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so when i sat down to review the script for this video with Jake we debated the

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title for a while and finally i asked him point blank

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are phillips hue bulbs a ripoff and he

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goes well i'd say they're making a pretty

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good profit and isn't that pretty much the problem

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with all of this smart home stuff by the time you got your brand name caseta

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switches nest thermostat august lock hue bulbs you're five ten grand deep in this

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stuff and every time i pull out a calculator and add it up i basically end

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up with yeah screw it i'm gonna find another way

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and find another way we did

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no not that way in today's video we're gonna be looking at smart bulbs from a

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relatively unknown company called yeelight that promised to be an

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affordable alternative to philips hue and lifx

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memory express is your go-to store for your electronic needs and services in

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canada they're opening a new store in victoria bc and they're hiring for all

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positions learn more at the link below first let's take a look at the

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incumbents starting with the ultra popular phillips hue phillips was one of

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the first players in the consumer smart lighting space back in 2012 when they

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launched their system as an apple store exclusive the entire product stack

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including their 800 lumen bulb makes use of the zigbee wireless standard a slow

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but ultra low power mesh based network that connects compatible devices

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together now it does require a hub to facilitate a connection to the outside

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internet ow but the use of this tech allowed philips

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to make

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why why would you throw them

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the use of this tech allowed philips to make devices like their tap wireless

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button that can control your lights while only being powered by the kinetic

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energy of pushing the buttons that is pretty damn cool

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now a lot of people complain about the necessity of the hub

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but even with the hubs pricing factored in the bulbs are still cheaper than our

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next competitor and the added functionality seems like a worthwhile

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compromise now let's take a look at the lifx ecosystem these guys are an

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originally crowdfunded company one that actually shipped their product wow

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and they also started out in 2012 with support for both iOS and Android unlike

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hue at the time life x bulbs are wi-fi based meaning that no hub is required

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but they do share some traits with the hue as they operate as a sort of mesh

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with one master bulb connecting directly to your regular old Wi-Fi and the rest of

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them connecting to each other via an 802.15.4

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mesh network this technology makes lifx's bulbs the most efficient

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and they also happen to be the brightest ones but that comes at a cost

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even their minis will run you 45 bucks

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each and their standard a19 bulbs weigh in at a whopping 60 dollars apiece

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finally there's e-light a company we actually

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don't know that much about and you might not have even heard of what we do know

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is that they are affiliated in some way with xiaomi and that they have a metric

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but ton of different products kind of like the philips hue ecosystem but we're

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ignoring most of that because today's focus is on their smart bulbs and

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specifically the RGB w1 it's similar to

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the hue at 800 lumens but it costs just

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shy of 18 right now on aliexpress with

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no hub required that is less than half the cost of a hue bulb and less than a

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third of the full-size lifx a saving that is huge all on its own and that

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only increases as you purchase more and more bulbs

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spec wise now it's a lot of the same with the only major differences being

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the higher light output and the efficiency of the lightfx and the much

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lower price of the e-light otherwise they all have the same rated life

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expectancy the same warranty and the same mount type

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let's talk setup then both the e-light and the live fx require an account to

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control the lights at all by contrast hue works fine without an account but

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only on your local network overall the setup process on all three

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ecosystems is really easy with hue edging out a slight win here thanks to

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its ability to add multiple lights at once and with the kit lights coming

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pre-configured that's pretty nice as for the e lights we did experience

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some weirdness where it would say setup failed almost every time but then after

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backing out of that menu the light shows up and is fully functional it was kind

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of like the setup wizard was timing out or something so if your lights still

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don't show we'd recommend logging out and then back in that should fix the

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issue with the light setup it's time to take a look at the apps

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view features imo the most intuitive user experience

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of the bunch almost all of the features are easy to access with both power and

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brightness controls available on the main screen and setting up scenes and

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schedules is a total breeze which also brings us to one of the app's biggest

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shortcomings the lack of global scenes as well as the inaccessibility of them

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scenes on the hue system are on a room by room basis meaning that if you wanted

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to set both your kitchen and your living room to a specific scene you'd have to

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click through two separate menus or issue two separate voice commands to

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achieve that result lifx and yi light both have global scene

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lighting speaking of which i guess let's move over to the lifx app

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overall it's also very easy to use but i

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feel like they kind of tried too hard to make the app unique and ended up

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sacrificing some functionality in the process for example the color control

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wheel has a super annoying design where you can only control it on one axis at a

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time why are you trying to be special just

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use a regular color wheel that you can just click on like everybody else i also

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don't like the lack of brightness control on the main page

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but i suspect this won't bother most people once they have their scenes set

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up bringing us to the underdog elight their app

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is a little less intuitive with some menus that are buried too deep and

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several instances of unnecessary clicking but the overall functionality

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is really solid with easy access to scenes and power and brightness controls

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on the main pages it's also worth noting that the yeelight app has very powerful

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scene control with customization of scenes available on a light by light

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basis it can be pretty time consuming to set it up but it does give you a lot of

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flexibility in return so considering the major flaw of the hue

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app and the weird design choices of the lifx one we're going to give the win

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here to yeelight for its powerful scene customization and no bs approach

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last but not least we have to look at smart functionality

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all three platforms have support for alexa google home yeti and if this than

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that but apple users beware

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as of shooting this video only lifx and hugh work with apple homekit now there

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have been some rumblings of other xiaomi brands looking into homekit but at this

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time the best you'll be able to find for your yeelight is some third-party home

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bridge plug-in so if you're the hacky type yeah you could probably get it to

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work but if you want something that just goes out of the box you'll need to pay

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more for your lights or you could switch to Android

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if you're an Android user any of these three are great choices

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with if we had to pick a winner

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i'd say for me the low cost of the ulights is

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definitely going to be what finally gets me on the smart bulb train for my house

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700 to do everything which i probably wouldn't do it's still a lot of money

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but it's a lot less than two grand or

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more with that said if you're looking for the

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most efficient or the brightest lights lifx is the way to go and as for the hue

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system well their saving grace is really

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the accessories like motion sensors and

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fancy buttons so if that kind of thing tickles your fancy then hue might be for

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you can you believe we made it all this way in this video without making like a

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joke something about these lights having like dragon energy or something

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thermaltake's a500 aluminum mid tower case features a minimalistic approach

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with a brushed aluminum surface for a clean uninterrupted look it's got hinged

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tempered glass side panels on both sides of the case and fits radiators up to 420

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millimeters at the front it supports up to four three and a half and two and a

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half inch hard drives inside the left side panel or on top of the psu cover

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and the i o panel includes a type c usb port so get yours today at the link in

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the video description so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if

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it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at

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the link in the video description also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our

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community forum which you should totally join there we have it there's a dragon

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energy reference dragon oh wow his ear fell off

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that wasn't my fault you drop everything

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let caseta get the lights

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honey did we get the lights downstairs

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alexa turn on good night

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okay