LIFX B22 Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulb, Adjustable, Multicolour, Dimmable, No Hub Required, Works with Alexa, Apple HomeKit and The Google Assistant, White

I know the heading is a really bold start so I will explain MY experience with them.Initially I had a well known rivals bulbs, which involved installing a hub, and firstly I was very disappointed at the brightness of them, but after 6 days the hub packed in altogether, leaving me in darkness, and as I am disabled I had to sit in darkness (except for the TV) for 3 hours, until my wife came home from work, where she removed the bulbs and put in the original standard LED's back in.So with the brightness issue and the hub failure I needed a much better solution, so I looked on YouTube and other online reivews, which not only proved that I was right about the brightness of my old system being poor, but also thet the colour rendition was poor too... so I concluded I would give LIFX a go as they seemed perfect.By the way, this was over 3 1/2 years ago when LIFX were £20 more than they are now, so not cheap, but it was the light output and reliability that I wanted, not the cheapest available bulb !I did look at other reviews on here too and yes they are slightly 'fiddly' to set up especially at first, and also if you have to reset them (i.e. turn the light on and off 3 times) but I have only had to reset one bulb once because my MY error.A lot of reviewers tend to blame the bulbs, where clearly it is a problem with the router, as I found out early on as I added more home automation to my set up.My original modem router was a 2012 Netgear one, near the top of the range in those days, and my original LIFX bulbs were not a problem, but then I started adding smart plugs, few start with, then I added more smart speakers and doorbells... hat is where the problems really started... something or even everything would drop out at least one a day but usually twice... yes I could have blamed, LIFX, smart plugs, doorbells etc but it really pointed to one thing my aging Modem/Router, so time for an upgrade (this is especially so if you have a ISP router you get free, these are definitely NOT made for home automation, think : "Why did I get this free ?", thereby lies the answer.So as my "need" for home automation was picking up speed (I was buying more but not Installing then as I knew the router was literally at breaking point) I decided to update my Netgear to a more modern/powerful one, one that was the bottom end of a gaming router really.WOW, what difference... I now have literally 88 'items attached'... no problem, has NEVER dropped out either !Back to the bulbs now : For starters, I used to have 60W tungsten bulbs originally and the highest I run the LIFX at is 80%... and they are definitely brighter than the 60W old bulbs.The other make were run at 100% and were far dimmer than the old 60W bulbs.I was so impressed that I actually started taking an interest in lighting for the first time, and we found that changing the colour temperature in the kitchen, bathroom and my computer room to "cool white" (like most office lighting) was MUCH better and pleasing, and made reading anything a lot easier too, whereas in the bedroom, living room etc, a "warm white" (slightly yellow, more like the old tungsten light) was more relaxing.Then of course there is the '%' brightness, it was great to turn down the brightness for instance when watching TV.Not to mention turning the lights on and off !Even better I am able to control the lights via Alexa and Google Home (yes, I have both) both on/off, % brightness AND colour on colour bulbs.These LED's are strong and VERY well made, they just ooze quality, you realise that when you feel the weight of them.The fact they are their own 'individual hub' means that IF one bulb does fail (as I say, none of mine have, and as I am virtually housebound and I am sure my light are on a lot more then the average house) ALL the rest will still work, so I know I won't be left in darkness again.Unlike other makes fitting them takes 5 minutes, no removing/replacing switches etc, if you can change a bulb you can fit these.You have to have the normal light switch switched on all the time though. initially we used sellotape, but it looked awful, we found the "Switch Bridge 3 Pack" (search for that on Amazon), which are easy to attach to stop people accidentally turning the switch off, but you can still operate the switch though the slot with the little gadget they provide, should you need to replace the bulb or reset it as I mentioned earlier.The other advantage with these is that if you move, undo the LIFX bulb, put the original LED one back in, and remove the switch covers I mentioned, compare that to other systems !I have a multi-bulb set up in the living room of 5 bulbs but I was the first to admit that the standard LIFX with their flat face looked awful, but then the bought out the "Mini' bulb" which is near enough then same size as the old tungsten bulbs.. and even better they did not only a colour version but a "Day and Dusk" version which you can allow to let the bulb change it colour temperature automatically during the day... but you can also have them set to a specific colour temperature too, certainly cool white and warm white are possible plus lots more.The app is one of the best, and a joy to use, but while I initially experimented with it, I found that using voice control was fine 99.9% of the time for what I wanted to do.Now the price has come down on the 'Color 1100' (the spec is slightly better too) bulbs I have just bought two more, one for the kitchen and the other for my computer room.Everyone will have difference experiences with products they buy but please, please look at the possibility that it could be other things, and even if you do swap to another make you will still have problems because of that.Another thing I 'stumbled across' was that changing the channel on your 2.4GHz band will also solve a lot of problems as your neighbours router could be on the same channel and causing interreference (Use a "Wi-Fi Analyser app" on your phone or Google it for more details), also microwaves etc. can cause interreference, maybe you might need a 'signal booster'.I am not saying ALL poor reviews aren't justified, just that some mentioned on here are other problems and not the products, and we can't all be experts, but I am in my seventies, disabled and can still manage to do some of things - if I can't there are groups and the internet search engines you can turn to before giving up, and I am the first to admit I sometimes don't read the instructions fully (… it's a man thing !) then when I do, problem is solved, as the saying goes "If all else fails, read the instructions !"If you buy ANY LIFX bulbs, take a little time setting then up then you will have no problems at all, they are definitely affordable now and you will really appreciate them and what they can do or you.I have no connection with LIFX at all, just a fortunate customer who found the solution to a couple of problems by using these bulbs !Hope this has helped even one person.

Very bright and any colour that you want but it's disconnected from the Wi-Fi for no discernible reason more often that it's connected and it is infuriating at worst and frustrating at best and very bloody annoying.I replaced Novostella lights (due to their dimness and lack of colour making and saving options) with these LIFX ones and I never once had any connectivity issues with the old ones so I know that Wi-Fi range is not the issue, and nor do I ever have any Wi-Fi issues in general with any other devices anyway, so I know that it's this bulb in particular and it is very frustrating.And whenever it disconnects the "Need Help?" link is rubbish and not useful and very inaccessible because it just uses a lot of boffin jargon and is too boring to even mentally process, despite trying.So I'm just stuck here swearing at it because whenever I ask Alexa to change it she says that it's offline and whenever I go to change it in the app itself, it says that it's offline.This is very random, as well - sometimes it is fine, and other times it won' t connect.I am baffled as to why it only works 50% of the time instead of being 100% functioning, or 100% broken.It makes it even harder to work out what the problem even is in order to fix it! 😖

I've used a lot of colour smart bulbs in the past, but this one blows them all out of the water. For a starters, it's base brightness in white is muich higher. And when you move to colour - unlike a lot of bulbs - it barely loses any brightness. It's quite fantastic.You also don't get just a preset selection of say 20-30 colours, but an entire colour wheel that you can choose any particular shade of colour from - and you can notice the minute changes as you move the colours around.The only downside is that the Alexa / Google Home integration is much slower to apply changes. If you use the official LIFX app, it will connect to the bulb through your local WiFi network without touching the internet at all so everything you do is practically instant.If, however, you ask Alexa / Google to do something, it instead has to go through the Alexa web service, through the LIFX web service, then back to your local WiFi network and then the bulb, so it's lot less immediate. Even with my ~400Mbp/s Virgin Media connection it can takes anywhere between 2 - 6 seconds to change. Not particularly a fault with the bulb however, just a side effect of how these digital assistants connect to the multitudes of disparate services they work with. It's just noticeab when you see how *instant* LIFX's own app applies everything.All in all, amazing bulb. It's pricey, and worth every penny.