When comparing Elgato Alvea vs GE Link, the Slant community recommends Elgato Alvea for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Elgato Alvea is ranked 10th while GE Link is ranked 14th. 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.
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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 Easy lighting management
Once you get the Wink App working, controls for the bulbs are simple. Whether you are modifying one bulb at a time, or grouping them to adjust many all at once, the controls are simple and work fairly well. Automating bulbs is just as easy - from basic scheduling (turn on in the morning, off when you go to bed for example) to recognizing when your phone is near and turn on by themselves.
If you want to go deeper, you can use the Robots feature, which allows you to craft your own automation recipe and dip into external triggers.
Pro Great color range
These bulbs can manage to display 90% of the color index - more than any current RGB LED bulb. It scores very well in all colors, expect pure red (about 60%) and pure blue (about 74%). Different shades of these colors all perform well.
Pro Compatible with many products
The GE Link is part of Wink's smart home platform standard, and are compatible with other products that utilize Wink (Honeywell, Dropcam, Philips Hue and more).
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 Buggy software
Between installing, registering, and connecting, the setup process is very slow and buggy. Even once connected, changing the colors or settings takes longer and appears more choppy than competing bulbs.
Updates can fail to install properly multiple times in a row (even with restarting your phone and unscrewing the bulbs).
Con Hub required
To access any smart features, you will require a hub. There are different hubs available, with more to come. Currently there is the Link Hub ($30) which will handle lighting, or the Wink Hub ($50) will be able to work the lights as well as other smart home systems. There's also the coming-soon Wink Relay ($300) which will have a touchscreen and act as a wall mounted smart hub.
Con Inefficient compared to other RGB bulbs
The GE Link requires 12 watts to produce 800 lumens - the TCP LEDs and Belkin WeMo provide the same lumens at 11 watts and 9.5 watts, respectively, and the Philips Hue provides 750 lumens using only 9 watts.
The GE Link is one of the most inefficient RGB LEDs available, however it is still many times more efficient than incandescent bulbs.
Con Limited dimming
While other Smart LED bulbs can dim right down to 0.5% of their total brightness, the GE Link will only go down to 10.2% brightness before it turns off. While this is still fairly dim, it would be nice to have an even larger range to make transitioning to bedtime more effective.