Origem Bluetooth E27 speaker LED bulb review
If you’re pressed for space or have a kid who likes a lightshow and music, the Origem speaker has you covered. As long as you’ve got a standard lightbulb outlet you’ve now got a music playing 16 million color claiming device that’s remarkably amusing to play with.
Having played with similar devices, the software isn’t much different. It’s a lightbulb that claims 16 million possible colors but with 16 brightness settings and maybe four gradiations of color and a 360 color circle I don’t see how you’re going to get much past 23,040 using the software that comes with it. I tried to get it to Octarine, but my cat either couldn’t see it or was being a punk.
The bulb actually works pretty well. You’re not going to get grounded speaker quality, but it does pretty well if you’re wanting to wake a kid up, or play some REM versions of Velvet Underground songs.
The Origem bulb also ships with no documentation to speak of and two QR codes that you have to download a barcode scanner for, and then you can scan for the Play Store or App Store links (both those go to the right software). The software is named iLight as a note. I don’t think there’s one mention of what it’s called on the box or in the docs. Just one QR code that points you to it.
The software is underwhelming but on par with other Bluetooth speaker/LED combos I’ve seen. The streaming audio services it supports are limited, and the built in music player makes FLACs sound like they’re being played on a 1950’s Sears entertainment console with a tube going out. Tinny, lost quality. Connect any of your music apps to it and it sounds fine. I’m not sure what is up with that.
Speaking of bad, if you have several albums on your SD card forget about searching for a song or even being able to pick it out by folder. The media scanner included with iLight scans all the media then just throws it into a list based on the order it came up in scanning. Not an issue with two albums on an SD card, but throw in 36 and trying to find anything is annoying as all getout.
Music software meh.
The bulb is pretty big. It’s about twice as large as the lighbulb I had in the lamp I’m testing it in and is comically huge. I found that while the light was on there was absolutely no way to take a picture anywhere the light was showing. My phone was unable to compensate.
It’s a cute gadget, if you have a little one it’s a good addition I think. If you’re a music geek you’re going to probably dislike it as the speaker isn’t going to rock your socks off, but it’s ok. It’s like having a little stereo that also functions as a light bulb you can control from another room, and if you treat it as that it does what you expect.
You can grab an Origem e27 Bluetooth LED light bulb speaker at Amazon for around $29 and if you use code 5FW4FYMJ at checkout something might happen. It might not, but it might.
