Bedside lamps are often a staple in our bedrooms. There are multiple styles and designs that can satisfy your lighting needs from lamps that sit on night stands to free-standing lamps with lighting that can be positioned to your specific needs. No matter your current lighting situations, there is a good chance you could use a lamp that not only lights your side of the bed, but also one that can add a little mood lighting at the tap of your screen. The Xiaomi
Yeelight is a bedside lamp that can offer all of the above and does everything it says it does for a fairly affordable price tag.
Physical appearance and size:
The Yeelight is a tall cylindrical built device that measures in at 11.2 x 5.4 x 4.9 inches. It weighs a mere 2.8Â Lbs making it exceptionally easy to move from room to room, or from her side of the bed to yours. all of which can be avoided if you buy multiple lights as you can pair and run more than one from your phone on the same app. The unit is powered by a relatively short power cable, roughly 3 feet. On the bottom, the Yeelight is sliglty elevated by a soft rubber ring that goes around the base. This helps hold the light in place as well as prevents any scratches on your beloved table tops.
The Xiaomi Yeelight app:
The Yeelight app is free, but does require you to register for a free Mi account. Not a huge deal as it also helps keep the Yeelights firmware up to date with features from the app. Inside the app you will find a number of settings to help you get the most out of your light.
At the bottom you will find all your basic control options; Switch, Hue, White, Flow, Scene and Snap. Each offers up a different control ability.
Switch is simple, it just turns the light off and on.
Hue gives you control over the 16 million color options available by sliding your finger left and right to change color and up and down to change brightness.
White turns the light your average white color.Â
Flow places the lamp in a rotation of colors. Sliding your finger left and right adjusts the speed at which is switches between them and sliding up and down adjusts the brightness. You can set the four colors manually too.Â
Scene offers up a couple of pre-configured scene modes to emulate candle light, movie light and soft lights. You can create your own scenes as well, for instance, a romantic reds to clue the wife in on your plans for the evening.
Snap is a rather interesting addition, when you tap on it your devices camera switches on allowing you to ‘snap’ an image of a color you particularly enjoy and set it on your light. This is handy if you find a shade of blue, yellow or red that you love, but cant quite seem to get to the color on the massive color scale yourself.
Digging deeper in to the settings you will find a heck of a lot more control than just color options and fade controls. You can set custom schedules to turn the light off and on. You’ll also find a sleep timer for up to 30 minutes. One setting that I find exceptionally useful is Night Mode which lets you physically reach over and swipe the top of the Yeelight to turn on a soft light in the middle of the night. One that some of you early risers might find useful is the inclusion of the Wake-Up Light setting that will slowly increase the light brightness over the course of 30 minutes to help wake you up.
Lighting from the Yeelight:
You aren’t limited to controlling the Xiaomi Yeelight solely from the app, you can control it to some degree from the physical unit as well. On the top of the light you will find a power button to turn the light off and on with. You also have a smaller button to toggle between the various modes of the Yeelight. The outer ring is touch sensitive allowing you to adjust brightness on the fly by simply sliding your finger around the top.
As you can see, the Yeelight
offers much more than just some basic lighting. A quick tap on the top can illuminate your room in the middle of the night with a soft, non-blinding light to help you find your way around. With over 16 million colors choices, you can easily find the right mood lighting as well as the right soft lighting to fall asleep by. During the time I have used the Yeelight I have found it to be rather convenient and fun to play with. Whether or not you believe that various colors of light have a relaxing effect or help you sleep better, the Yeelight gives you the full gambit to find out. Yellows and reds seemed to let me wake up better while blues in a dark room kept me calm. It could all be a placebo effect, but the fact remains that the light does a fine job at lighting. The Yeelight is stupid easy to set up, works as advertised and offers a lot of function for a fairly competitive price.
Interesting in picking a Xiaomi Yeelight
up? Head to Amazon
and snag one today. At the time of posting this they are listed for $69, but that price might change over time.
