Roughly a week from now we’re going to be drowning in connected home product launches. It seems fairly likely that it’ll be the major story of this year’s CES, with smart home plays from Google, Apple and Amazon duking it out in the middle. Sylvania wisely is getting ahead of the fray, announcing its own offering a full week ahead of the Las Vegas melee.
The longtime purveyor of electrical lighting solutions is a different approach to HomeKit connected devices, with a Philips Hue competitor that features its own built-in Wi-Fi radio. That means that, unlike much of the competition, the Smart Multicolor A19 immediately taps into the home network without the need for a hub.
Screw it in, sync it to Apple’s Home app and the thing is good to go. Home compatibility also means that it can be incorporated into different “Scenes” and that Siri can be used to perform a variety of different voice commands with the bulb, including turning it off and on, dimming it and changing colors.
The A19 will be hitting Amazon early next year. No word yet on pricing, but the current Amazon Alexa-compliant version is priced at $40 right now, so likely in that general ballpark.
