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Add to SafariWhen comparing Elgato Alvea vs Osram Lightify Classic, the Slant community recommends Elgato Alvea for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Elgato Alvea is ranked 10th while Osram Lightify Classic is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Elgato Alvea is:
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.
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 Choice of hardware
Linked above is the classic bulb style, but Osram offers a few different products that fall into its Lightify family of products. These include an RGB flexible strip of LEDs (really cool desk/counter/home theatre accent lighting), and two other cheaper bulbs that don't offer RGB lighting (one has adjustable color temperature, the other doesn't).
Pro Access to 2 major ecosystems
These bulbs aren't attached to their own proprietary ecosystem - they are built to be compatible with Wink and WeMo which are already established ecosystems which allow for third party automation as well as other features.
Pro Very efficient
While any LED will be more efficient than incandescent bulbs, the Osram Lightify is one of the most efficient smart bulbs currently available, providing 89 lumens per watt (beating WeMo at 87, Philips Hue at 81, and GE Link at 78).
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 Lacks polish
The app isn't as intuitive as the other higher-end competitors, and lights have a slight delay when turning on.
Con Short lifespan
While virtually every other smart bulb is rated at 25,000 hours, the Osram Lightify is only rated at 20,000 hours. While it isn't certain these lights will clunk out before the others, it seems more likely.
