You can’t turn a corner nowadays without running into some new gadget or other which you can control with your phone. Whatever happened to the good old days of an on/off switch? Bah! Anyhoo, here’s a new take on the whole subject of mood generation… a smartphone controlled LED lamp which goes way beyond just changing colors.

The InLit LED Smart Bulb features 700 lumens and 12W of lighty power, along with a WiFi control panel that would look pretty good on a space shuttle. Most controllable bulbs give you dimming power and a color shifting, but that’s just the starter on this puppy.

First impressions
The bulb (or should that be lamp?) comes in a rather cute little bamboo case, which unwraps like an ancient scroll. It’s twee but a nice change from boring boxes. Inside you get the bulb itself, plus a small but serviceable user guide. And that’s it. You don’t really need anything more do you? Watch our video below for a look at the wondrous things you can do with this illuminating machine.

In use
To get going, simply put the bulb in your choice of lamp, download the free InLit_WT app (Apple) and turn on the lamp. Fire up the app and connect via direct WiFi to configure the bulb to talk to your phone through a WiFi pass-through (i.e. when your phone is also connected to your home WiFi) and you’re basically done. From then on it’s simply a matter of pressing the right buttons.

And there are a lot of buttons! You get no less than eight (8!) different functions with the app connected to your bulb, which is seven more than most of us are used to with our lighty uppy things. You think flicking the on switch is exciting?

The basic color shifting mode is there, which is to be expected. The product features 16 million color options, so you’re not going to get bored for choice here, and there’s also a Scene mode where you can select from a number of presets, like Festive or Reading to give you exactly the light you want with one button press.

The Music feature, which lets you trigger the bulb by playing your favorite tracks is also interesting, as is the feature which lets you set a timer for dimming the bulb, so you can have the light die down slowly to help you go to sleep. But we have to admit that some of the other functions left us a little puzzled. The Voice, Ceiling and Photo functions were just a bit weird for us. Who needs to set a light color from a photograph? And do we really need to trigger the bulb using our voice?

Conclusion
The InLit LED Smart Bulb is definitely pushing the envelope of things you can do with your lighting rig. The fact that you can hook up multiple bulbs to your phone, or even have multiple phones in the house controlling the single bulb is rather cool, no question. And some of the features we can see being downright useful, such as the sleep timer and the ability to set the mood with a button press.

But at the end of the day, a bulb is a bulb, no matter how smart or versatile, and we would have liked to have seen a bit more lumens for our money and maybe a little less fluff. But props to the development team for coming up with something that definitely will hit a chord with the geeky peeps, if only for bragging rights.

Price: $68.95 / £44.72

Specifications:
E27 Cree LED light Bulb
700 Lumens
Color Temperature: 2000 to 10000k
Wi-Fi Control
Support System: Android 4.0 and above, IOS 7.0 and above
Material: Turner aluminum, spray paint
LED Chip Model: SMD5050
LED Brand: Cree
LED Bulb Type: Bubble Ball Bulb
The Input Voltage: 90 to 260 V
Power: 12W
Lumens: 700
Light Color: White+ RGB
Color Temperature: 2000 to 10000k
Links: Wi-Fi
Base Type: E27
Support System: Android 4.0 and above, IOS 7.0 and above