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Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ reviews the app-enabled Lumenplay holiday lights and finds that while the concept's terrific, the implementation leaves something to be desired, as you'll see...
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0:03
hi Dave Taylor here again and I'm
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sitting on the tail end of the holiday
0:07
season but I want to talk about
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something called ad illumine play you
0:10
see there's box here bigger box there
0:13
it's a really cool idea if you're
0:15
looking at the Christmas lights behind
0:16
me you might not realize that they're
0:19
actually controlled by my phone so let's
0:22
give it a whirl so first thing I can do
0:24
is I can actually change colors see this
0:29
should work
0:30
and herein lies the thing that's really
0:34
frustrating about these it's a really
0:36
cool idea but it's a really flaky
0:39
interface so let's try again I'll have
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to go all the way back to the initial
0:44
pairing what you end up having to do
0:47
essentially every time you do anything
0:49
with these lights so it's 79 bucks to
0:52
the base unit that includes the
0:54
controller and then $59 for each
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additional strand what you're seeing
1:00
behind me is a base unit and a strand so
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this is a hundred and fifty bucks 150
1:06
bucks worth of Christmas lights but
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let's see I'll turn it off then I'll
1:12
turn it on again and you can also have
1:16
things like a timer and then when you
1:19
get to the main control I'll show you
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here that's the main control and the
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features here let you change colors and
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let's see so now okay now it's in the
1:31
different colors we want so that's good
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and I'll show you some screenshots here
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so you can change colors you can change
1:38
what kind of lighting effect you want
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again assuming that it's actually all
1:44
working and if you look behind me this
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is what's called stack so it fills in
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every color then they all turn off then
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it fills them all in again so pretty
1:56
neat you can go to multi-ball and let's
2:00
see single fade come on
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fade fade you can do it now it should be
2:09
on fade
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rainbow fade which doesn't quite as
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exciting with this color scheme you can
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change the speed of things so we can
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speed it up which okay so you can see
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the colors are slowly changing you can
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change how bright the lights are but
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since I'm shooting in daytime this isn't
2:30
going to be very effective but really
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the fun part of this is the different
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colors and so we can say well hang on
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it's still Chanukah so let's switch to
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blue and white and Hanukkah is over so
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let's go to let's see here's what I like
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this is the Easter color scheme sort of
2:51
pastel II so you know the functionality
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of this is really cool I really like the
2:59
lumen play what I really find really
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frustrating is that it's just a little
3:03
bit too soon the software is really not
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there and what's most disturbing is that
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the lights turn on and off completely
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randomly so this is gosh I would say
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probably half a dozen times now since I
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have this hooked up here on my
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mantelpiece I have come home from a day
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at work and the lights are on but I
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haven't turned them on and I don't have
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a timer set or anything it just randomly
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decides that it wants to be on and to me
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I know they're LEDs there's no heat
3:33
issues or anything but that's a safety
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issue so I guess my response here my
3:39
sort of overall thought is that for the
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price point that they're at I don't
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think they're quite there I think they
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shipped a little early I'd like to see
3:48
the next iteration of the software that
3:49
was much more reliable because the
3:52
concepts really cool so lumen play 79
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bucks for the base unit $59 for each
4:00
additional string of lights and you can
4:03
get more at lumen play comm and this is
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dave taylor saying unfortunately when
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I'm done with these I'm gonna have to
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unplug them I can't just leave them as
4:11
festive holiday lights so I'll see you
4:13
in my next video
#Consumer Electronics
#Lamps & Lighting
#Home Improvement