TECKIN 4+

The light bulb works well, and I do like having the ability to turn it on and off from a distance, however, this app does have a lot of very apparent shortcomings.
Firstly, it takes incredibly long to load for no apparent reason. If I’m trying to turn on my light to walk across my room and place a few things down, it’d be easier to just use my flashlight than wait for thirty seconds to connect to the singular light I have
Secondly, and maybe most importantly, there are advertisements built into the app, forcing me to look at products that I don’t even want every time I decide to turn on my light. This is scummy, annoying, and far from ideal, especially when using a product that you paid for.
Thirdly, the button displaying whether or not the light is turned on is often bugged, showing it in the opposite state. This is more of a minor nitpick than anything, but still.
Finally, it seems that, for some reason, the speed of the automatic color changing options are tied to the brightness and saturation sliders as well as the speed slider, making darker tones cycle much faster. I rarely use this option so, again, this is a very small issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
I’m not sure if there are better alternatives, since I was given this as a gift and don’t actually know this market well, but I’d encourage those on the fence to check.

I have tried to sign up through the app three times. Each time after I try to sign up @ The login screen I enter my email except the terms and never get a confirmation email which hinders me and using my product. Three separate days I have tried to sign up so I can login and use my product and each time i give my information and sit there and keep refreshing my email waiting for a confirmation I get no confirmation email EVER!!! Meanwhile I got four smart plugs I can’t use because I can’t get the app to send me a confirmation email this is ridiculous. I tried this with two separate email addresses and neither worked and yes they were the right email addresses. Somebody needs to address this issue soon they shouldn’t even be an issue I couldn’t even tell you if the app is good or not because I can’t even login. And at the same time I don’t even know if the equipment works because I’m too busy waiting for a response from this app which I eventually end up just throwing equipment back in the drawer hopeful later that it’ll work. Well after a month and waiting enough time for somebody to contact me or give me a login confirmation i am done with this app.

An update was made to this app in the Jan- Mar 2021 timeframe that is trying to force users to turn on location. I use this app solely to control smart plugs that are connected to lights. The app insists that I need to turn on location for weather data. Teckin/Longtour does not need to know where I am, and for my use of the product, weather is irrelevant. Unfortunately, I have to tap past a pop up every single time I want to turn a light on or off. This is an attempt to annoy users into giving access to location data.

Otherwise works fine for my purpose. If I knew this location thing was going to be like this w the app I probably would have chosen another smart plug provider.