Verve Design 24W Smart LED Ceiling Light

Avoid if you can – Was OK at the start, despite the high pitch noise. Bought 3, and 2 failed within 12 month. They started flicking, then eventually died.

They break in under 18 months – I have had over 4 of these lights fail in under 18 months where the lights start flickering or stop working completely. Show details

Do not buy – These lights are great, until they stop working. I purchased 3 of them about 2 years ago and now they have completely stopped working. Cheap shi**y build quality that doesnt last. And when you have to get them installed by an electrician, it becomes an expensive episode to replace them. I called Arlec customer service and was told they… Read more

only have a 12 month warranty and there's nothing they can do about it.

Do yourself a favor, avoid these lights and spend a little more to buy a decent brand!

Absolute rubbish – Do not buy the Arlec brand as their lights are absolute rubbish. I bought 2 of their LED lights from Bunnings and they lasted just over a year even though you are supposed to get at least 3 years from an LED. Both Bunnings and Arlec refused to replace or refund because they said the warranty was for a year. This meant I had to buy 2 new lights and… Read more

pay for an electrician. The idea was to save money using an LED not spend more money. I will never buy Arlec again or a light from Bunnings. Absolute rubbish and poor customer service. Very disappointed in both companies.

Lasted 2 years, lense fell off – DO NOT BUY. We bought 6 lights, after 18 months the cover fell off the light in the toilet....all 3 latches had disintegrated. 3 months ago at the 2 year mark a 2nd one fell off. At 3am in the morning same thing, latches disintegrated Contacted Bunnings. They do not want to know about it Repeated non answered emails... Just a rourt and typical big business crap Show details

Made to a price, but good value smart light – Up close, very plasticy cover (that is easy to remove by a simple twist) but when mounted and in particular when lit, it looks fine. Only minor issue is that it has an electrical warning label as well as a "Grid Connect" label on the side of the metal plate that detracts from the clean lines. I suspect you could probably remove these, but I didn't… Read more

bother.

Needs to be wired in by an electrician but they will find it simple to do. The plate is fixed to the ceiling, and it comes with some screws and wall plugs - although strangely not really suited for mounting in plasterboard which most ceilings are made of here. Not a biggie of course - you may just need to provide your own screws. The holes for the screws in the plate were initially hard to see as they were covered by foam. The light is also incredibly light, so frankly could be held up by 3M stickers.

If you can't be bothered setting it up, the light can simply be turned on/off via the light switch and use the default settings which is a standard cool white and quite bright. There are different versions - the one I got was "Hana" which is 24W claiming to provide up to 1900 lumens (cool white) or 1800 lumens (warm white). I can't verify how bright it is, but it did cast a decent amount of light. Note - you can try but it almost certainly will not work with a manual dimmer. I had one and it sort of worked but made the light flicker horribly as well as the dimmer itself buzz.

Setting it up requires a 802.11 2.4GHz wifi network with internet access. 5GHz is not supported. You need to install the 'grid connect' app on a mobile/tablet (you should also be able to use the Tuya app that runs in the backend), and you need to set the light into pairing mode by turning the light off and on five times. This didn't work for me for the first few times, but I think the trick is to make sure you allow a full second between each flick of the light switch. Too long or short and it doesn't work. Once in pairing mode the light starts flashing rapidly. Note that if it flashes slowly it may be in AP mode in which case you can try again or connect directly to the light via wifi.

As an aside, local devices connected to remote clouds like Tuya are a potential security concern. As such, make sure you use a complex password when creating an account. The more paranoid out there may even choose to have a dedicated wifi network just for these sorts of things. If you don't want to take advantage of remote dimming etc, you could always just set the light up as required (brightness, colour) via a temporary wifi AP (eg tethering off your mobile) and later just turn it on/off via the light switch.

Overall I was impressed with this. If you want to have a 'smart' oyster light, the alternative would be to get a larger one that fits a standard smart bulb - and the overall cost would be higher, the light itself more bulky, and the light probably dimmer.

*edit* - Note, I later also bought the slightly smaller 22W "Charlie" version of this. It turned out to be a slightly different design. The mounting plate was plastic (so no earth), and the diffuser panel was sealed to the plate using a foam strip that fairly annoyingly would start to fall out as you tried to put the panel on. The price difference between the two units was minimal - maybe a dollar or so - so the larger "Hana" is definitely the one to go for.