Lately I have been dipping my toe into the pool of home automation and smarthome technologies. While I have been interested in having a smarthome ever since I watched my first few episodes of the SyFy channel show Eureka. My interest was advanced even more by Google I/O 2016 and the demo of Google Assistant.
So a few months ago I ventured into this new world of technology (new for me at least) cautiously by purchasing a pair of the LIFX White 800 smart bulbs that were on sale at Walmart due to the release of the LIFX Generation 3 A19.
I found that the Android app was very easy to configure, and that I could easily add the light bulbs to multiple Android devices. I was disappointed to find that they were not immediately compatible Siri on my wife’s iPhone due to the lack of a suitable homekit bridge/hub. This was remedied easily enough by configuring the open-source NodeJS server homebridge and a plugin (homebridge-lifx-lan or homebridge-lifx) to connect the light bulbs to the Apple Home application.
Adding the lightbulbs to the LIFX app on my Pixel was fairly straight forward and went off without a hitch.
I have found the light bulbs easy enough to manage. The hue range and brightness are quite suitable for the application, namely the nightstand lights in the master bedroom and I would definitely recommend these to anyone that doesn’t have a need for more than just white led light bulbs.