phone app kept telling me there was a firmware update. Thinking this was part of the problem, I updated it. That was the end of that bulb. The phone app said the update went without a hitch, however it was just an expensive LED light now at this point -- it wouldn't reset, it wouldn't see the network. Nothing. I tried to work with LIFX to reset it and got pointed to the generic "flip the switch and reset it" procedure. I told them I tried that and was there something else to do? After a week of waiting around, I shipped it back. As a follow up, I did get an email from Lifx after I had shipped the bulb back saying that it sounds like I got a bad bulb and they'd send me an RMA for it. By that point, I had already shipped the bulb back to Amazon and gotten a refund. So out of the bulbs I purchased: 1 went back after the firmware upgrade, 1 was a gift to a friend who likes gizmos (but I warned him about upgrading it), and 1 I have operating without the firmware patch because I'm afraid it will brick that device.

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