Lifx vs Elgato Alvea
When comparing Lifx vs Elgato Alvea, the Slant community recommends Lifx for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Lifx is ranked 2nd while Elgato Alvea is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Lifx is:
While few other SmartBulbs get as bright as a regular 60 watt bulb, the Lifx gets even brighter. Instead of just using it for accent lighting, these smart bulbs are some of the only ones that can effectively be used as a primary lighting source.
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Pros
Pro Very bright
While few other SmartBulbs get as bright as a regular 60 watt bulb, the Lifx gets even brighter. Instead of just using it for accent lighting, these smart bulbs are some of the only ones that can effectively be used as a primary lighting source.
Pro Simple setup
As soon as they are plugged in, the lights will turn on and start broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal. To pair it to your phone, just connect to that Wi-Fi signal. After you connect, you're done and can switch back to your home Wi-Fi.
Pro Third-party integrations
The bulbs can hook into the Nest Thermostat, Nest Smoke Detector, as well as IFTTT (If This Then That - a popular automation app based on 'recipes').
Pro Different bulb options
The Color 1000 comes in two variants - one is a compact A19 size, while the other is a BR30 size. The A19 produces 1055 lumens (equivalent to a 75W bulb), while the BR30 produces 970 lumens (equivalent to a 70W bulb).
Pro No hub required
The bulbs connect straight to the phone, meaning there's no need for a hub which reduces the upfront installation cost.
Pro Easy-to-use app
The app isn't confusing at all. It gives you 9 dynamic lighting options to choose from, such as magic hour (simulates a sunset), northern glow (simulates the northern lights), and cozy flames (simulates fire). Each of these has an option to adjust the intensity, although instead of just adjusting the time it takes to move from one color to the next it also changes the colors. For example, the Cozy Flames turn green-ish instead of the regular red with yellow and orange bursts.
Pro No hub needed
These bulbs hook up directly to your iPod/iPhone/iPad, with no need for a physical hub device.
Cons
Con App lacks features
The app doesn't allow for light scheduling or custom color cycles.
Con High brightness washes out colors
The colored RGB lights can only achieve 50% brightness on their own; after 50% white LEDs are also turned on to achieve a very high total brightness. However, mixing white light with colored light will dilute the colors so that red light at 70% brightness will look more washed out than red light at 50% brightness.
Con Heavier, and warmer than other LED lights
To achieve their high brightness, the Lifx need more diodes than other LED bulbs, which means that they get hotter. To help deal with the heat, there are more heat sinks which adds the weight (they weigh 10.4 ounces each). Despite the heat sinks though, they still run a bit warmer than other LED bulbs.
Con Very dim light
The 430 lumens brightness of the Elgato Alvea is almost as bright as a 40-watt bulb, but not quite. These lights will be very expensive to use as primary light sources, as you'll need many of them to sufficiently light up a room. They are really only cost-effective as accent lighting.
Con Limited coloring options
While most smart bulbs let you pick from a color picker, for solid colors the Elgato Alvea has 7 to choose from (blue, green, orange, purple, red, white, yellow). Each shade is then adjustable in both brightness and shade, however it would have been much easier to just use a color palette like most other smart bulbs.
Also, while the nine dynamic lighting options are easy, they are the only dynamic lighting you can achieve. You can't set up your own dynamic color palette.
Con No Android support
Unfortunately, Elgato Alvea doesn't support any Android devices. It only works with iPhone (4S or later), iPod (5th gen) iPad (3rd gen or newer), or Apple Watch.