Xiaomi is more than a smartphone maker. Even in India, where only a handful of Xiaomi products are available compared to what the company sells in China. For example, here at India Today Tech we have reviewed Xiaomi phones, TVs, Mi Bands, and Mi Soundbar. The next in the line is the smart light from the company. To recall, at Mobile World Congress 2019 Xiaomi announced two new Mi LED smart bulbs and now one of them is available in India. This is the Mi LED Smart Bulb (E27 Base), which comes for Rs 999.

Update: The Mi LED Smart Bulb is now on open sale in India for Rs 1299. The smart bulb can be purchased from Amazon, Mi.com, and Flipkart.

I am using the Mi LED Smart Bulb for a week now. It's fabulous. It's tiny. It's slick. It's versatile. And it is smart. That is the review of the Xiaomi Mi Smart LED Bulb in nut-shell.

The Mi LED Smart Bulb is small unlike many other smart LED bulbs available in the market. In other words, it will fit in any corner of your house and be inconspicuous. It also looks like a well-made product with good fit and finish. In China, the Mi LED Smart Bulb includes Yeelight branding but in India it comes with Mi branding. The Mi LED Smart Bulb in available only in one outer colour that is grey.

The Mi LED Smart Bulb can either sit inside a lamp with B22 convertor or in a separate holder, depending on the requirement.

Let's now talk about how to connect and use the Mi LED Smart Bulb.

The set-up process for the Mi Smart LED Bulb is easy. Before talking about how to setup the Mi Smart LED Bulb, ensure you use a B22 holder to convert the bulb from E27 base. Notably, the B22 holder doesn't come bundled and you will need to separately buy it.

-- After connecting the bulb to the B22 holder, download the Mi Home app on your smartphone. The Mi Home app is available on Google Play store.

-- Setup country or region as India.

-- Log into Mi Home app via Mi account ID and password or email ID or phone number. I logged in via Mi account.

-- You will now need to add device to Mi Home app. There are two ways:

One: Open the Mi Home app and click on + option on the top right of the app. Then click on Devices nearby and the app will automatically search the Mi Smart LED bulb and connect it with your smartphone.

Two: You can also add the device manually by clicking on Add manually option on the Mi Home app, tap on lightning option, and then click on Mi Smart LED Bulb.

-- You'll then need to "reset" the bulb by clicking the light switch. To connect you'll need to switch ON and OFF the smart bulb five times.

-- The smart bulb will then start blinking in multi-colour and then emit a constant white light after 5 sec.

-- Go back to the Mi Home app and check "Operation Confirmed" and then "Next" option to connect the Mi Smart LED Bulb to WiFi router.

-- Select router from the list, enter password and click on OK.

-- The phone will then pair with the Mi Bulb. Once successfully paired click "Done".

After connecting you'll now need to setup the Mi Smart LED Bulb. Follow these steps to set it up:

-- Go to the Mi Home App

-- There are several options like bedroom, living room, among others. Click on one.

-- Set the name of the device.

-- Notably, you can also share the Mi Smart bulb access with your friends and family by clicking on the + option.

-- Lastly, click on Let's get started option.

The Mi Smart LED Bulb is good to go.

After setting up the Mi Smart LED Bulb and connecting it with the smartphone you can simply go to the Mi Home App and click on the Mi Smart LED Bulb icon on the homepage. Ensure the phone is connected to the WiFi router and the Mi Smart LED Bulb plugged it for a seamless connection.

Interestingly the Mi Smart LED Bulb not only can light up in typical white and yellow lights (warmer colour temperature) but also supports multi-coloured mode. It's a 10W bulb and offers 800 Lumens and supports 16 million colours. Users can switch to any colour from the colour bar in the app at any given point depending on the scenario with the help of the Mi Smart LED Bulb. The Mi Home app offers several modes including White mode, colour mode, flow mode and favourites mode. Let me explain each mode for you to understand the operation of the Mi Smart LED Bulb better.

-- White mode: The White mode is typically a normal light mode. Switching on this mode will enable the basic white light.

-- Colour mode: On switching to this app the Mi Home app will show a colour bar and with a touch of finger the colours of the light can be changed.

-- Flow mode: As the name suggests in the Flow mode the selected lights will flow from one to another automatically. After this mode is enabled you can choose the colours of the lights as per requirement.

-- Favourites mode: The Mi Home app allows users to select a particular colour and mark it as favourite. Under the favourite mode there are several situations like sunshine, sunset and others. Users can mark different colours for different situations -- for example Red for Sunshine mode, orange for sunset mode -- and on clicking the situation modes the colour of the Mi Smart LED Bulb will be changed to the set colour.

The Mi Home app also lets users adjust the brightness of the Mi Smart LED Bulb -- based on the situation -- by scrolling up and down on the phone screen. To change the colours -- from red to blue to yellow -- users can switch fingers from left to right and otherwise. There's also a Power off button. This makes it easy for the users to switch on and off the Mi Smart LED Bulb via their smartphone, especially when in a different room.

The Mi Home app also lets users set timer for Mi Smart LED Bulb. For example, if the timer of the Mi Smart LED Bulb is set for 15 minutes, the Mi Smart LED Bulb will switch off automatically after the time ends. This feature mostly helps when you are in the bed, preparing to sleep. Not just that, the Mi Smart LED Bulb can also be timed to light up in the morning when the alarm clock rings. This can be done by Scheduled option in the Settings menu. In addition to the smartphone the Mi Smart LED Bulb can also be operated via Google Assistant or Alexa. All you need to do is connect the Mi Smart LED Bulb with either of the two virtual assistants and speak.

Absolutely. It is. At Rs 999 the Mi LED Smart Bulb is a good deal, but sadly it is not available in open sale yet. Before the official launch, the Mi LED Smart Bulb was put on crowdfunding and that's how some people got it.

But in the coming weeks or months, chances are that the Mi Smart LED Bulb will be on sale. And considering how good it is and how versatile its functionality, I believe this scores high over other smart bulbs available in India. Not only most of them are priced higher than Rs 999 but they are also more complicated to use.

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