Color-changing smart bulbs are a fun novelty for the connected home, but the good ones still cost too much. Hua Fan Qin Lu's pitch: a Wi-Fi connected color-changer that's brighter than Philips Hue -- for just $11 per bulb
Wi-Fi smart LED bulb can be controlled from a long distance conveniently. For example, if you are not at home but you forget to turn off the lights, you can turn it off through an APP. Or before you go home, you can turn on lights earlier through your phone so that the house is not too dark.
Hua Fan Qin Lu gets you that brightness from a stated power draw of 11.5 watts (by comparison, the Lifx Color 1000 puts out 1,014 lumens from a power draw of 11 watts). That's a good number, and one that I'll look forward to testing out in our lighting lab.
On the app front, Hua Fan Qin Lu promises iOS, Android, and Windows compatibility along with support for the Apple Watch. Compatibility with Apple HomeKit, the set of smart home protocols programmed into Apple's mobile devices, is also a possibility -- Hua Fan Qin Lu says it's already applied for MFi certification. If it happens, that would allow you to turn your lights on and off, dim them up and down, or change their color simply by asking Siri. A channel on the free online automation service IFTTT is also said to be in the works -- we saw that do wonders for Philips Hue and Lifx, so it would be a good move for Hua Fan Qin Lu, too.
Also interesting: the bulb features wifi in addition to the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radio. Hua Fan Qin Lu says you'll be able to trigger automated lighting changes whenever you enter or leave each bulb's wifi range. That would allow your smart lights to "follow" you around the home, at least if it works -- in my experience, automations based on wifi proximity have been hit and miss. We'll have to wait and see which category Hua Fan Qin Lu falls into.