When comparing Tik Tech Smart LED Light Bulb vs GE Link, the Slant community recommends Tik Tech Smart LED Light Bulb for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” Tik Tech Smart LED Light Bulb is ranked 6th while GE Link is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Tik Tech Smart LED Light Bulb is:
At just $10, these don't cost much more than a regular lightbulb. They offer RGB lighting, there's no need to pay for a hub, and offer scheduling options as well. This is a fully featured smart bulb for half - or even a quarter the price of the competition.
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Pros
Pro Affordable
At just $10, these don't cost much more than a regular lightbulb. They offer RGB lighting, there's no need to pay for a hub, and offer scheduling options as well. This is a fully featured smart bulb for half - or even a quarter the price of the competition.
Pro Basic setup
Because there's no hub to hook up, the setup process is simple. Just pair the bulbs with your phone, and you can connect up to 32 bulbs. Giving access to family/friends is easy too - as long as you both are on the same Wi-Fi.
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 A bit dim
At 600 lumens, these bulbs are 25% dimmer than most other bulbs. This will make illuminating rooms - the primary function of light bulbs - a bit more difficult although not impossible. The bulbs may not be sufficiently bright to simply replace existing bulbs...you may need to add an extra lamp or lighting fixture to provide the same amount of light or deal with a slightly dimmer room.
Con Unintuitive app
While the app contains everything needed to make the most of the smart bulbs, it places features inside menus where you wouldn't expect to look. For example, one of the sections is called "Lab" where you can find the Colorful, Game, Music, and Night Light settings. The timer button is a different color, is located below the other buttons, and has a square outline. There you can find the expected settings suitable for a timer section.
Con Limited range
Bluetooth has its benefits, although it only has a short range. You need to physically be near the bulbs in order to change their settings, while other Wi-Fi bulbs (or bluetooth bulbs connected to a Wi-Fi hub) let you control your lights from around the world as long as you have an internet connection.
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.
