I DIY a lot of my home automations (arduino), but when I saw the 12-pack of these bulbs on sale, it made sense to save myself some time and effort, especially since I could now use these in our non-smart house fixtures! My review is based on wide-spread use in a home with growing smart automations. If you’re wanting just a couple lights to have fun with, these will work great using just Tuya or paired with voice control!The apps: I was already using Tuya paired with Alexa before getting these lights. I’ve had no issues with my other devices, nor have I had issues with these lights. Pairing is super quick and easy, but connect your phone’s wifi to your 2.4 wifi first. I suggest pairing one at a time so you can name them based on the location as you go.Tuya has a great interface for controlling the lights, and I loved that I was able to create a separate Tuya account for each of my kids, then share only the light that was in their room with them. Now they can open their own app and have control of only their bedroom bulb, while I also have control of it in my account – the one linked to Alexa. I was relieved to see this as I have no intention of giving them access to the accounts that manage the household automations! Also, black light posters became the order of business for Christmas after setting these up!It is true that the pairing will be lost if the power to the bulb is turned off for too long (as in flipping the switch and cutting power, not telling Alexa to turn the light off). Re-pairing them is inconvenient – but the bulb is remembered (the old device name is remembered in Tuya and Alexa, so it’s not a brand new setup). I added a wall light switch block to prevent turning them off, plus I added sensors for non-voice control and automation (motion sensor or wifi button sensor as a new on/off switch).I also have the lights paired with my Home Assistant setup. The way Tuya is working with HA for pairing is awesome! Note: I tested disabling the Tuya-Alexa connection, isolating all Alexa connections through HA, but that didn’t go over well. The Tuya-Alexa communication was quicker and didn’t require time to update the status each time I opened the Alexa app. That being said, I have all my scripts/scenes outlined in HA – I can tell Alexa to run an HA scene, which will control any Tuya bulbs included in it. In HA, I have my Tuya devices not being shared over the cloud with Alexa – if you don’t do this, the devices will show up in Alexa twice. Tuya’s response to an HA dashboard button is fast.The bulb:This is on the bulbs, not Alexa or Tuya – the user interface they support in Alexa is limited to the various shades of white (not including the warmest) and a handful of colors. You can look up Alexa’s recognized color list and tell it to change the light to any of those colors, though – but if you want to create a routine with a color missing in the light’s list, you instead need to give Alexa a custom action in your routine (“set light to x color”). In Tuya, each lightbulb has custom scenes you can setup – great for saving favorite colors – but those are not shared with Alexa. Tuya also has general scenes you can setup affecting multiple devices, which are shared with Alexa, but this bulb has a bug in it’s setup that prevents setting a color. Home Assistant ended up being the missing link to get the very precise, detailed control I wanted.In both Alexa and HA automations/routines, I found it’s best to set the color, then the percent separately. I got inconsistent results when the commands were lumped. (set light to color, wait, set light to brightness; otherwise one or the other may get skipped).These lights are super bright! I generally have no need to run them over 70-80% brightness, even as the only bulb in a room. Unfortunately, dimming to 1% is also too bright, especially as a nightlight. I’ve found a deeper shade of orange/red set to 1% helps, but turning it on in the middle of the night is still a bit too much. Given the price and convenience of these, I don’t want to return or try another brand. I plan to add shades to the ones I want to be night-light friendly, hoping diffusing and blocking some of the light can get the range I desire.
