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24-Pack: Merkury Multicolor + White Dimmable Smart Bulbs
- Fun smart lightbulbs that cost just a little more than non-fun dumb lightbulbs
- If you’re math-challenged, that’s $2 a bulb
- No hub needed, just your existing Wi-Fi
- Operate via the Geeni app or with Amazon Alexa/Google Home
- These are A21, which, like the compatible A19, means they’re “normal”
- Oh, they’re LED. You knew that, right?
- Can it make a margarita? It can make mood lighting for a margarita
$2 each? It is time.
When smart bulbs like this came out, they should have been a huge hit. But they weren’t, really.
It was kind of like wireless charging—super cool tech, but kind of expensive with no obvious examples of why it’s that much better than doing things the old-fashioned way.
And while wireless charging is as simple as setting your phone down on a little pad, being an early adopter of fancy smart lightbulbs was kind of a pain in the ass. You’d always need some sort of hub to make it work. The bulbs themselves were each super pricey. And the store displays always showed some sort of multi-colored nonsense that nobody would actually do in their real-life home. We get it, you can turn your bedroom into a multi-colored disco party at the press of a button, but most people are furnishing actual houses and not sophomore-year college dorms.
For some products, they would gain acceptance regardless. Think of the humble lava lamp. You could buy one of those, plug it in on your shelf, and it would just do its thing. Eventually, it’ll take control of its surroundings like a kudzu plant as it hypnotically convinces you that you need a black light poster over here and a beanbag chair over there. It would crawl inside your brain with its gooey tentacles and make your mind a better place.
Smart bulbs don’t do that. They’ll just sit there in the box and if you go to the trouble of setting up cool RBG lighting to perfectly complement your collectible action figures, you’ll end up sitting there admiring your work for a few seconds before starting to wonder what you’re doing with your life.
Well, no more.
Because while these bulbs are perfectly capable of supporting even your most ambitious action figure display, they’re also great at being, you know…light bulbs. Like adults use. For light.
Except thanks to the smart features, you can brighten them or dim them and set up timers and schedules throughout the house. You can have some nice recessed accent lights that turn on in the early evening and off again at bedtime. This all happens without the need for a hub or anything like that—just the bulbs, your Wi-Fi, and the app. (Optional: Alexa or Google Home if you’re into that kind of thing.)
Bruce Wayne had Alfred to walk around turning on and off all of his bullshit every time there was a fundraiser or something at Wayne Manor. You’re going to have Merkury. (Meh-kury?)
Oh, and we almost forgot the best part. THESE ARE TWO BUCKS A PIECE.
Because the other shitty thing about the smart bulb revolution is that they started off really expensive (and still are, if you’re a sucker who pays retail for such things). Ten bucks for a lightbulb? That’s pretty steep no matter what party tricks it has to offer.
But $2 a piece? It is time.