Avea Flare Smarter Light Is Beautiful and Movable

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I’ve become enamored of smart lighting recently and have been playing around with a few brands. Elgato, who just recently rolled out their Eve smart home accessories, also offers a line of smarter lights. These aren’t part of the Eve system but they are impressive. I was sent the $99.95 egg-shaped Avea Flare for review.

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The Flare is part of the Elgato Avea system.

As Elgato explains, “Avea transforms your home with beautiful dynamic light moods. Control your ambience from your iPhone, Android phone, iPad, or Apple Watch, and unwind in one of the carefully crafted settings with subtly changing light.” 

The Avea Flare is an egg shaped light and offers some great features. Sadly it is not part of the Eve line of products so it won’t work with Apple Home Kit, but it does have an app and it offers some great features if you want a smartphone-controlled light.

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The Avea Flare comes in two main parts. There is the base and accompanying wall outlet and there is the light itself. The egg shaped light sits on top of the base and charges when the base is plugged into a wall outlet.

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Made out of textured plastic, the light looks fairly elegant but, admittedly, feels like it is… made from textured plastic. That doesn’t take away from what this smarter light can do however.

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The Flare uses smart technology and is able to connect directly to an iOS device or to an Android phone using Bluetooth Smart technology. No additional gateways or bridges are necessary.

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Once the bulb is connected to the app you can choose from any number of Scenes and the smart LED light takes care of the rest.

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And while you use the phone or tablet to control the light, you don’t need to maintain a constant connection for it to work. Better still, you can connect multiple lights in the Avea system and have them work together. They will, as Elgato explains, “automatically coordinate their lighting to create an even more immersive atmosphere.”

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The app is easy to connect and, once you have, easy to manipulate. It is, in fact, pretty self-explanatory. And there’s more. The Avea app will also make its way to your Apple Watch. That makes it super easy to pick the lighting mood of your choice. You simply raise your wrist and view the current status of your light. From there you can tap the watch app and change the lighting to whatever you want. And there’s more! The app has an alarm feature that can be set to wake you up whenever you want.

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Set it and the built-in wake-up light scene will let you, “rise and shine along a natural sunrise, right in your bedroom.” How cool is that?

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The Avea Flare is 8.7″ tall, has a built-in battery that provides 8+ hours per charge, offers a wireless charging unit, has a built-in LED that offers 60 lm, and even has an IP65 water resistant. I can see using the Avea in our new home to set mood lighting. More importantly, since it gets over eight hours of runtime per charge and has an IP65 rating, I can see using the Flare outside at night when we grill or decide to take a swim. It promises lots of fun, a variety of light colors and will go pretty much anywhere. All that and it is under $100!

You can get yours here!

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: Battery powered; Offers wide range of colors; Water resistant; App works well and is easy to use; Wake up alarm function; Apple Watch app.

What Needs Improvement: When you first pick it up the plastic used for the light won’t impress.

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.