Hive Light Dimmable E27 Screw Smart Bulb-Works with Amazon Alexa,White, 9 W

It just works!
I recently spent hours trying to set up smart bulbs (lamps, if you’re an electrician) from Lepro and Antela.Neither would become visible to my network, not matter what I tried. It was completely impossible to make them controllable by Alexa. I had to send them back.Instead, I ordered a Hive dimmable bulb – I already use Hive central heating controls, and one other lamp. And it just worked! I plugged it in, opened the app, which immediately found it, gave it a meaningful name – and was immediately able to control it via Alexa. No fuss, it just worked.I originally ordered a G10 lamp from Lepro and a pendant screw fit bulb from Antela – the Lepro one took longer to arrive (and hence to find out I could not make it work), so I’ve ordered a GU10 bulb from Hive. I hope and expect that to work just as smoothly.(I did contact Lepro and Antela for support, but neither got back to me. I have, in the past, contacted Hive, and their customer support was excellent.)

Fulfills its purpose well
My purpose for buying a smart bulb for the lounge was two fold; to be able to turn it off from the sofa (I often find myself far too comfy to want to get up) and to be able to dim it (a much easier solution for me than fitting a dimmer switch). I’m not particularly interested in the other aspects (such as schedules) and I didn’t feel there was much use for having multiple colours, hence why I went for the standard bulb.For the lounge or bedroom I think this bulb is just fine, as the warm white is the colour I personally think is best for a room you want to feel homely, however for the kitchen or bathroom I’d probably go for the slightly more expensive bulb that can do bright white light.Setting up the bulb was very straight forward (worth noting I already had the hub setup with the Hive heating). I simply fitted the bulb (as you would a normal bulb) and hit a button on the app to search for new devices. Within a minute it had found the device, I named it accordingly and it was good to go.At full brightness the bulb is more than sufficient for properly lighting a room (even with a light shade) and the dimming works just as expected, with intervals of 10% to choose from (100% – 10%, 5% & off). I haven’t personally performed any scheduling with the bulbs so I can’t say for sure how well that works, however the interface for setting them up is nothing to complain about.In my setup I do find there is around a one or two second delay for changes I submit via the app to actually happen with the bulb which isn’t a problem by any means, but it would be nice if it were a bit smoother.Any visitors in your home who cannot control the bulb via your phone can still turn the light on/off via the light switch (It will come on at full brightness when done via the light switch), however note that if the light switch is off, the bulb cannot be controlled via the Hive app — the switch must be turned on. However, if this does happen, the Hive app wil quickly pick up that the bulb is back online after you flip the switch.Overall the bulb does exactly what i bought for it without issue and it was certainly worth what I paid for it (~£13 in the sale). I won’t be getting thse bulbs to scatter all round the house just yet — Maybe if Hive release a light switch that controls the Hive bulbs that fits over existing light switches I’d be more interested in putting Hive bulbs everywhere (similar to what Philips Hue have). For now, I’ll just be sticking with the one.