ColorStream‪+‬ 4+

I’m a bit surprised by the negative reviews for this product/app. Yes, the accompanying instructions leave out important details, but I’ll share some tips I’ve learned. When you program your lights you need to create separate on and off rules (I.e turn on at 4pm; turn off at 10:30pm). I have 4 rules that turn my lights on for 2 hours in the morning and 4.5 hours in the evening.

Now for some shortcomings. The compatible Phillips LEDs are dimmer than other sets and I’m only using them in an area where that is desirable. The warm white color option has a greenish hue to it. Other than that, this App and lights have worked well.

As an iOS developer who has worked on a lot of terrible apps, I know one when I see one. This app allows you to add multiple strings of lights to control but if you want to set them on different timers, good luck. The lights I bought are indoor outdoor, so after buying a couple hundred dollars worth of lights, I can’t really customize them in a way that I want. There doesn’t appear to be a way to rename each set of lights so you just kind of have to memorize their ID. The UI is pretty awful, some of the cells have switches that do not toggle because they use the cell selection instead. At the end of the day if you’re reading this before you buy the lights, I’d sum it up as this: if you just need lights for one purpose (tree, outdoor, etc.) and can get by with one set of lights (3 boxes according to my packages) then this app is workable. Anything else will leave you disappointed.

I don’t understand why the features of this app are so ridiculously limited. Why can you fade on multi, but every other color option/combination must flash like a neon sign? Why do the timing options range from fast to epileptic-seizure-faster but with the one single fade option they can be slowed down to a reasonable timing that you would be comfortable with in your living room? That kind of control is obviously possible since it can be done with the multi fade setting, but they just aren’t there for literally every other color combination. I’m fine with using the app, but I feel like it should have been made clear upon purchase that you can’t do anything except plug it in withOUT the app.

Phillips has such a great compliment of options with the app-controlled light bulbs. I’m surprised this a) uses a different app in the first place and b) seems like preschool level compared to those.