Avatar smart bulbs may not be blue nor live on a planet called Pandora, but they are available in several different sizes and come with two cool features, that I wish were more often included in smart lights. Let’s start from the start, I have some smart lights from a company that offers more than just lights. Let’s take a look at it, and decide if they cool as cucumbers or belong to the Pandora box.
Avatar smart bulbs
For the first time, I have more bulb types than fittings available to test it. Avatar smart bulbs already should be praised for offering more than B22 fitting. In fact, they go a step further put the information, not just about the energy use, but also a potential yearly cost of running these on the box. It’s a nice thing to do, I appreciate it more after calculating the cost of running smart lights for a year myself.
Avatar doesn’t just offer bulbs. They have a very cleverly design Alexa speaker that doubles as a hub. Check it out while you are on their website as in this article I will focus on their lights.
Avatar 8W RGB B22 (£20.98)*
B22 is the UK’s most popular standard, therefore, anyone that caters to it gets extra points. As much as I like Yeelight (review), it’s annoying to use adapters for E26 fitting that seems to be dominating the market.
This is an 8W RGB smart lightbulb with Colour temperature 3000K-6200K and 800 lumens of light. It’s what I consider the standard specification, although it’s worth noting that the CT range is slightly narrower than other bulbs reviewed by me. The bulb is made of plastic so it can withstand the abuse.
What’s also interesting is the operating range 88V-250V AC – looks like they have pretty much the entire world covered. The bulb is bright enough to cover an average room, but if you planning to automate a bigger living room or kitchen, you better pick two of them.
Avatar 5W RGB GU10 x2 (£21.99)*
Not many brands cater to that market. These bulbs are made from thermo-resistant plastic and come with Bluetooth and WiFi controls. With 5W these can produce 500 lumens of power and operate in full RGB mode or a decent CT range of 2700K-6500K.
Thanks to Bluetooth, they pair very quickly, appearing on the list of bulbs before even selecting the bulb type. GU10 are the spotlights bulbs and they come with plenty of brightness and vivid colours to brighten up any spotlight setup. For best results, group these in app. Thanks to Bluetooth, these also come with music menu. You can use your phone to listen to the music and enable lights effects based on the audio input.
Avatar 5W RGB B22 Dreamcolor – candle x2 (£22.99)*
It’s the first time I came across these as connected lights. Ideal for the bedside lamp and other small light sources Avatar smart bulbs would fill the product void. With 5W power draw and 500 lumens these are very similar in the specification to GU10, thanks to CT range of 2700K-6500K.
They are made of plastic, and unlike the GU10 they don’t have Bluetooth controls.
Avatar 5W RGB E14 Dreamcolor – candle x2 (£23.97)*
Another niche connector which I have far too many at home. Present on my night lights E14 is a rare standard for connected lights. The Avatar smart bulbs are capable of 500 lumens with 5W power draw.
With a good CT range of 2700K-6500K they will keep your room in the colours you want and the Bluetooth controls allows controls outside of the cloud.
Avatar App
It’s a rehash of well known Tuya app. I got to see the transformation of Tuya over the years and the app reminds me of Xiaomi Mi Home more. That’s a good thing, as eWeLink has some catching up to do.
Pairing is easy and trouble-free. Power up the bulb and toggle it 3 times to enter the pairing mode. No insane 20 flips like some of the switches dealt with in the past. Lights add quickly and display the Avatar smart bulbs “avatar” (see what I did there) so you always know what bulb is it.
Tuya comes with typical integration with Alexa and Google Assistant and that seems to be working just fine (you will need account pairing). As usual with these devices, you get pickers for RGB, colour temperature and brightness. There are editable presets as well and schedules. The lights seem very responsive and there is a minimal delay in operation.
What’s unique to Avatar smart bulbs is that “Dreamcolor” enabled bulbs to have a completely different menu to work with. These bulbs come with enhanced features like a response to music (something I have seen first with Yeelight), built-in fade in/out plans to aid sleep and very unique Rhythms – a section that lets you customise the brightness of your lights throughout the day. It’s a much better implementation of the night mode available on Shelly Duo bulbs (review). It’s a shame this option isn’t available for every Avatar Smart Bulb.
Final Thoughts
Avatar offers a wide selection of bulbs to match the various light standards but fails at unifying the features offered by the selection. It would be nice to see Dreamcolor features on all of the bulbs to take the advantage of morning/evening plans or automated and easy to use Rhythms. As these are Tuya based and not yet updated, I will give it a go and see if Tuya-Convert works just like I did with Novostella bulbs. If you are planning the same, refrain from checking for updates just in case! Got comments? Leave it in this Reddit thread.
*all prices listed at the time of writing
🆓📈 – See the transparency note for details.
