Adventures with ultra-cheap ZigBee lightbulbs

The people who built my kitchen were idiots. They designed it to be lit with a dozen recessed GU10 spotlights. That's not so terrible - GU10 LED bulbs are only about £1 each - but because I am a bigger idiot, I decided I wanted remote-controlled bulbs.

And ZigBee bulbs are expensive!

Five years ago, feeling flush with cash, I replaced all the bulbs with a mixture of Hue and Innr Smart bulbs. Last week, two of the bulbs died. No explosions or release of magic smoke - they just became unresponsive and I lack the skills to fix complex electronics.

So I looked at some replacements. Hue bulbs are £31 per pair - that's about 15x more expensive than buying a regular bulb. The cheaper Innr bulbs are about a tenner each. Still a bit much.

What about non-branded ZigBee lights? On eBay I found a single GU10 for £8 and, if I was prepared to buy in bulk, £60 for 10.

That's getting better - but still a premium on a boring non-smart bulb.

So I went looking for a Shenzhen special on AliExpress - and hit the jackpot!

There, I found a ZigBee GU10 bulb for £4! The price seems to fluctuate between £3 and £5 - but there are plenty of sellers with close-to-identical products priced less than a fiver.

The bulb took a few days to arrive from China. I plugged it in, searched for it in the Hue app, and it was added. Less than a minute later I was able to bark "Alexa! Turn on the kitchen lights!" - it responded at the same time as all its brethren. It is also colour changeable - unlike the Hue and Innr models.

The labelling says it is by eWeLink and, as expected, it has warm white and colour changing LEDs. Total power of 5 Watts.

But that's not all! AliExpress will quite often plunge price certain items to entice you to become a customer. I picked up another bulb for 77p! It was limited to one per customer - but that was good enough for me!

My sub-quid bulb arrived and… Yeah, identical to the first. Plugged in, paired quickly, turned into a disco bulb with a couple of taps. Oh, and because shipping on the 2nd bulb was delayed, I got a £1 voucher. So, I guess, technically it was free? So I bought another.

Here's what they look like in situ:

They do a range of RGB colours - and will also do white at a variety of shades. They dim. They react quickly. They're cheap.

Will these bulbs last as long as the others? Considering the price, I'm not sure I care! If you buy from a UK store on eBay, there's probably slightly more chance of recompense if things do go wrong. But if you're happy to wait for delivery from China - those cheap AliExpress bulbs are probably fine.

So, there you go. For a couple of quid, you can get a generic colour-changing ZigBee light which is compatible with Philips Hue.

FAQ

juST use A ligHTswiTch

Our kitchen is big. The lightswitches are far away. Also, I don't want them covered with cake-batter when I'm cooking.

gEt a sMarT LIGhtSWItCh

Most UK homes don't have a neutral wire to the switch. That makes it hard to use smart-switches. The ones which work without neutral don't work with dimmable bulbs.

WhAt AbOuT ThE carbon FOotprINt Of shipping?

Even a regular bulb would have been shipped from far away.

PRIVaCY AnD secuRItY is iMpORtAnt

Yes it is. ZigBee bulbs don't have a way to "phone home" and are relatively resistant to being hacked.