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Add to SafariWhen comparing Elgato Alvea vs Nyrius smart LED bulbs, the Slant community recommends Nyrius smart LED bulbs for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Nyrius smart LED bulbs is ranked 5th while Elgato Alvea is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Nyrius smart LED bulbs is:
'Rhythm' is the feature which lets your Nyrius bulbs react to music - changing color with the beat. It works fairly well, although it uses your phone's microphone to do so which means that voices or other loud noises can affect it.
Question Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Music synchronization
'Rhythm' is the feature which lets your Nyrius bulbs react to music - changing color with the beat. It works fairly well, although it uses your phone's microphone to do so which means that voices or other loud noises can affect it.
Pro Doesn't require a centralized hub
Nyrius smart LED bulbs connect directly to your phone without the need for a centralized hub. This reduces the cost of the system.
Cons
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.
Con Dim lights
These bulbs only produce 490 lumens - equivalent to 40-watt bulbs. They aren't bright enough to light up a room on their own, and unless you have multiple in one room they will only effectively be used as accent lighting
Con 8 bulb limit
While other systems can handle up to 50 bulbs, the Nyrius app can only manage 8 bulbs. The bulbs aren't too bright either, so you will be limited to 2...maybe 3 rooms before you'll have to look for another smart bulb option.
Con Limited to bluetooth range
The Nyrius bulbs use bluetooth, which is limited to around 100 feet. This means that you can't change the lights over WiFi when you are away from the house.
