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Add to SafariWhen comparing GE Link vs Oort SmartLED bulb, the Slant community recommends GE Link for most people. In the question“What are the best smart bulbs?” GE Link is ranked 14th while Oort SmartLED bulb is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose GE Link is:
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.
Question Ranking
Pros
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).
Pro Lighting effects included
There are a number of preset modes, such as a sleep timer, a snore mode (breathing effect), and a flashing effect. Dimming is smooth as well, which is good to hear as some other bulbs seem to find this tricky sometimes.
Pro No hub required
While many smart bulbs require a hub to connect, the Oort bulbs connect directly with your phone which not only makes the initial setup easier, but also less costly (as you don't need to buy the hub).
Cons
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.
Con Very dim light
180 lumens won't do much good in terms of lighting (for comparison, regular bulbs produce about 800 lumens - the Oort bulb provides less brightness than the typical refrigerator light). This is really only effective as a supplement to an existing lighting solution as mood lighting, and not a regular bulb replacement.
Con Very short range
With a range of only 12m, don't expect to control your lights from far away. The good news is that the bulbs work together in a 'mesh' configuration, meaning that as long as you are within range of one bulb (and the other bulbs are in range of each other as well), you can control all the bulbs.
Con Poor color reproduction
The colors this bulb produces don't look saturated, and there isn't a very wide range of colors (about 20 noticeably different colors).
