Wink Hub with GE Link Bulbs - 1 Month in Review

I've now been using by Wink Hub with 3 GE Link bulbs for a little over a month. It's been stable after a somewhat rough installation, and recent updates to both the Wink app and Wink hub don't seem to have broken anything even if it was problematic to update. The only new user facing feature I've found is the ability to add widgets to my homescreen to run Wink shortcuts. A few of the things I've experienced with this setup over the past month:

The Good:
  • Location aware Robots in the Wink app have made it so I don't need to remember to turn my lights off when I leave home. When I leave my home geofence I have the Wink app set to automatically turn off all lights in my apartment.
  • Automatically turning on lights when I return home at night is great when my hands are full and I walk in the door. (I'd like to get some smart locks down the road to solve the issue of unlocking the door with my hands full)
  • I can turn down the lights while on the couch watching a movie.
  • I can turn off all the lights in my apartment while in bed.
  • It's very cool to be able to turn on the lights for my girlfriend even if I'm still at work.
The Bad:
  • As of now, the Android Wear integration works only if the Wink App hasn't been closed out in the background on my phone. Otherwise opening it just says "Searching for Wink Shortcuts..." until you open the app on the phone. If I'm picking up my phone to find my shortcuts then there's no sense doing it on my watch.
  • I've left some of my lights on switches because it's convenient to be able to turn the switch off then on to activate the light without my phone. Unfortunately this also means it's easy to turn the light off out of habit and have it completely disabled from wireless control.
  • Schedules for turning on lights can't be temporarily disabled; it's all or nothing. Due to my wake-up light trigger I unwittingly left my bedroom light on for 5 straight days while I was out of town.
  • Every so often the GPS location triggers will go a little wonky and think I have arrived home and left home in quick succession, resulting in the "returning home" light being off on my arrival.
  • The API is still in its infancy. Integration with IFTTT is advertised by Wink, but it doesn't support any of the lighting products. I can't wait to get this stuff integrated with some IFTTT and Tasker profiles the way people are with the Hue platform.
On the whole, I have to say I really am enjoying the convenience of having smart lights. Based on the apparent stability increase between the launch this summer and my purchase this winter it seems that Quirky is working hard on getting their platform up to snuff. For the low per-bulb cost and free hub, I'm more than willing to deal with a few kinks as the Wink platform matures. I just won't be buying it for my parents anytime soon.

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