Meross Launches Modular Smart LED Floor Lamp With HomeKit Support

[MacRumors]

Meross this week added a height adaptable LED Floor Lamp to its smart home lineup offering Apple HomeKit support.

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Boasting a modular three-piece design, the slim black lamp can be adjusted to a height of 54.7 inches (139cm) for placement on a floor, or 22 inches (56cm) for desk use via the included base or clamp mount.

The flexible gooseneck can be tilted and rotated 360 degrees, and though it doesn't feature color changes, the brightness, warmness and coolness of the light can be adjusted between 2700 to 6000K.

The 12-Watt lamp features a peak brightness of 650 lumens and is fully dimmable using the integrated touch panel on the lamp stem, the included remote, or via the mobile app.

In addition to HomeKit, the Meross Smart LED Floor Lamp is compatible with Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and the Meross app when connected to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi.

The Meross MSL610HK Smart LED Floor Lamp is available now on Amazon for $79.99, but Meross is currently offering a $25 discount that can be found on the Amazon product listing.

(Via iMore.)

Article Link: Meross Launches Modular Smart LED Floor Lamp With HomeKit Support

 

[MTShipp]

I won’t trust it. I have a house full or Meross switches and have an unsolvable issue where they periodically decide to reboot themselves and whatever is attached loses power for a moment. Freaks the dog with lights cycling, resets the TV and clocks if connected, etc. I love how they respond so much faster and have more range than the BT HK devices but support is unresponsive about this problem.

 

[baryon]

I think some things should just stay dumb. Go up to lamp, switch it on, change the brightness or color or whatever, but having to connect it, pair it, unpair it, reboot it, firmware update it, get the app, sign in, sign out, sign back in again, forgot your password, restart your router, say a prayer... just to turn on a lamp is a bit silly.

What's the benefit? If you're using a lamp you're near it anyway, chances are your phone or Amazon thingy will be further than the lamp itself. It's just complexity (and cost) for the sake of it. You can get a lamp like this in IKEA for the price of lunch.

 

[MowgliWolf]

Why on earth is a smart lamp a thing? I really, really, don’t understand this

 

[matrix07]

Wi-Fi? No thank. Just buys any lamp of your choosing and buys Nanoleaf Essential bulb and you'll get a very smart lamp.

 

[matrix07]

Go up to lamp, switch it on

I don't have to do that for some time now. Automation is the word.

 

[twistedpixel8]

I won’t trust it. I have a house full or Meross switches and have an unsolvable issue where they periodically decide to reboot themselves and whatever is attached loses power for a moment. Freaks the dog with lights cycling, resets the TV and clocks if connected, etc. I love how they respond so much faster and have more range than the BT HK devices but support is unresponsive about this problem.

I use IKEA smart switches. They’ve been faultless for 6 months and cost less than £10 each. Added to my Hue hub through HomeBridge. But they were just as good with the IKEA gateway which I think is only £15 now?

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Looks like a dental lamp.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Why on earth is a smart lamp a thing? I really, really, don’t understand this

Me neither. All my lamps are dumb but have smart bulbs. Bulb blows: buy new bulb, not a whole new lamp.

 

[kirbyrun]

Every Meross gadget I've bought has been a disappointment. They work at first, but then randomly, consistently disconnect from HomeKit and stop working until rebooted. Which defeats the whole point of automation. Caveat emptor.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Every Meross gadget I've bought has been a disappointment. They work at first, but then randomly, consistently disconnect from HomeKit and stop working until rebooted. Which defeats the whole point of automation. Caveat emptor.

Sounds like LIFX. They disconnect from wifi and then seem too stupid to try connecting again. It seems like such a basic task: “If disconnected from Wi-Fi, wait 60 seconds, try to connect again. Repeat until connected again.” But apparently that’s beyond the reach of their dev team…

 

[jhollington]

I won’t trust it. I have a house full or Meross switches and have an unsolvable issue where they periodically decide to reboot themselves and whatever is attached loses power for a moment. Freaks the dog with lights cycling, resets the TV and clocks if connected, etc. I love how they respond so much faster and have more range than the BT HK devices but support is unresponsive about this problem.

Funny you should mention that, as I've only recently begun having this exact problems with the iDevices switches that I've otherwise been using without any problems for the past six years. I haven't tried any Meross devices yet (the light strip is on the way), but since the iDevices products are also Wi-Fi, it sounds similar.

There haven't been any firmware updates for any of those devices in about two years, so nothing's changed on that side. In my case, I suspect it's a HomeKit problem, but I'd assumed that it was just something with the iOS 15 and tvOS 15 betas. My iDevices Wall Switch had started losing its connection occasionally back in iOS 14.6 or so, but with more recently it started rebooting regularly, alongside my iDevices Switch (the blocky plug-in version with the LED nightlight on the front).

 

[jhollington]

I think some things should just stay dumb. Go up to lamp, switch it on, change the brightness or color or whatever, but having to connect it, pair it, unpair it, reboot it, firmware update it, get the app, sign in, sign out, sign back in again, forgot your password, restart your router, say a prayer... just to turn on a lamp is a bit silly.

Heh, you make that sound a lot more complicated than it is. While there's a pairing process to set up a new HomeKit accessory, once you've done that it pretty much just works.

In my case, the ability to use those lamps as part of scenes and scheduled routines is where the benefit really comes in. For example, I can know that all of my lights will be properly switched off when I leave my house, or go to bed at night, without having to patrol every room and see if I forgot to turn something off manually.

Plus, I have two bedside lamps in my bedroom that are paired with a wall switch and a motion sensor (Hue bulbs, Hue Dimmer, Hue Motion), so that I can easily turn them on and off when I enter or leave the room, rather than either needlessly turning on the ceiling light or stumbling to the other side a darkened room just to find the manual switches on each lamp.

That said, I rarely use my actual iPhone to turn things on or off — especially when I'm near them — and I've always insisted that all of my HomeKit accessories be paired with a manual option. For instance, that's why I use Lutron wall switches for my light fixtures, rather than putting in Hue bulbs. People have been turning on light switches the old fashioned way for 50+ years. Automation can be a great enhancement to that, but it's not a replacement.

 

[DaBozMan]

Every Meross gadget I've bought has been a disappointment. They work at first, but then randomly, consistently disconnect from HomeKit and stop working until rebooted. Which defeats the whole point of automation. Caveat emptor.

Interesting. I have 6 Meross WiFi plugs and they have all been flawless. Had them for a couple of years too. I don’t use through Homekit, only through the Meross app. Not tried any of their other devices.

 

[kirbyrun]

Interesting. I have 6 Meross WiFi plugs and they have all been flawless. Had them for a couple of years too. I don’t use through Homekit, only through the Meross app. Not tried any of their other devices.

Entirely possible that it's specifically a Meross/Homekit issue, not Meross in general. But since I pipe everything through Homekit, the end result is the same to me. Glad they work for you -- they're decent hardware and reasonably priced!

 

[DaBozMan]

Entirely possible that it's specifically a Meross/Homekit issue, not Meross in general. But since I pipe everything through Homekit, the end result is the same to me. Glad they work for you -- they're decent hardware and reasonably priced!

Agree Meross is pretty decent stuff. I did buy 1 to start as I was sceptical of how good they’d be for the price. I find HomeKit a bit flakey in general, although my use of it is pretty limited compared to some. I have loads of Hue lights throughout the house - perfect through the Hue app and mostly fine through HomeKit, but every now and again they just simply stop responding in HomeKit. Never worked out why.

 

[jhollington]

I have loads of Hue lights throughout the house - perfect through the Hue app and mostly fine through HomeKit, but every now and again they just simply stop responding in HomeKit. Never worked out why.

I’ve had that problem with Hue for years, but I recently solved it by moving my Hue bridge closer to my lights.

I’m not sure why, but it seems like HomeKit is much more sensitive to a weak signal that Hue’s own app, which is why I never thought of it as a range issue. After pulling a Hue light strip out of my living room a few months ago, however, it made sense to relocate my Hue bridge into my bedrooms, where all my other Hue lights are located, and I’ve had a flawless connection from HomeKit ever since.

In fact, I also suddenly began seeing connection problems in the other direction — to a bulb in a desk lamp on my office in the basement (where the Hue bridge had been before), so I simply pulled that out and replaced it with a normal bulb and a Wi-Fi switch.

 

[attila]

Shame it's so ugly.

 

[GIZBUG]

Currently unavailable
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock

 

[davemacdo]

No Thread. Not interested.

 

[kirbyrun]

Agree Meross is pretty decent stuff. I did buy 1 to start as I was sceptical of how good they’d be for the price. I find HomeKit a bit flakey in general, although my use of it is pretty limited compared to some. I have loads of Hue lights throughout the house - perfect through the Hue app and mostly fine through HomeKit, but every now and again they just simply stop responding in HomeKit. Never worked out why.

I occasionally have a Hue light give "No Response" in Homekit, but -- crucially! -- a couple of annoyed taps on the tile in Home.app almost always gets them to reconnect, if they don't just do so on their own after a little wait. Once a Meross gadget gives No Response, the only recourse is to walk over to it and physically disconnect it from power, then reconnect it.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

On their website, instead of saying 'Unavailable', they just don't show the country flag icons so it can't activate the 'Buy Now' button. Very poor UI design. It's been frustrating trying to figure out why I couldn't see 'the country icons'. Since most people seem to call it ugly, either there are issues with manufacturing, or ugly lamps are pretty popular. (To me, it looks like a sci-fi prop, like the new War Of The Worlds?)

 

[MowgliWolf]

Why on earth is a smart lamp a thing? I really, really, don’t understand this

All well and good to disagree, but I’d prefer a considered argument to a simple button press

 

[Steve686]

I think some things should just stay dumb. Go up to lamp, switch it on, change the brightness or color or whatever, but having to connect it, pair it, unpair it, reboot it, firmware update it, get the app, sign in, sign out, sign back in again, forgot your password, restart your router, say a prayer... just to turn on a lamp is a bit silly.

What's the benefit? If you're using a lamp you're near it anyway, chances are your phone or Amazon thingy will be further than the lamp itself. It's just complexity (and cost) for the sake of it. You can get a lamp like this in IKEA for the price of lunch.

Get rid of your remote control for your TV, then.

You're directly in front of the tv so you can go up and change the channel on a cable box, right?

 

[MowgliWolf]

Get rid of your remote control for your TV, then.

You're directly in front of the tv so you can go up and change the channel on a cable box, right?

I’d argue that is something of a different kettle of fish. Compared to a lamp where at most you might switch it on or off, maybe adjust a dimmer switch, with a TV set you’d expect to make multiple changes and or adjustments e.g. volume, channel, additional device for alternate media while sitting in a position of comfort