TP-Link LB120 Smart Bulb – Hands On Video

The LB120 Smart Bulb is a Wi-Fi LED bulb that aims to replace a normal household bulb with something considerably more flexible. But does it live up to the promise?

The bulb itself is hefty bit of kit and is designed for E27 sockets (that’s the big Edison screw type.) An adaptor is provided to allow it to be used in the bayonet style sockets more commonly found in the UK. However, using the adaptor will make the already tall bulb likely too tall for many lampshades. In addition, the weight of the bulb would make me nervous about using it in a ceiling fitting.

Physical properties aside, the bulb is trivially simple to set up. Unlike systems such as the Philips Hue range, the LB120 does not require a hub or a bridge. Instead, it connects directly to the home WiFi (2.4 Ghz only) and is configured using TP-Link’s Kasa app.

Once connected, the whiteness of the bulb can be adjusted using either presets or from a wide palette in the Kasa app. The colour temperature ranges from 2500K to 6500K giving a range from a soothing yellow to a bright blue-tinged white. The brightness may also be adjusted.

As with other devices connected to the Kasa app, schedules may be set up to control when the bulb goes on and off, along with the temperature and brightness of the white to use. Kasa also allows the tracking of usage both in terms of time and power consumption (although it is still impossible to easily access the raw data for further analysis.)

And then there is the Amazon integration, which is essential in 2017 for any smart device.

Using Alexa, the brightness of the bulb can be controlled by voice (but NOT the temperature) as well as turning the power on and off, as one would expect. The bulb may also be added to a Smart Home group, making it easy to control a scene of different devices with a single command.

In conclusion, I am impressed by how easy to use this bulb is and how simple it was to set up. The Amazon integration works well and the bulb can still be controlled by Kasa even if your internet connection is down. However, the size and weight may be a problem for some and the slight buzz the bulb emits in use could prove annoying in very quiet environments.

Check out the video below to see the bulb in action.