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Fall has arrived, and if you’re looking to add some ambiance to the patio or outdoor space, these new Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights may very well be the perfect upgrade. Alongside Alexa and Assistant support, you’ll find multicolor illumination with various lighting effects and a weather-resistant design. But just how worthy of your smart home are they? That’s what our latest Tested with 9to5Toys looks to answer.
Hands-on with the Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights
Having launched earlier this summer, the recent Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights arrive with 24-feet of multicolor illumination. The strand has 12 different LED bulbs, all of which are individually controllable for unique lighting effects and other ways to bring some flair to your space.
On top of working with a companion smartphone app by pairing directly to your Wi-Fi, these lights also pair with Alexa and Assistant for voice control. That makes them a pretty novel way to enjoy the most of your patio through the rest of fall and even into winter come the holiday season.
But are they worth picking up with a $149.99 price tag? Let’s take a closer look at the hands-on experience.
Here’s a closer look at the spec sheet:
- Vibrant Color Modes – Experience 62 colors, including two and three-color combinations, six shades of white light and an impressive variety of preset and custom modes—fully compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home for voice activation
- Smart Premium Lighting – Fully control these 2.4GHz Wi-Fi compatible cafe lights using the free Enbrighten app—available on the Apple App Store and Google Play
- Effortless Installation – Simply use the mounting tabs above each bulb to hang on beams, fences, walls and more with screws, nails, hooks, zip ties or guide wires
- Link with Additional Lights – Easily connect to more Enbrighten Wi-Fi Cafe Lights for up to 750ft. of coverage to customize your space
- Lifetime LED – Enbrighten Cafe Lights are created to last and ETL-listed for safety
9to5Toys’ Take:
Oftentimes, smart outdoor lighting revolves around floodlights, spot lamps, or just outfitting non-connected accessories with a weather-resistant smart plug. Even some of the more premium offerings from Philips Hue are a bit basic in functionality.
I’ve been using these recently released Enbrighten outdoor smart lights over the past few weeks, which certainly look to bring some flair into the product category.
Out of the box, setup was pretty flawless and was pretty much as straightforward as you can expect. I downloaded the app, plugged in the lights, and then went through the automatic pairing process to get everything configured. Configuring the Alexa or Assistant integration is nearly as simple, which is to say meant for a pleasant experience.
That enjoyment continued well into my usage so far, as the Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights have been as reliable as all of the other gear in my setup. I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of Wi-Fi devices, but I have to give credit here that everything has been quite easy-going thus far.
Though, the one disappointing aspect of installing them in my space has been the lack of HomeKit support. It’s not a feature I was expecting in the first place prior to joining my setup, but the price point certainly could have been justified a bit better for the full coverage of popular voice assistants and platforms.
That aside, I am pleasantly surprised by the Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights. They’re far from the basic string lights that you can find in droves on Amazon and actually deliver a pretty unique series of features. As fun as being able to change the colors from my phone is, my favorite aspect of these has to be the different modes and lighting themes you’ll find.
Ranging from simple color fades to twinkles, holiday-themed lighting, and more, you can even create an entirely custom mode in the editor. Though, the app isn’t anything groundbreaking in terms of its interface. Even so, the different features are hard to beat and really make these lights stand out from pretty much everything else on the market. So whether you want them for ambient lighting or something festive come the winter holiday season, there’s an effect to use.
At the end of the day, $150 for a pair of lights may certainly be on the more expensive end, but Enbrighten backs these with plenty of eye-catching features to justify the price. You could very well just go grab an affordable outdoor smart plug to go with your existing outdoor string lights or Christmas decorations, but you’d be missing out on all of the unique features that make these stand out.
While they’ll definitely be living on my patio for the rest of fall, the Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights will surely get a second chance to light up my front yard come Christmas.
Buy the Enbrighten Outdoor Smart Lights now
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