Xiaomi has made its brand known in the technology industry with a multitude of products for applications over mobile phones and laptops to IoT technology and connected electronics. It would not sound as a surprise at all now Xiaomi launches its smart lighting products–Yeelight LED bulbs. In terms of personal wireless LED lighting, Xiaomi claims Yeelight LED bulb offers same quality as that of Philips Hue with more competitive CPI. The light is priced at USD 20 and is even available at discount prices on online shops such as GearBest.

Xiaomi has moved one step forward to smart lighting by launching Yeelight LED bulbs. (Image: Yeelight)

As Android Central portrays, what differentiates Yeelight bulbs from Hue bulbs is that they directly connect to the Wi-Fi network with no wireless bridges required. Users just simply hook them up to an E27 socket and create their personal lighting systems using the Yeelight app. In this case, consumers only need to shell out less than a half of the price they pay for a Hue starter kit.

Once connecting the lights with the app, users are able to control their brightness, intensity, and color temperatures. Swiping left or right in the app enables Yeelight bulbs to change colors; giving a force sliding up and down adjusts their intensity. Users can try another innovative way to pick a color for the lights by choosing preset scenes in the app or uploading a photo from the phone’s gallery. Knowing some consumers may fancy more colors in a light, Xiaomi also equips the app with several options for Flow, a mode which cycles through a set of colors.

Color temperature of the Yeelight bulb is changeable between the range from 1700K to 6500K. Users can control multiple lights with the app at the same time and can also remotely switch them on and off using a scheduler.

Yet, these bulbs, brimming with so much to look forward to, don’t officially work in some countries at this moment as they are designed for 220v outlets. Yeelight LED bulbs would not be connecting to the Wi-Fi network when powered on lower residential voltages. 110V to 240V converters will be required to get the bulbs work in countries such as the U.S.

Yeelight, joining Xiaomi Eco-system in 2014 after receiving Xiaomi’s angel fund, integrated the LED bulbs with Amazon Alexa through support from IFTTT. To be able to connect to Alexa, users have to switch to the Singapore server and by doing so they can also control the LED bulbs with Echo or Echo Dot. Except for the color of the lights, users can use voice control for turning on and off the Yeelight bulbs and tuning the brightness.