H4sh

Philip Hue has always been a synonym to smart lightings, just like Coke is to cola. The Philip Hue bulbs are based on Zigbee Light Link and requires the Philip Hue Bridge in order for you to control with your mobile phone or voice assistants. There are also a bunch of other prominent connected bulbs that are either running on wifi or Zigbee such as LIFX, IKEA Trådfri, OSRAM Lightify etc.

So why are we writing about yet another connected bulb, Innr? Innr is a Dutch lighting company which created a complete connected lighting proposition based on Zigbee Light Link, the same protocol used by Philips Hue. This means, if you already are a Philip Hue user and looking at expanding your lighting control, Innr bulbs works well with your existing Philip Hue Bridge! Secondly, a single Philip Hue White and Ambience bulb cost S$90 while the same range from Innr with better colour representation cost S$60! The other white or tunable white bulbs (E27 or GU10) are also relatively cheaper than Philip Hue. We can actually end our review just by these 2 points but let's take a closer look at the products.

Innr Products

 

We managed to lay our hands on some of the products in the Innr range for testing, mainly the Innr RGBW Dimmable, Innr Tunable White E27 and Innr GU10 Tunable White

The Innr bulbs specifications are on par (in some areas better than) with the Philip Hue and yet retails for a lower price.

	Philip White and Colour Ambience	Innr RGBW Dimmable E27
Price	S$90	S$60
Length	110 mm	120 mm
Diameter	62 mm	60 mm
Wattage	9.5 w	9.5 w
Beam Angle	180 degrees	240 degrees
Lumen	806 lm	806 lm
Lifespan	25000 hrs	25000 hrs
Warranty	2 years	2 years

 

	Philip White Ambience	Innr Tunable White E27
Price	S$49	S$39
Length	110 mm	120 mm
Diameter	62 mm	60 mm
Wattage	9.5 w	9 w
Beam Angle	180 degrees	240 degrees
Lumen	806 lm	806 lm
Lifespan	25000 hrs	25000 hrs
Warranty	2 years	2 years

 

	Philip White Ambience GU10	Innr GU10 Tunable White
Price	S$49	S$45
Length	57 mm	55 mm
Diameter	50 mm	50 mm
Wattage	5.5 w	5.4 w
Beam Angle	38 degrees	36 degrees
Lumen	300 lm	350 lm
Lifespan	25000 hrs	25000 hrs
Warranty	2 years	2 years

Innr also has many interesting products such as Innr Spot Kit, Innr Puck Light that are quite unique. In this review, we will test the Innr RGBW Dimmable E27 and the Innr Spot Tunable White Dimmable GU10.

 

Pairing with Philip Hue Bridge

 

For Philip Hue bulbs, the Philip Hue Bridge automatically scans for bulbs that are powered up during the pairing process. However for Innr bulbs, you actually need to power cycle each Inner bulb while the Hue Bridge is searching for the bulbs. This means that if you have 3 Inner bulbs that is powered by a light switch, you actually have to turn off and on for a total of 3 times to add 3 Innr bulbs to the Hue Bridge.

  

Color Representation Comparison

 

We grouped a Philip Hue White and Colour Ambience with Innr E27 RGBW together in the Hue Bridge to perform the colour comparison. We didn't realise that Philip Hue, green and blue are so far off until we compare it beside Innr!

In case you think we are biased, you can search for more comparison videos on YouTube.

Pairing with Athom Homey

 

We cannot help but like to take the chance to show how well it works with Homey. This is especially relevant if you plan to setup a complete smart home with minimum wiring.

We setup 4 GU10 bulbs to Homey and fired away voice commands such as Alexa, set track light to warm white, cool white or dim to 20% and it worked quite well.

Conclusion

 

The conclusion remains unchanged, Innr is very affordable and perform as well, if not better than the Philip Hue. The only thing you probably won't get from Innr is the Innr Bridge which cost the same as the Philip Hue Bridge but does not work with Amazon Echo or Google Home yet. In fact, we think new users should just get Philip Hue Bridge and Innr bulbs for their smart lighting.

Automate Asia Team