I want to make the recessed lights in my home smart. I know Philips is the best option, but it’s too expensive for me. So, I discovered Lumary, which seems good and costs half as much as Philips, plus I found a discount code. I need about 50 recessed lights for all the rooms and soffits, which could save me over $1000. Lumary lights support Bluetooth and WiFi, can change colors, and have similar functions to Philips Hue. Lumary says they work well with Google Home and Alexa. Should I still choose Philips Hue even though Lumary seems like a good option? I’m not very familiar with the technical details, so I need advice!
Though maybe not exactly as much as the 300 or so lumens more that they advertise, the Lumary are noticeably brighter than the Phillips. In comparison to the Phillips, the lumary light also seems to be more focused, clearer, and less diffused.
I haven’t had any problems with the Lumary app yet, but I haven’t spent enough time with it to provide a genuinely meaningful assessment. The Wiz app, which Phillips used, didn’t cause me any problems either. I believe what I’ve read will also apply to Tuya.
They cost roughly $8 more than the Phillips lamp for the one I required.
It looks like these are WiFi. The foundation of Philips Hue is the ZigBee protocol.
Using a lot of Wi-Fi lights will negatively affect your household network.
The main reason I chose Lumary Lights is that they are one of the few brands offering both full color and a gimbal housing, which allows adjusting the light angle for sloped ceilings.
I replaced the Philips Hue recessed lights ($22 each at Home Depot) for this reason. While the Philips lights would have been fine, they don’t rotate in their housing. I plan to keep them for other applications.
The Lumary lights are brighter than the Philips, though perhaps not by the advertised 300 lumens more. The difference is noticeable. The light from the Lumary also appears more concentrated, clearer, and less diffused compared to the Philips.
The Lumary app seems solid so far, though I didn’t have any issues with the Wiz app used by Philips either. The Lumary app required less fiddling to detect the lights initially, but I haven’t delved deep into the app to give a comprehensive review. I believe it also works with Tuya.
For my needs, the Lumary lights cost about $8 more per light than the Philips. If you don’t need the gimbal feature, the price drops to around $27 per light.
I’m satisfied so far after a few weeks of use. However, one downside of Lumary is the slightly flimsy build quality. It’s not terrible and is slightly better than what I’d call “Amazon” quality, but I expected something closer to the quality of Philips housing, especially considering the higher price.
Regarding the concerns about Wi-Fi versus proprietary protocols affecting your network, I haven’t experienced any issues. I’m not saying a dedicated hub from the manufacturer couldn’t reduce internet bandwidth usage, but none of my 30-40 smart devices, many of which are lights, have caused any network problems.