Kasa Smart Light Bulbs, Full Color Changing Dimmable Smart WiFi Bulbs Compatible with Alexa and Google Home, A19, 9W 800 Lumens,2.4Ghz only, No Hub Required, 2-Pack (KL125P2), Multicolor

Great - Just Works - But Basic

I initially was a Hue bulb user but I had multiple quirks so I completely dumped them and switched over to the Kasa Bulbs. Reason I picked the Kasa Bulbs over others was because I already had some Kasa Switches and Kasa Plugs so I didn’t want another App and another eco system to worry about. Also, my existing Kasa stuff works perfectly. With that said, here’s my review

Pros
App is simple and straight forward (see negative)
They work with Google, Alexa, IFTTT, and Smart Things (no Apple Homekit) so I’m not tied to a single smart system
Brightness is great. Brighter than my Hues (1000 lumen bulb)
No Hub needed
Fast response. When I turn on or off the lights, or even change brightness/color, it’s pretty much immediate – my friend has Feint Electric bulbs, and there is like a 3-5 second delay
I can control lights remotely – when I’m away from home I can see status of the lights
Price – 2 pack of Hue is $100 (not including hub). 2 pack of Kasa, about $30
Setup is super easy (see negative)

Negatives
The app being simple is a negative. Coming from the Hue app, Kasa app is super basic. While you can get it to do pretty much everything you could do in the Hue app, it’s a lot of manual setup. Example: Hue has a ton of pre-setup scenes like night ‘Misty Morning’, etc. Whereas Kasa has 3 basic scenes to start. You can definitely ‘recreate’ any Hue scene in the app, but it’s a lot of work.
(small gripe) Continuing with, app, the home screen should be quick access to things (more grouping of icons). Example: Hue has all the scenes at the top and lights below that. So once you go in to the app, it’s one click to change scenes or to turn off/on a light. In Kasa, it’s extra click or additional scrolling to accomplish the same thing
And then there are no add-ons like Hue to make the lights more fun and dynamic. Like on New Year, I could set Hue lights to ‘Firework’ and that was cool. There is zero dynamic modes with Kasa
To go along with the ‘fun’ topic. You can link your Hue up media device and have it changes colors while it plays (music, tv). There is nothing in the Kasa ecosystem right now that does that.
Setup can be annoying because the app can be confusing during setup. (see below for easy headache free setup)
No Apple Homekit support
IFTTT – does not support triggers, only actions.

While I’m going to miss some things about the Hue lights, I’m not going to miss the headaches. Hue lights are more ‘fun’ (just don’t expect no issues), but if you want lights that just work, have great brightness, color selection and are a fraction of the price of Hue, I highly suggest the Kasa bulbs

Pre-setup notes
If you are connected to a vpn on your phone or using AdGuard, disable it before you start
Require 2.4Ghz WiFi. Will not connect to 5Ghz. On your phone connect to your 2.4Ghz WiFi before you start
If you have more than 1 bulb to install, do 1 at a time. Don’t install any of the other bulbs until you finish the previous.
Setup works best when you wait about 20-30 seconds after you plug in the bulb before trying to it up.

Setting up bulb
1 – in the Kasa app, press the + in the top right corner
2 – select Device
3 – select smart lights
4 – select Smart Bulb KL100 series
5 – click next on install screen
6 – click next on power screen
7 – app will try to connect to bulb, if it connects to bulb, skip to step 11
8 – if it fails to connect, wait like 5-10 seconds and hit ‘try again’
9 – if it still fails to connect, open your WiFi settings on your phone and manually connect to the Bulb (bulb should be TP_Link….)
10- now go back to the app and hit ‘try again’
11- pick the WiFi and enter your WiFi password
12- when you get to the ‘Connect to your WiFi’ screen, if the app switches you back your initial WiFi (takes about 20 seconds), click ‘already connected’. If it doesn’t auto switch you back, manually switch back to your initial WiFi and then click ‘already connected’
13- Now name your Bulb
13- you’re done. – repeat for each bulb you need to setup

Now you can add a group (+ in top right corner of app) if you want group multiple bulbs together or create a scene, etc.
NOTE: A group in Kasa won’t show in Alexa. If you want a group in Alexa, in Alexa app go to Devices, scroll down to Groups and create a Group

Top Quality Smart Bulbs

These Smart Bulbs are Top Quality even compared directly with the supposed Best Hue Brand. MUCH Better than the other competitor Feit which have failed us numerous times. The best part of the Kasa KL135 & Kasa / TP-LINK Smart Lights in general is they all run in the Kasa App that also controls their Smart Plugs & Cameras. TP-LINK / Kasa really is a economical quality choice when integrating Lights, Cameras Etc VS separate Apps to control Cameras (Ex: RING), separate App for Lights (Ex: Hue) The TP-LINK/Kasa system controls it all. Time will tell if they have a quality life expectancy we’ve experienced with much more expensive Hue or short life expectancy we’ve experienced with Feit.

Perfect considering the price.

Kasa definitely isn’t the best available, but imo it’s the best budget brand, for some reason people buy these and expect them to be just as good as a $50 Phillips hue with a hub when it cost less than half the price of a single bulb and you get 2 of them with no hub required, but because it doesn’t have a hub that means automation and voice activation isn’t as reliable, if you want a device that responds 100% of the time to voice activation, then your only option is shelling out $50 per bulb as none of the budget brands will do that reliably.

I previously had an older model of the Kasa bulb that is no longer sold, it was the old 800 lumen version so I’ll compare it to that. Brightness wise it doesn’t look any brighter than the 800 lumen bulb, however it is thinner (in diameter) so it may be dispersing the light differently.

More importantly, the software has no issues anymore, with the old bulb it’d sometimes take up to 5 minutes for my phone to connect to the bulb and up to 2 minutes just to change the color, for some reason it worked better for iPhones too. This new bulb has none of those issues, instantly connects to the app and I don’t even have to open the app to change it anymore cause now all my widgets work which previously didn’t.

The only reason I chose to go with Kasa again even after my previous issues is that my old bulb lasted 5 years being continuously on for about 360 days per year, being set to 1% as a nightlight at night, and it still works as a bulb but has those software issues (I have zero doubt it’s gotten overheated multiple times so that may be why).

Here’s a few tips I’ve learned from using Kasa bulbs, if you want to have a nightlight preset, use the orange rgb color instead of the 2500k white as it can get significantly darker. If the app doesn’t respond and you start trying to change its settings, once it does connect it’ll catch up and do anything you’ve selected, so if you have epilepsy then don’t just press random presets trying to get it to work, it also flashes a few times when setting up however they’re not very fast flashes and it only happens once.

IMO Best wifi Edison base smart bulbs out there

I’ve tried multiple brands of wifi smart bulbs now & have to say the kasa bulbs have been the most reliable I’ve used.
Wifi w some bulbs can be very spotty (w…cough cough…yze) or just plain difficult to connect (w…cough cough….iz) & make you jump thru hoops if you’re configuring more than 1 at a time.

The color settings & intensities are simple enough, well supported by ifttt, Alexa etc.

Only downfall IMO is they are not tuya smartlife compatible, but that’s no deal breaker.

My home has a few notorious dead zones regardless of wifi mesh, yet the kasa bulbs reliably connect to the network & behave as scripted.

That beats all the others I’ve tried.
Default test here is screw in a build in the piano light, attic & the garage…the kasa’s have been the only ones that function in all 3 dead zones.

Another plus, of all the smart led bulbs I have, the kasa have been the longest life compared to the others I have, my 1st kasa bulb is about 7 yrs old now.

So, try em, especially if your a hub buster, I think you’ll be happy with the choice