Smart lamps that can be controlled via WiFi are gaining in popularity. Switching the light on and off and possibly also switching between colors is fun, and is done via handy apps. But such lighting comes with a price. Mi-light is a cheaper choice that turns out to be not without its drawbacks.
Mi light
Mi-light is a cheaper choice that turns out to be not without its drawbacks. 6 Score 60- Pros
- Competitively priced
- 16 million (beautiful) colors
- Negatives
- Stick to string setting process
- Bad application(s)
- Not such a high light output
- No link with smart home products and services
WD_BLACK P50 Game Drive - Super fast portable ssd December 21, 2020 16:12 
Exaile - Player with plugins December 20, 2020 16:12 
LINQ USB-C Multiport Hub – Handy docks for your laptop December 20, 2020 12:12
WD_BLACK P50 Game Drive - Super fast portable ssd December 21, 2020 16:12 
Exaile - Player with plugins December 20, 2020 16:12 
LINQ USB-C Multiport Hub – Handy docks for your laptop December 20, 2020 12:12 The lamps are made by Limitless Designs, which sells them via a licensed model to Mi-light and other parties such as EasyBulb. Mi-light is therefore not a standalone brand like Philips Hue.
Pay attention when setting
The large Mi-lights are installed via a hub that you connect to the socket via a USB cable. Once you've turned the bulbs into the fixtures, poke a hole in the hub with a needle to establish a connection. Then you connect the whole to the Mi-light app or a separately available remote control and you can get started. The installation process feels like a piece of cake, partly due to the cheap hub and the fact that there are different generations of hubs, lamps and apps that are not compatible with each other.
Broke app
The free Mi-light 3.0 apps for Android (4.3+) and iOS (7.0+) offer plenty of room for improvement. They regularly crash when opening, it takes seconds to connect to the hub and we get error messages in the background. Furthermore, the apps look dated and not intuitive, and they cannot be used in Dutch. Positive points are the fast response time when switching lamps on and off and switching between colors and the many settings.
Smart-home services such as IFTTT are unfortunately not supported, nor are products such as Amazon Echo.
Light is excellent
Fortunately, the LED lighting leaves a good impression. Both Mi-light lamp versions offer beautiful colors that blend well with each other and can display both warm and cool tones. The same applies to white; that can be cozy warm for example. The maximum light output is somewhat disappointing with 350 Lumen (E14 lamp) and 550 Lumen (E27 lamp) – competitors achieve up to 800 Lumen.
Conclusion
The Mi-lights we tested are half cheaper than the well-known competitors with 15 (E14 fitting) and 24 euros (E27 fitting). That is a big advantage, but the cuts are clearly visible and make the lamps less user-friendly. Mi-light is therefore especially fun for the hobbyist.
The products for this review are made available by milights.nl.
