C by GE Starter Pack Review - Review 2022

The C past GE Smart Seedling Starter pack ($50) is an like shooting fish in a barrel one-stop beginner's bundle of continued smart bulbs. It consists of 4 bulbs—two C-Life lights meant for the living room or kitchen, and two C-Slumber lights for the sleeping accommodation—and they tin be controlled without a hub. That ways you can use your smartphone or tablet, connect via Bluetooth, and adjust brightness settings quickly and easily with a sleek app. The downside is that you can't control the lights when you're away from dwelling, there is no Android support, and you can't set them to a specific schedule. And that $50 price is a temporary reduction; it will eventually become up to $70. For the same amount you can buy seven TikTeck LED Bulbs .

Blueprint
Both the C-Life and C-Slumber bulbs look similar standard A19 incandescent bulbs. They mensurate 4.v inches in length and 2.46 inches in diameter. The top halves are made of frosty white glass, while the bottom portions are hard plastic that terminate in an E26 Edison screw connector that fits in all the same bases every bit a standard incandescent bulb. However, GE cautions that the bulbs shouldn't used in dimmers or enclosed lamps due to heat; the bottom halves tend to warm up to the betoken where you wouldn't desire to touch them barehanded. Both the C-Life and C-Sleep bulbs enable 185.one-caste light dispersion.

The two C-Life bulbs are capable of producing upwards to 800 lumens, with a color temperature fixed at ii,700K. That's definitely in the higher, brighter terminate of the spectrum; it's not quite every bit high as the LIFX LED ($59.99 at Amazon) (1,017 lumens), but information technology matches the Misfit Commodities ( at Amazon) (800 lumens), and it'south well to a higher place the budget-priced TikTeck (600 lumens).

C by GE Smart Bulb Starter Pack

The C-Sleep bulbs have a fleck more going on. They tin can produce up to 730 lumens, and you can dim them with the accompanying complimentary app, so they're capable of color temperatures from a warm 2,000K to a cold, brilliant 7,000K. All C by GE bulbs are proficient for 22.8 years of life based on three hours of usage per day, seven days a calendar week, which makes for a lifetime of around 25,000 hours.

Since there's no need for a bridge or hub, which many bulbs similar the Cree Connected LED ($11.47 at Amazon) and GE's ain Link require, there's no complicated setup involved. You just need a phone or tablet with Bluetooth 4.0 that runs iOS viii.0 or subsequently. An Android version is in the works, only right now the bulbs are compatible with iOS devices only. Download the complimentary C by GE app from the Apple App Store, spiral in each seedling, and turn them all on. Brand sure you lot have Bluetooth enabled, open the app, follow the instructions, and all the bulbs volition connect ane later on the other. In testing, I paired all four bulbs with an Apple iPhone 6 ( at Amazon) in a couple of minutes without outcome. You can control up to l bulbs with the app.

App and Performance

C by GE Smart Bulb Starter Pack The C by GE app is an splendid digital remote control with a superb blueprint. It'south easy to create Groups and Scenes, and adjustments can exist fabricated instantly. Scenes appear as large, blue icons at the top of the screen with titles like Bedtime, Get Home, Movie Time, and Wake Upward. Tapping each one brings y'all to a Settings screen where you can adjust the brightness level and color temperature of each seedling associated with that Scene.

Groups show upwardly below Scenes, in the centre of the app'due south chief screen. Here, y'all can tap individual bulbs to arrange their brightness or temperature or plough them on or off. You can assign bulbs to any grouping, name the group, and control them all at the same time. I created a Living Area group of C-Life bulbs, and a Bedroom grouping of C-Slumber lights, and controlled them both individually and by grouping, either from the Group screen or by tapping a Bulbs icon.

At the bottom of the screen, in that location are icons for shortcuts to Home, Scenes, Groups, or Bulbs—these are mainly for quick navigation when you're in another role of the app.

When controlling private bulbs, you lot tin can drag sliders left or right to dim or brighten the bulbs using a calibration of 1 to 10; color temperature is controlled the same fashion. The bulbs are incredibly responsive—they're the fastest lights we've tested so far. Adjusting the C-Sleep seedling's color temperature, changing effulgence, and turning the lights on or off all occured instantly in my tests. I didn't encounter any pairing problems.

Of notation: the C-Sleep bulbs can be set to three different settings, including AM, Day, and PM. AM produces a brilliant white lite, Day exudes a warmer light, and PM generates warm, amber light that I found very relaxing. Y'all tin manually activate these modes in the app, or set up the C-Slumber bulbs to automatically change light temperatures according to the time of twenty-four hours, with the coolest temps in the morning time and warmer ones at nighttime.

That's the extent of the C by GE's scheduling options, though. And there is no geofencing or If This So That (IFTTT) integration like you'll find with the LIFX LED or Philips Hue ( at Amazon) bulbs. That ways y'all tin't program the C-Life or C-Sleep bulbs to change color temperature depending on the weather, or take them react to notifications from social media apps like Facebook or Twitter.

Conclusions
Like the name suggests the C by GE Smart Bulb Starter Park is an fantabulous way for smart lighting newbies to spring right in. There are some caveats, like the lack of Android back up and advanced scheduling options, too equally the inability to integrate the bulbs with other smart abode ecosystems. But if this is your first smart bulb set up, there's no better option as well the TikTeck Smart LED, which costs $ix.99. GE has a improve app and brighter light, just the TikTek seedling changes colors and works with Android out of the box.