CES 2020: LIFX Unveils New Filament Bulbs, Switches, Candle Bulbs, and Light Strips

[MacRumors]

LIFX, known for its line of HomeKit-connected lights and accessories, is debuting several new products at CES, ranging from bulbs to light strips, with highlights below.

LIFX Filament

LIFX's new filament bulbs are an answer to the Hue filament bulbs that came out in late 2019. The ST64 Teardrop debuted at CES, but LIFX also plans to make a G95 Globe bulb. The bulbs are HomeKit-enabled and are available in a single warm white color. LIFX plans to debut the filament bulbs in the spring of 2020 and they're expected to be priced at $30.

LIFX Switch

The LIFX Switch is a small wall accessory equipped with four switches to control both dumb and smart LIFX bulbs. It's designed to replace a four-gang bank of light switches with one installation, and it wires into an existing light switch setup. The LIFX Switch is priced at $120 (though there will be a $20 launch discount) and is set to debut in the spring of 2020.

LIFX Z 360 Kit

The LIFX 360 Kit is a 360 degree Light Strip setup that's meant to make it easy to run a light strip along the back of a TV. It features corner connectors and LED strip pieces optimized for TVs. There's also a separate LIFX Z Gamer Kit for gaming monitors. The LIFX Z 360 Kit is priced at $100, while the gamer kit is priced at $70. These kits will be available in stores in the spring of 2020.

Candle White to Warm

The LIFX Candle White to Warm joins the previously announced LIFX Candle Color, offering tunable white light in a candelabra bulb. It can connect to HomeKit and can be adjusted with the LIFX app. The Candle White to Warm will cost $30 and it's expected to launch in the spring of 2020.

Along with these products, LIFX is also planning to debut a new app experience in mid-January 2020 offering a more friendly design, better scheduling options, grouping of lights in the dashboard, and a Scenes and Effects section that saves user favorites.

Article Link: CES 2020: LIFX Unveils New Filament Bulbs, Switches, Candle Bulbs, and Light Strips

 

[Rychiar]

love my lifx devices but HomeKit stuff in general is still terribly overpriced. I won't buy anything new until something really wows me or they drop prices closer to typical Alexa device prices

 

[Ad13]

Wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. Difficult to set up and so unreliable with HomeKit. I had my whole house covered and got sick of the constant resetting game that I got rid of them. Let me tell you, the resetting game is very challenging too! Philips Hue all the way.

 

[coumerelli]

A smart candle? Lol. Now I've seen everything.

 

[FaustsHausUK]

I'm hoping the Connected Home Over IP alliance makes interoperability issues (and HomeKit price gouging) a thing of the past: https://www.connectedhomeip.com/ - I'm increasingly tempted to fit smart lighting in my apartment but the confusing mix of standards and support is a deterrent.

 

[69Mustang]

I'm hoping the Connected Home Over IP alliance makes interoperability issues (and HomeKit price gouging) a thing of the past: https://www.connectedhomeip.com/ - I'm increasingly tempted to fit smart lighting in my apartment but the confusing mix of standards and support is a deterrent.

This. So much this. If it all works as they want it to work, not only will interoperability and price gouging disappear, but the choices of options will increase greatly. If it all works.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

This. So much this. If it all works as they want it to work, not only will interoperability and price gouging disappear, but the choices of options will increase greatly. If it all works.

I’ll tell ya... for simplicity & interoperability, LIFX is excellent.
The current problem (in my opinion) in smart home tech is more in lame hubs.
You get Hue, you need a hub, you get Ikea, another hub, August door lock? Hub. MyQ garage door opener? You guessed it- another hub.
They tend to be finicky & require maintenance if ever you lose wifi (such as a router reboot).
However, my 3 LIFX lights don’t suffer any connection woes!!! =)
Owing to the fact that the “hub” tech is built into each & every bulb... a bit more per unit that some others, but worth it to remove the expense/hassle of an entire separate hub.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

I’ll tell ya... for simplicity & interoperability, LIFX is excellent.
The current problem (in my opinion) in smart home tech is more in lame hubs.
You get Hue, you need a hub, you get Ikea, another hub, August door lock? Hub. MyQ garage door opener? You guessed it- another hub.
They tend to be finicky & require maintenance if ever you lose wifi (such as a router reboot).
However, my 3 LIFX lights don’t suffer any connection woes!!! =)
Owing to the fact that the “hub” tech is built into each & every bulb... a bit more per unit that some others, but worth it to remove the expense/hassle of an entire separate hub.

My Philips Hue system doesn't struggle with reconnecting if it loses internet, and the hub technically makes it more performant when it comes to response times.

 

[SkippyThorson]

A smart candle? Lol. Now I've seen everything.

It’s not literally a smart candle. It’s a candelabra bulb; well LED. Referred to as a candle bulb, abbreviated as candle.

—

These are interesting. I need 5 good looking candles in a chandelier; and other than Phillips, most have noticeable ugly corporate print all over the base or are way to dim.

These look good, and if the 2 color bulbs I have in my porch fixtures are an indication, these should be great. Those aren’t outdoor lights and they’ve been out there for years without an issue.

I seriously welcome a redesigned app though. That’s been my only gripe. The UI and navigation of their app is atrocious.

 

[ErikGrim]

Have had LIFX since the original backer bulbs and have never had to do any kind of "resetting game". The older bulbs require Homebridge however, but once that was set up it made it easy to integrate the cheaper non Home-Kit stuff, so win win!

 

[AndrewRandle]

They are not filament bulbs.

Andrew

 

[adammusic]

Love Lifx.
Never had to reset.
Grabbing those candle lights to replace those **** window candles my mom buys & has to replace every year.
Nothing else in that smart in that market.
Smart move.

 

[x-evil-x]

A smart candle? Lol. Now I've seen everything.

I used to have a flicker led candelabra bulb on a wink hub switch(on off switch) 3+ years ago. Not thatttt crazy
[automerge]1578484405[/automerge]
hopefully lifx works on the software. With the strips they have zones and you can set scenes in HomeKit with them. Thats if they remember the correct zone colors you have set. Sometimes it works sometimes it won't remember and be a random color or the standard 3000k color. Not sure how well the bulbs work but I imagine fine because you only have one color to choose from. I still prefer hue because I have no issues with their stuff.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

We really need more of these smart switches rather than smart bulbs. I just wish the switches had more variety in looks and specifically more traditional looking models with what looks like a standard rocker or dimmer switch. I live in a Victorian house and I'm not going to be replacing all 8 light bulbs in a chandelier that looks appropriate for the period with smart light bulbs and i'm not going to be replacing the classical looking switches with ultra modern touch sensitive smart ones.

 

[Abazigal]

Is it just me or does the concept of smart homes largely seem confined to switching light bulbs on and off with your voice?

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

My Philips Hue system doesn't struggle with reconnecting if it loses internet, and the hub technically makes it more performant when it comes to response times.

Sounds like justification of a useless expense to me.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Sounds like justification of a useless expense to me.

Do you always post like this? You should stop posting like this.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

Do you always post like this? You should stop posting like this.

Lol, yeah my helpful post explaining how to get smart home lighting up & running cheaply and easily was SUPER lame, right?
Thank heavens we had an opposing view as well; a proponent for unnecessary additional hardware & expense!!!
Please NEVER stop posting like this. The poor companies that overcharge and make things needlessly complicated... how will they ever survive without your schilling??

FYI:
When I run scenes that include Hue, IKEA, & LIFX lights they all turn on/off at the same time.... so I guess your one & only rationalization of why it’s actually “good” to pay extra to purchase a separate hub kinda fell flat there, bud.

Any other tidbits to share- or was it just: everyone should blow money on the exact same products you purchased & I should shut up?

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh in the morning

 

[hipnetic]

I'm not a fan of smart bulbs, in general. I far prefer hard-wired light dimmers (Lutron Caseta, in particular), but the problem is that those are still so horribly overpriced. They were about $60 when they first came out, and they're still selling for about $60 (in fact, it seems like the current price may be a couple of dollars more than they used to be).

Smart bulbs require using your phone or Echo Dot-style mic/speaker device, and if you accidentally turn off the switch that they're connected to, well...you've just powered it off completely. That said, I have been using a Philips Hue bulb in my home office, since it's got an Echo Spot, and I haven't wanted to spend the $60 (yet) to upgrade the switch/dimmer. Despite Philips being branded as one of the best and most reliable of these systems, I've had more trouble with that one not turning on/off reliably.

IMO, I also think these Lifx products sound pretty overpriced.

I would recommend that people think about the particular room they're looking to use a light or lightstrip in, what the scenarios are that you're going to want to turn it on/off or change color, and question whether you need it to be part of your overall integrated system, or if it can be a less-smart one-off. Being more specific...

In my main living area I have Lutron Caseta dimmers, and I specifically chose them at the time because I wanted something that was compatible with as many systems as possible. So that works with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home. But in my home office, in addition to that Philips Hue bulb, I also have a super-cheap Monster-branded bulb and lightstrip that I got from Walmart (for under $20, I think) which came with the one color-adjustable bulb and lightstrip, as well as a physical remote control. The downside is that it's not compatible with *any* of the "big 3" home automation standards, so I can *only* control it with that remote control. But the remote control works well enough, and I have it sitting on my desk, and it's smart enough to keep the light bulb and lightstrip in sync color-wise, including an interesting "cycle" mode that slowly/smoothly shifts the color automatically through a wide spectrum of colors. This bulb/lightstrip effectively act as "mood" lighting for me. The Philips Hue alternative to this would have cost a *lot* more, would not have had its own dedicated remote, and would require that I use an App (or Alexa) and I'd probably have to use Philips' app to access any auto-color-cycling features. And I can't think of a real use case for me where I'd need it to work as part of a whole-home integrated system (e.g., I don't need to turn it on/off from another room in my house, or when I'm not home at all).

FWIW, even though we're an Apple household, I'm not a fanatic about privacy and the Amazon or Google Dot-style devices are so cheap, that I can justify the expense of placing these throughout multiple rooms in my house, whereas all Apple offers is their $300 HomePod. So, while I still prefer to buy devices that are compatible with all 3 of the standards, in several cases I've been content with something simply working with Amazon Alexa. For example, I bought some Wyze cameras, which aren't HomeKit compatible, but they're super-cheap and support local storage (which I prefer vs consuming a lot of bandwidth to upload my video to the cloud, which usually also comes with an added monthly fee). Again, because they're cheap, I can easily justify the expense of buying several of them, as compared to getting cameras that are HomeKit-compatible, but cost a lot more.

 

[44267547]

The LIFX 360 Kit would be something I’d be interested in. I have these customizable LED light ropes that encompass behind my smart TV that give a really nice warm/unique glow. (You can customize the colors to any thing you want under the rainbow), ultimately, I don’t think a $100 isn’t unreasonable, considering that’s what I invested in my set up currently.

 

[DiscoMcDisco]

I have 25 LIFX bulbs of varying types and I have no problems with them whatsoever. Never really have.

FYI - I’ve been beta testing the new app, if anyone wants screenshots etc let me know... it’s completely brilliant compared to the current one.

 

[sidewinder3000]

LIFX bulbs have some nice features, but overall they are more finicky than my Philips Hue bulbs, which are rock solid and basically never fail.

LIFX’s big draw for me is that they make a few bulbs with more than 800 lumens (about a 60 watt equivalent), which Hie doesn’t, so I use those in two ceiling fixtures. LIFX also has some really great color controls on their app. The downside is, the actual color of the light from the bulb is kinda weird for certain parts of the spectrum, and when WiFi goes out they are sometimes finicky in terms of automatically reconnecting.

I’m looking forward to them evolving and offering Hue some real competition in the near future, to bring more innovation to the category.

 

[ErikGrim]

Is it just me or does the concept of smart homes largely seem confined to switching light bulbs on and off with your voice?

Yes. But you also get to switch on and off ALL your bulbs with your voice / presence.

 

[x-evil-x]

Is it just me or does the concept of smart homes largely seem confined to switching light bulbs on and off with your voice?

I mean if you can't see the big difference in living with an an entire home with smart bulbs then you will only see this little thing you are talking about.
Its much more than just using your voice for commands. I rarely use my voice to trigger a scene I usually have scenes setup at breakfast/waking up and when I leave and come home.
Not having to touch a single light or fan when I leave is nice. Everything turns off for me without me having to do anything. Same with my lock. I leave it locks and I don't have to go fiddling with my keys. Coming home is better if im carrying a lot of things I don't have to unlock the door with a key. The lights are already on depending on what time of day I come home I have a different scene if I come home past 6. Also laying in bed and turning off every light with one click or a phrase is nice. There is a lot more convenience people don't realize till they have a full home with lights/switches ect...
There are also light switch replacements I use from hue I have setup on scenes and can dim whole sections of the place.