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Add to SafariWhen comparing Cree Connected vs GE Link, the Slant community recommends Cree Connected for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Cree Connected is ranked 13th while GE Link is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Cree Connected is:
At just $15, this is one of the most inexpensive smart bulbs available. It's great not only as a first step into smart bulbs, but also as an inexpensive addition into a Philips Hue or other compatible bulb system.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Inexpensive
At just $15, this is one of the most inexpensive smart bulbs available. It's great not only as a first step into smart bulbs, but also as an inexpensive addition into a Philips Hue or other compatible bulb system.
Pro Many options for automation
Robots is an easy to use automation tool that lets you take control and create your own recipes for your bulbs to follow (flash blue when you receive a text, flash red when the door opens, etc). Shortcuts are also supported - you can setup a cluster of lights to all enter a pre-determined mode with the touch of a single button. Also supported is scheduled lighting - you can have the lights dim near bedtime, and start to illuminate in the morning to help ease the sleep process.
Pro Compatible with many ecosystems
At launch it was only compatible with Wink, but since then has added Staples Connect, SmartThings, and Philips Hue Bridge support. This allows for a wide range of hardware (at varying prices), as well as your choice of ecosystem.
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 Below average color rendering
The colors that the Cree connected provides are just below average for smart bulbs. At 80% of the spectrum, they fall behind the GE Link (90%), Belkin WeMo (88%), and Osram (81%) but a hair ahead of the Philips Hue (79%).
Con Hub required
You will need a hub, but at least you can pick your choice of hardware from cheap solutions ($30) that just control the lights to $50+ systems that can be the brains for your whole connected house.
Con Poor lightswitch dimming
As with all smart bulbs with in-app dimming, dimming from a lightswitch provides less than optimal results. The two dimming systems both try to take control, which results in flickering and some buzzing.
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.
