LIFX System: Review

LIFX System: Review

Rating: 4.5/5

System Price: 20,000+

Our verdict: The LIFX system and products are user friendly and easy to use. The app is also quite comfortable and easy to navigate. The products are also fun and eye-catching and provide a much needed lift to the spirits of your home. We would recommend buying the LIFX products if you are a smart home owner with a decent budget and are looking to splurge on accessorizing your smart home with the best in class smart lighting and controller solutions.

The hype around smart lighting and accessories to equip your home for a smarter tomorrow is only increasing each year and we are loving it. LIFX is one brand that has been at the forefront of smart lighting innovation and has consistently offered some of the best lighting solutions in the market.

The following is a detailed review of smart lighting solutions and switches offered by LIFX and whether they are worth every penny:

About LIFX

Launched in the year 2012 with an aim to revolutionize the smart home markets, LIFX offers a wide range of products, catering to smart home owners and enthusiasts in over 80 countries across the world.

With a passion to bring the future of lighting to ordinary, everyday customers across the world, LIFX was the first brand in the market to launch a multicolored LED Wi-Fi powered light and has, since then, continued their legacy of innovating and creating some of the most interesting and path breaking products to light up the homes of millions of customers across the world.

As we go further, we will now explore the unique offerings and lighting solutions that LIFX provides to add a dash of light to your home.

LIFX Product Range 

Smart Lighting

Lighting is one of the major categories in the LIFX range of products, with several unique offerings and features being continually added to the range. From the beginning, color quality has been one of the strongest suits of the LIFX range of products. Each color is bright and vivid with relatively no weak spots.

The LIFX smart lights can be controlled from anywhere through the smartphone app, and work with smart speakers to follow voice commands as well.

The LIFX app has a variety of theme options for you to choose from, giving your home a different ambience to suit every occasion. The Effects feature of the app offers specific routines of lights for you to run through.

We had a bone to pick about the Effects features as some of the effects from the 80 offered by the LIFX app can be made more effective and can work better than they do currently. You can even set schedules and timers for your LIFX smart lights. Let us review the three different types of smart lighting options offered by LIFX.

• Smart Lightbulbs

For more subtle lighting options, the LIFX bulbs relegate the colored diodes to the bottom 50% of the brightness scale of the bulbs. As you increase the brightness of the lightbulbs beyond 50%, the bulb starts adding white diodes, desaturating the colors and producing tinted white light, which is more suited for gentle, everyday use.

The LIFX bulbs generally are a class aparted and are much loved by veteran smart home owners who have tried several different smart bulbs and have finally understood that no comparisons can be drawn to the LIFX bulbs.

To cater to the different needs of your smart home, LIFX has the following lightbulbs to offer:

• Color A19
• Color BR30
• Night Vision A19
• Night Vision BR30
• Filament
• Candle Color
• Candle White to Warm

Of these, the Night Vision A19 and BR 30 are powerful additions to a security to your home’s security systems as they give off an infrared light at night, improving the vision of the security cameras.

The Candle Color and the Candle Warm to White give off diffused, blended
glows for those who cannot stand the sight of harsh, bright lights in their homes.

An exciting and novel concept we discovered in the LIFX lightbulbs is that the LIFX Clean A19 is one of the first, and probably the only lightbulb in the market that has the ability to eliminate the bacteria in your room.

Not only does the LIFX Clean A19 provide smart, customizable lighting solutions for your smart home, but it can also activate a Clean Cycle routine that turns on the HEV lighting to help eliminate harmful bacteria in the air and on the surface in your room, when it is not being used as a standard smart light.

A beautiful, vibrant light that also keeps bacteria away? We don’t think that it gets any better than this!

• Smart Downlights

If you are a first time purchaser of smart lights or are just getting started, the GU10 downlight offered by LIFX is the perfect choice for you. It is a simple way to start designing the map of smart home devices you need to connect to your smart home.

Providing a staggering 800 lumens by consuming a mere 13 Watts of power, the GU Downlight lights up spaces easily without requiring any hubs or cables. To be fair, the LIFX GU10 Downlight cannot be installed into enclosed fittings, so you will have to bear the cost of replacing existing fittings to accommodate the Downlight.

LIFX Smart Switches

What do you do when you have a home equipped with both traditional as well as smart lighting setups?

Usually, you will have to install two light switches in the room; one for the traditional lights and the other to control your smart lights.

Finding a simple smart switch that can support both smart as well as traditional lights is rare, but LIFX has the answer. Offering both two as well four smart switches in the form of the LIFX Smart Switch 2 Button and the LIFX Smart Switch 4 Gang, the smart switches are a good choice to pick for your favorite lights.

Both the switches come with a flat, aesthetically appealing capacitive panel complete with haptic feedback and during our usage, did not show any delay between the tap and the execution of the command.

Home Entertainment

To enhance your TV watching experience or your Netflix binge for the weekend, LIFX offers the LIFX Z LED strips with the Bias Lighting option, made especially fit to be installed behind your TV to reduce eye strain as well as set the mood for the content you are watching.

You can even have your LIFX Z LED strip paint the wall behind your TV half and half with the colors of the two teams playing, to set the mod in your very own sports arena at home!

We especially loved the custom Scenes feature that lets you recall your favorite Scenes easily. You can even paint each LIFX Z Strip with multiple colors, which is something that you cannot do with Philips Hue or any other alternative lightstrip available in the market. Simply peel the sticky tape from the back of the Lightstrips and attach them in place to get the party started.

Feature Lights

• LIFX Lighstrips

According to a general consensus, LIFX has basically killed it with the LED Lightstrips. Not only are they easy to install and use, but they offer some of the best color payoff we have seen in lightstrips in the market.

You can pick from among the LIFX Lightstrip 40 inches and the LIFX Lightstrip 80 inches, with an option to purchase a Lightstrip extension measuring 40 inch long.

As mentioned above, there is also an additional lightstrip called the LIFX Z LED strip that is especially suited to be installed behind your TV for a grand watching experience.

The life expectancy of the lightstrips is up to 22 years, which is unheard of. It’s a total yes from our side!

• LIFX Beam

The LIFX Beam is a set of 6 Beams and 1 corner that is perfect for framing your space.

The Beam looks fantastic on the wall, whether you are going for a vibrant neon sheen to light up your game nights or a warm, fiery glow for the evenings when you just need to unwind and relax.

Each beam bar has 10 individual color customization points which can be individually given any color you prefer. You can even choose from one of the 15 preset themes if you wish to access a quick range of designs.

Overall, the LIFX beam is a fun and versatile addition to any room, letting you unleash your creative side while also providing you with smart lighting solutions for everyday use.

LIFX – The App Experience

The LIFX App experience is generally lauded by most smart home owners. In our experience, the app works quite well.

We found the app to be quite clean and intuitive for controlling both the color and the brightness of single lights.The app also has a very easy interface to group different devices and control them without any hassle.

The LIFX app also allows users to create and manage the automation of their LIFX devices and seamlessly add your personal touches to your smart home.

All in all, we would give a thumbs up to the LIFX app in terms of ease of usage and navigation as well as responsiveness and agility.

Alexa & Google Home Integration

In terms of smart assistant integrations, LIFX is compatible with Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT and even Apple HomeKit, thus giving you a wide range of options to control your devices through voice commands

Third-party Integrations

LIFX has done a good job of integrating most of its devices with the more popular third party devices and services available in the market. Most LIFX products are compatible with Cortana powered support for PCs and devices running on Windows 10, Amazon Echo, and most devices supported by the SmartThings platform as well as with HomeKit compatible Hue bulbs and Siri.

The third party integrations are fairly easy to set up. If you are a smart home owner looking to add some LIFX products in your home and wondering if they will integrate with your existing systems, there are high chances that your LIFX will be compatible.

One unique feature of the LIFX bulbs that makes it a good option to choose over Philips Hue is that the LIFX bulbs can also switch to specific colors using voice commands, which is not possible with Philips hue.

Installation

Installation of the LIFX products is pretty straightforward.

To install your LIFX bulbs, follow a simple four step process. Simply download the LIFX app on your iOS, Windows or Android device. Register on the app and set it up to begin. Now simply connect your bulb to your Wi-Fi and add the bulb of your choice to the LIFX app and start using it immediately!

Installation of the downlight can be done in a manner that is similar to the installation of the bulbs.

To install your LIFX lightstrips, simply attach the light strip to the surface you wish to install it on by peeling the adhesive tape on the back of the lightstrip and attaching it to the surface. Now connect it to your Wi-Fi and you are good to go!

Installation of the beams is pretty straightforward and can be performed following the same steps as the lightstrips.

One thing to remember, however, is that once you attach your lightstrip, downlight or beam to a surface, the adhesive at the back of the device attaches quite strongly with the surface it is on. So you need to be careful with what you are doing as peeling the device off and reattaching it can be a tedious and messy task.

In most cases, you will be able to complete the installation and configuration by yourself.

In case you run into an issue and wish to get assistance or want to ensure hassle-free, correct installation of your LIFX products, click on the link and we will reach out to you immediately.

After understanding the issue, we can connect you to a professional service near you so that you can have your LIFX products installed conveniently and by a professional.

LIFX: Pricing & Cost Estimation

Owing to the fact that LIFX smart lighting does not require a bridge or a Hub to connect to an existing smart home system, the retail price of the lights is lower than that compared to some other brands.

As far as the LIFX bulbs go, the price range is not cheap. So, if you are looking to try out the LIFX bulbs for a singular purpose or event, you would probably be better off with those offered by SmartNode or DigiLife, which retails for much less than the LIFX bulbs.

On the other hand, if you are looking to light up a larger home with more varied lighting requirements, the LIFX bulbs are a definite Yes for you.

Looking at the price of the LIFX Beam, you would think that it is too expensive, especially since you can purchase almost 4 color changing Philips Hue bulbs, but let us tell you – they would not even come close to the design led impact that the Beam has. Trust us!

Conclusion

This in-depth review made it clear that LIFX products have a lot of exciting features to offer. If you have a comfortable budget, good internet connection and voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Apple HomeKit; you should definitely consider bringing the LIFX smart lighting solutions home.