Bulbrite Solana Color Changing LED Smart Light Bulb

Bulbrite has been in the lighting business for more than 40 years, but the Solana 60W Color Changing LED marks the company's entry into the smart bulb arena. Priced at $17.99, the Solana is a Wi-Fi-enabled color LED light bulb that you can control from anywhere using your phone and a user-friendly mobile app. It provides rich colors and a nice range of white light, as well as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control. But it was unable to gradually brighten when set to wake-up mode in testing, and it lacks the support for Apple HomeKit and IFTTT that you get with our Editors' Choice, the $25.99 Yeelight Smart LED Bulb.

Design and Features

The Solana is an A19 bulb that measures 4.5 by 2.6 inches (HW) and uses an E26 base that fits standard lamp sockets. It's an 800-lumen dimmable color LED bulb (equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent bulb), draws 8 watts of power, and is rated to last up to 22 years based on 3 hours of use per day. It offers up to 16 million colors, has a white color temperature range of 2200K-6500K, and doesn't require a hub, as it has a built-in 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio that connects it to your home network.

The light can be controlled using Bulbrite's mobile app (for Android and iOS) and with Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands. The app's barebones interface makes it easy to change colors, adjust brightness levels, create scenes and schedules, and of course, turn the bulb on and off.

It opens to a My Home screen containing buttons that let you add a new bulb and create new scenes with customized colors and brightness levels that you can enable with the touch of an icon or with your voice. Here you can also create on/off schedules for when you are away from home or when you typically go to sleep. There's also a countdown timer and a wake-up setting that will slowly turn your lights on at a specific time. And you can create groups to control multiple bulbs all at once using the on/off button or in scenes and schedules.

The center of the My Home screen contains tabs for each group. You can turn bulbs on and off using the switch, or tap the tab to open the group screen where you can view tabs for all bulbs in the group, turn them on and off, change colors, select a white temperature using the slider, adjust brightness, and view any scenes that you've created.

There are buttons along the bottom edge of the My Home screen for Home, Scenes, and Schedules, as well as Manage and Me buttons. Use the Manage button to edit or delete your home name and location, add and remove groups, and edit bulb names. The Me button lets you change your username and password, set up new bulbs, view online help, and find out how to use Alexa and Google voice services. Missing is support for Apple HomeKit and IFTTT applets that allow the bulb to work with other smart home devices such as cameras and doorbells.

Installation and Performance

As is the case with virtually all of today's smart light bulbs, installing the Solana bulb is easy. I downloaded the app, created an account, and verified my email address. I screwed in the Solana bulb, at which point it began flashing, and tapped Next in the app. I confirmed that the bulb was blinking and entered my Wi-Fi password (the app uses the same Wi-Fi network as your phone), tapped Next, and waited close to one minute for the bulb to connect to my network. I assigned the bulb to a group, tapped finish, and setup was complete.

The Solana bulb provided rich colors and well-defined warm and cool whites in testing. It responded quickly to on and off commands, color changes, and brightness adjustments using the mobile app and Alexa voice commands. The bulb always adhered to the schedules I created and the scenes feature also worked without issue. But the wake-up option didn't work correctly in testing—the lights always came on immediately without slowly coming up to full brightness as promised in the app.

Conclusions

Although the Bulbrite Solana is one of the more affordable hub-free color smart bulbs on the market, it doesn't sacrifice light quality to hit its price. It delivered strong colors and both cool and warm whites in testing, and followed schedules and responded to Alexa voice and app commands without issue. That said, you simply get much more for your money with our Editors' Choice, the Yeelight Smart LED Bulb, including support for Apple HomeKit and IFTTT applets, as well as some cool lighting effects. It costs a bit more at $25.99, but it's worth it if you plan to use any of those features on a consistent basis.

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