I don't even know where to start. Maybe at the beginning, why this lamp was chosen. On the one hand because it's a showy piece, and on the other hand because of the BLE, or Bluetooth Gateway function.
Unpacking
The box came from an EU warehouse in Germany, in heavily worn, soaked condition. When I saw it, my heart started pounding, wondering where my lamp had spent these few days. I hoped it wasn't broken anywhere, that it was well wrapped up inside.
After dismantling, a large stone fell, the product survived the journey intact. Ridding the soaked guy of his wet clothes, I would have revealed the lamp itself, but fortunately it was protected from scratches by a fabric wrapped neatly over the case.
This is what an intact box looks like
The top is protected by a foil, which I immediately removed, I don't like such "trinkets". I know, now many people will be upset, but I like to see what I buy and not a foil.
In the packaging I found another instruction manual, full of Chinese characters of course, so this was quickly thrown in with the others. I found the English user manual on the net in about 11 seconds. It's worth a read, there is a lot of interesting information about the handling. I'll get to that later.
The charger required a bit more effort on my fingers, I actually tore the box apart to find it... :D But all in all, the packaging is sophisticated, made of a slightly different glossy material than usual and not only the MI or Yeelight or other logos, but the lamp itself is on it.
The lamp is much bigger when held in the hand than it looks in the pictures. At 25 centimetres high and almost 10 centimetres in diameter, it's a real bargain! It is awe-inspiring, a worthy ornament for your bedside table! Its base is gold, but not that tacky shiny one, but a nice matte of the more sophisticated variety.
The burka is made of special plastic, with two buttons on the top. The buttons are stable, they do not wobble, and you can see the sophistication. Even when switched off, the fully opalescent look is an eye-catcher. And when switched on......
Snap in...
The lamp is unpacked, plugged in, of course you need an EU converter, but luckily I had an empty Xiaomi Smart plug handy, which fits the Chinese plug fork just fine :D The power button on top makes the lamp ready to use.
A natural white colour temperature, half glowing on first start-up. I didn't really wonder what to do with the buttons, I was more interested in the BLE function!
The pairing process is similar to other wifi devices. The Mihome app immediately detected it, indicated there is a new device, do I want to install it? Sure! Then you just have to tell it the WiFi network you want to use.
Since I have all my stuff on a separate Router, there was no question which one to connect to. Setup takes a little longer than usual, about 40-50 seconds. Once done, we just need to place our new acquisition in one corner of our virtual apartment, where it can wait to be measured.
Test facility
Lamp on, MiHome running (android) let's see what it can do. The app interface is very similar to the Yeelight bulbs. Here again, the usual buttons like power, white, color, flow, scrolling down further, the extra buttons follow. Favorites and Snap. Controlling our bulb from our mobile is perhaps a little easier than using the TouchPad on top, yes the top of the dome is a touch panel, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
You can use all the functions of the lamp on your phone. You can turn it on and off, use it as a night light. If you select the white option, the screen will change to the current colour temperature at which you are using your lamp. The 14 high quality OSRAM LEDs built into the lamp can provide up to 20,000 hours of light! On the screen you have more options. By dragging your finger to the side, you can change the colour temperature from 1700 to 6500 Kelvin. For those of you who are also Chinese, I would describe it as cold and warm, or white and yellow light. You can also adjust the brightness up to 310 lumens with an up and down movement. Not a light launcher, but that's not the point. It has perfect brightness! Moving on to the color button. Here our lamp comes alive in every colour of the rainbow. Up to 16 million pure colours can be squeezed out of you by the technology of Mijia and OSRAM.
Here again, you just slide your finger and change the colour and brightness of the lights. The set colour and brightness is remembered when you switch it off, so you don't have to worry about it next time!
I don't like the flow function, but many people use it for relaxation. All it does is change the colour of the light as it floats.
Personally, I don't know when I would enjoy such a cavalcade of light. You can also adjust it, but it's a lot of fun to change the colours of a particular photo or the colours captured by the camera. You can change the speed by moving your finger sideways. I've played around with it, say at a dinner party or in a kid's room, it can be very atmospheric.
You can, of course, save and recall them at any time from the Favourites menu. A Favorite menu, you get some pre-programmed light effects, and I don't think you need to make your own if you use them. There is a program for every life event, time of day etc. It's worth browsing through them all, they've really hit the spot. Everything from simulating sunrise to calm dinner light to bedtime at night!
You can set the so-called Wake-up light function, which can be useful when you wake up. It simulates sunrise, encouraging your brain to wake up more comfortably. For bedtime, the same can be switched on, but in reverse. A 10-minute timer point provides enough light to keep you awake until you fall asleep.
Further technical settings can be accessed by clicking on the three little dots in the top corner. Settings for your device, remote control connection, a feedback and last but not least a Mi Band connectivity option.
This is so that when you go to sleep, MiBand analyses the light and turns it off. Now we come to Automation, I've avoided this topic so much on purpose, it's probably the most important. You're greeted by the usual interface that we're used to in the program. Our lamp is able to execute a request from any of our devices, whether we use the cube or one of our cameras as a control. All with the usual simplicity. In the BLE gateway tab, you can immediately see our BT devices, which the lamp automatically connects to. Once we've found all our devices, we're ready to set up. With noble simplicity, I gave the system the following command. If the BT LCD thermometer reads a temperature higher than 26oC, the light should come on. If less, turn it off. The program works according to the IF/THEN scheme, which is widely used nowadays, so the setup is very simple.
Let's look at an example:
["IF LCD Temp sensor Temperature higher than 26celsius > THEN Bedside lamp turn on"
"IF LCD Temp sensor Temperature lower than 26 celsius > THEN Bedside lamp turn off"
"IF smart switch single click > THEN Lamp Turn on/off"
"IF magic cube shake > THEN Lamp change color"]
I could go on and on, from timing to colour temperature changes to pre-programmed light effects. Another good thing, as I mentioned before, is the wake-up function, which can be turned on as an alarm. It wakes us up at sunrise in the morning. Unfortunately, it's silent....
In the settings you'll find General Settings, where you'll find the familiar stuff. You can give your lamp a name, BLE GW, Firmware update and other less used settings and information like network connection.
I would mention the touchpad on top and the two buttons. You could also use the word gesture control, as it has more functions. By sliding your finger around the edge, you can change the brightness. By long pressing the power button, you can set the timer. 2 flashes indicate that the programme is active, so it switches off after 15 minutes. By pressing the function button 1x we can change the colour of the lamp to the colour we have set in the colour menu. Pressing it once more will activate the mood lighting. This is the same as the flow function. Press the button again to return to the original setting. There is one more interesting thing about this button. If you press and hold it down, while stroking your finger across the touchpad, you can change the colour. In other words, all the lighting functions are available without your mobile phone. In principle, it also works with the Yeelight remote control, but unfortunately it is not included, you have to buy it separately.
I think I have properly evaluated the product. I hope it has convinced everyone why you need one (One? Two bedside tables!!) of these lamps in the bedroom or even the living room. If the product is on sale, you can have it for as little as 10.000 Ft (depending on the sale!).
Evaluation:
For me, maybe because I'm a bit biased, but very 5 stars! The lamp is really a quality piece. It is actually a portable Yeelight bulb. It's worth investing in, no one will be disappointed, even if you only use it as a butal lamp. I didn't have any bad experiences with the lamp during the test, maybe the sneaky stubbornness of my BT devices caused some headaches, but everything started working after one nasty look....
Thank you for the product GEARBEST-for making it available for testing.
You can buy it here in special offer (current promotion from the beginning of March 2018!) for around 10-12.000 HUF: MiJIA BEDSIDE LAMP
Thanks to Szilvester Avar for the exhaustive test.
The pictures in the article were mixed (New Year's Eve pictures and my own photos).
The lamp is also great in my own experience. A wake-up feature is foolproof with the addition of the Mi Band 2 vibration. To add to the features, there is also a music function. On the phone (Mi Zenétested with), the light starts to "pulsate" in colour to the beat of the music, making the room even more atmospheric. Whether it's a slow song or a more upbeat one, the light can keep the beat quite effectively. :)
It's a good idea to find out about your sources of supply before you buy. When ordering from outside EU stock, expect additional costs if you get stuck with customs. For those who don't want to take the risk and for whom the guarantee is a matter of life and death, there is also the possibility to buy from a Hungarian webshop (although at a VAT price)
