Syska SmartLED review: A smart bulb for home that works with Amazon Alexa

The bulb is a good first step on the smart appliances bandwagon

A future world with household appliances or devices connected to the internet and operated remotely is not a sci-fi writer’s imagination. We already are living in a world where you can control some devices using your laptop or mobile phone. This is known as the Internet of things in which devices are added to a network and they can be controlled through the internet.

It has not become very common in India yet but smart bulbs are now starting to change things. Imagine switching a bulb on or off using your mobile phone or speaking to another device and asking it to do this for you. What’s more you can even change the colour of the light that the bulb emits using your mobile phone or another device.

That basically is what Syska’s SmartLED light is all about. It is a 7W LED bulb priced at Rs 1,600 which you can link to your home wifi and then convert your regular living room into a smart room.

All you need are a home wifi connection, a bulb holder (B22) and a mobile phone. Install Syska Smart Home app on your smartphone and then follow the simple steps provided to link your phone to the bulb and viola, you have light on your hands. Operation is fairly straightforward. The company claims that the bulb has millions of colours that it can emit. You can also change the brightness of the lamp using your mobile phone.

If you feel this was not convenient enough then you don’t know about voice controlled smart lamps yet. Do you have an Amazon Echo? This AI device can also connect to the same smart lamp over your home wifi and then you can literally tell Alexa to switch it on or off or change the colour of light or change the brightness. This connection however needs the user to be a lot smarter. We found this a slightly cumbersome process that involved too many steps and is likely to confound someone not used to reading instructions and following them at every step. This perhaps can be an area of improvement for the next version.

You can of course name your lights as Living Room Lamp or a Bedroom Lamp and control them separately and have a home lit up using smart lights.

The claim about millions of colour choices may be a bit of a stretch though as the lamp basically has a limited number of standard colours which you can use. However, if you love partying then this might be a good addition to your home. Or you could listen to a Jagjit Singh ghazal while telling Alexa to change the colour or brightness to match your mood. 

This lamp shows that smart lights are a good first step on the smart appliances bandwagon.