Review on Apple HomeKit 🏠 enabled Smart LED Bulb by James Grindberg

Compared to Philips Hue bulbs, these bulbs looked like a bargain. I had high hopes for this product but my hopes were quickly dashed as I couldn't get it to connect to my wifi. Here's the story. I have a mesh WiFi system at home. That's great. I love it. However, mesh Wi-Fi systems use the same SSID for both 2.4 GHz channels and 5 GHz channels. Usually it doesn't matter much. The devices are smart enough to connect to any radio station with the best signal and join the network. The problem with these bulbs is that they require a 2.4GHz radio, which isn't usually a big deal, but you'll need to connect your phone to the same 2.4GHz radio to set them up. If you have a wireless router with separate SSIDs for each band, you shouldn't have any problems. As far as I can tell, I can't disable the 5GHz channel on my mesh Wi-Fi system, and I can't get my phone to only connect on 2.4GHz. I've been looking for possible solutions. I tried using an old phone that could only have a 2.4GHz radio with no success. Anything old doesn't launch the required app to set it up. I've tried moving further away from the router, hoping to be out of range of the 5GHz radio but still within range of the 2.4GHz radio. I looked like an idiot walking around the house with a phone in my hand. No luck there either. I had one last idea. I have set up my travel WiFi hotspot which I can only set up to use a 2.4GHz radio with the same SSID and password as my existing system. I turned off my entire WiFi network and annoyed everyone in the family thinking I could set up the lights to use a hotspot and switch back to my WiFi and it would connect to it instead. There is no such happiness. I'm not sure why the latter didn't work. All in all it was a big failure. I have several Philips Hie lamps and they are very easy to set up and work perfectly. I should just stick with what works. Saving some money was a good idea, but in the end, the time I put into it was worth more than the savings could have been. If it's that tedious to set up, I don't even want to imagine updating the firmware or streamlining procedures and automation. It's a hard road! I returned them immediately.