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Home Assistant Home Automation WiFI

Merkury Smart Wi-Fi LED Color Bulb – A good budget smart light bulb

Today I would like to talk about the Merkury Smart Wi-Fi LED Color Bulb. I have been planning on writing something about this for some time now and for some reason the opportunity never came about. I figured I would diverge from my new Smart Home Series a little bit to talk about one of the many different options that are out there.

Background

A while ago, I was walking through the local Walmart, and while walking down the midway near electronics I came across a bin filled with these Merkury brand smart LED bulbs. I decided that $12 was a reasonable price for a “smart” light bulb. You can now find a 2 pack of them on Amazon for $11.99.

Merkury Innovations Smart Wi-Fi Dimmable White

I no longer have the Color LED packaging. So I am posting a picture of the white bulb which was only $9 at Walmart.

Impressions

My first impressons of the product was that it looked very polished like they knew what they were doing. Not all smart devices can claim that. After unpackaging the the bulb I found the setup instructions which directs you to download the Geeni app. Doing some research you will find that they are the same company.

As I have already been using Tuya / Smartlife app for my wifi enabled smart devices I tried to pair it to that app instead and it worked which is a plus for adoption.

One of the pros of using a WiFi smart device is that it uses your already exisiting Wifi network. Another plus is that you will not need a smart hub running in your house.

Once under management you these bulbs are able to work with your favorite voice assistant (Google Home, Alexa, Homekit). Also with the correct integrations (Tuya) you can integrate the control of these lightbubs into Home Assistant.

Final Thoughts

At such a low pricepoint and it’s ease of use, the Merkury Snart WiFi Light bulbs are an excellent addtion for the beginner smart home enthusiast. One word of warning about this product is that I would make sure to pick a well established company to host the brains of your operation (Tuya, SmartLife). There have seen many companies that support WiFi devices come and go over the years. I always prefer to pick a company that is been aroudn for a while.

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Categories
Home Automation

Is this $5 Smart Bulb the Best bang for your buck??

So I was walking through Walmart the other day and on the end cap between Hardware and Electronic (a very fitting place for this) I found this little nugget of Gold!

For just $5 ($4.66 since it is Walmart) I was able to add this puppy to my collection. The Merkury Innovations Smart WI-Fi LED Bulb which appear to be made by Greeni.

You can purchase the same one on their website located here and the color one for $12 here.

Now I must admit that my expectations were really low considering the cheapest LED smart bulb I had ever encountered before was the IKEA TRADFRI which starts at $12 a bulb.

Upon first inspection the bulb itself felt like it should and is about the same weight as the TRADFRI. Upon plugging it in the light turns on like normal and then starts to blink… I assume this is a pairing mode. The instructions want you to install a smart controller app called Greeni App which looked oddly enough like the same screen that Smart Life or Tuya use.

Having a few products that work with Tuya I thought what the heck and opened my app. As soon as I did it found the smart bulb and asked if I wanted to add it to my managed devices which I did and because of that it was automatically added into my Google Home…. Bonus Point!!

From my app I was able to control the brightness and even turn it on and off which is awesome.

For now I am very happy with this decision and I think if you want to get into the smart home market this is a great way to start. All you need is the Device and WiFi. Now if you want to get fancy with automation and rules you can start to do that from the app, however there are limitations.

If you are interested in learning how to do more complex automation reach out to me using the Contact us form.