Smart bulbs can really up the atmosphere in your home, not to mention make your life easier (who doesn’t love being able to just ask Alexa to turn on your lights?). But despite their plethora of cool features, your standard LED smart bulbs aren’t exactly pretty. They all tend to look the same: a cloudy white bulb with a thick band of white plastic that’s covered with brand names and technical information. Those are perfectly fine in a lamp where you can’t see the bulb itself?but for a glass globe light? Definitely not.
Because many of the lights in my apartment are in hard-to-reach places with a switch that’s not easy to access, I went on a mission to automate the lights without sacrificing style (I am an interior designer, after all!). In my search, I found these light bulbs from Geeni that look like old-school glass filament bulbs but have all the functionality of today’s typical smart bulbs. So, if you also have been on the hunt for smart bulbs that will actually look nice in lamps with translucent and transparent shades, look no further.
These clear globe LED smart bulbs allow you to customize the brightness and temperature of the white light in your home. You can even schedule them to turn on and off at set times and control them with your voice via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.?The bulbs also come in an amber-tinted hue, which are $10 per bulb.
What I liked about them
They’re aesthetically pleasing
First, let’s state the obvious: These light bulbs are pretty. The round G25 globe shape and visible filaments make these bulbs look nice enough that you don’t mind showing them off. So, in the midcentury-inspired glass globe floor lamp in my bedroom, the light bulb doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb like others certainly would. I use these in all the lamps throughout my home that have visible bulbs, and you’d never know they’re actually smart LEDs.
They’re easy to set up
While they require a bit more setup time than your standard non-smart bulb, the Geeni smart bulbs are quite easy to install. All I had to do was download the Geeni app, screw in the light bulb, turn on the lamp and follow the instructions in the app to connect it to my Wi-Fi network.
Then I opened my Amazon Alexa app to download the Geeni skill so I could control the bulbs with my voice. It took all of five minutes at most, and that was that. Once I had the app set up with the first bulb and connected to my Alexa devices, the others took no time. Each additional bulb just needed to be screwed in, turned on and detected (then connected) in the app.
It’s easy to adjust the brightness and temperature
Along with the ability to automate my lights and use voice control, the other big reason I wanted smart bulbs in my apartment was so I could dim and tune the lights as needed to create the perfect vibe in my space, whether I’m reading in bed, watching a movie or hosting a dinner party.
While some of the bulbs in my house can change to colors like pink, blue and orange (fun!), these Geeni light bulbs only give off white light, but I can adjust the light temperature to be cool like daytime sunlight, warm like the glow of a candle and everything in between. I can also dim or brighten the lights as much as I’d like.
It only takes a couple of taps in the app to customize the exact shade of white light or find the brightness level I want. Or I can simply ask Alexa to “turn the bedroom lights to 50%” for a hands-free option.
They can be fully automated
I love that these smart bulbs have built-in scheduling capabilities, even though I don’t usually schedule my lights unless I’m traveling. The scheduling functionality means that when I’m out of town, I can set up my lights to automatically turn on and off at certain times so no one would ever know I’m away from home — just as an added security measure.
What I didn’t like about them
They occasionally disconnect
Every once in a while, the Geeni bulbs won’t respond to my Amazon Echo when asked to turn them on or off, and I’ll have to either open up the Geeni app to get them to the setting I want or flip the switch on the lamp itself to restart it. That said, I’ve been using these smart bulbs for nearly a year, along with other smart bulbs from different brands, and this is something that happens with all of them. And honestly, it happens far less often with the Geeni bulbs than it does with the others in my home, so I don’t really mind it so much. Otherwise, I truly have no other complaints.
Bottom line
These smart bulbs from Geeni combine the functionality of a tunable white smart light with the style of a more vintage glass bulb. I love that I can brighten and dim the lights and change the temperature from cool to warm with just a few taps — or with my voice via smart home devices with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. They take just minutes to set up, and while they don’t always function perfectly, they’re generally reliable and easy to fix when the connection goes awry.
So, if you’re looking for smart bulbs that won’t break the bank or your home’s sense of style, these interior designer-approved Geeni light bulbs are definitely worth checking out.
