Review – Mi LED Desk Lamp: Diving into Smart Lighting
Xiaomi Mi LED Desk Lamp
RM 145 - RM 189
Pros
- Great build quality
- Minimalist design
- Consistent lighting
- Hardware controls
- Value for money smart lighting
Cons
- Lack of articulation
- Missing direct third-party integration with Mi Home
Xiaomi may be known for their smartphones and MIUI aftermarket Android OS but some of the consumers are still don’t know the company actually has a huge plan for a whole smart ecosystem surrounding its users. The Mi LED Desk Lamp we have here today is part of the ecosystem and we shall ponder upon why does a desk lamp even matter.
Special thanks to Jaya Prithivi Raj from The Adventures of Vesper for providing the desk lamp, hence making this review possible.
Mi LED Desk Lamp Specifications
- Colour temperature range: 2700K-6500K
- Luminance range: 1% – 100%
- Flux: 3300 lumens
- Input power: 6W
- CRI: 83
- Lifespan: Approximately 25,000 hours
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz
- Package contents: Mi Smart LED Lamp, power adapter, user guide
Build Quality & Design
The Mi LED Desk Lamp has a minimalist design. The moment I take it out of the box, I actually spent some time fiddling around with it while thinking “Wow, the designer must be hating all the fancy desk lamps out there.”
With that being said, I don’t mean it is bad. In fact, I personally am a fan of simple and minimalist design that works. It doesn’t have to be sophisticatedly designed with all the complicated moving mechanism or golden chrome trims that is made of plastic. Clean design tends to make the product blends into your home instead of shouting, “hey, I’m here, don’t forget about me”.
The all white construction makes it a perfect desk lamp for my study table. Well, unless you have dark themed setup, then you might have to look for an alternative as the Mi LED desk lamp only comes in white.
User Experience
Having a closer look at the lamp itself, there is only 1 moving mechanism on it. The hinge has all-metal design and Xiaomi claims that performance only drops by 17% after opening and closing for 10,000 times. Judging from the look of it, it doesn’t seem that user can easily re-tighten the hinge when it becomes loose over time.
Besides, the red flat cable stands out from the rest.
There are 21 LED beads that provide adjustable colour temperature ranged between 2700K and 6500K.
The specification document itself did mention the desk lamp is capable of providing up to 750 lumens of brightness at 30 cm range but without specifying which brightness level and colour temperature. Nonetheless, all of those do not matter as much because for a normal use case, it is bright enough and you wouldn’t be using the desk lamp as a searchlight.
Speaking of different colour temperature and brightness, all of those can be controlled from the single knob/push button combo on the base.
- Press to turn the light on/off
- Turn the knob to adjust the brightness
- Turn the knob while pressing to adjust the colour temperature
Mobile App
If you prefer more control over the LED light, the Mi Home app has plenty of it. You can adjust the brightness and colour temperature by swiping your finger up/down (brightness) or left/right (colour temp). That’s pretty neat although I would have preferred virtual adjustment wheels that still supports manual number entry. Apparently, the Mi LED desk lamp has built-in Pomodoro function where it would flash the light a few times to indicate the timer.
There are a couple of light presets built-in the app for quick adjustment, or else, you can also choose to save your favourite lighting configuration.
More settings can be found in the settings pane especially the kids’ mode – thoughtfully designed to limit the colour temperature within the range of 2700k – 4000k to reduce the blue light. You can also set the default lighting state so that after the light has been unplugged, the default light will be the startup light. Some sort of onboard memory thingy.
Of course, you can also customise the double-click action for the button on the light base.
Final Words
I’ve been using the Mi LED desk lamp for almost 3 weeks now and I really like how smart lighting can be really useful in our daily life. Let say you can set an IFTTT recipe to have the light automatically turn on when you reach home. Of course, the Mi LED desk lamp is not without its cons. The minimalist design gave it a clean look but it also limits the adjustability of the light where you literally have to move the base just to turn the light around. Apart from that, the Mi Home’s integration with other smart home systems such as Apple HomeKit and Google Home is non-existent unless depending on third-party services such as IFTTT.
At this point, some of you might be thinking – “Bro, it is just a desk lamp, why do you even care?”
With that being said, I still believe that the future is where all our home appliances are interconnected and Mi Home will start to integrate with all the other third-party smart home services. Just like what we previously review – the Philips Hue smart lighting system, that is a proper full-blown experience on how smart lighting should be. The same concept goes to all the other home appliances that would become part of the Internet of Things.
For some reason, the official Mi online store is not selling the lamp unless you visit their physical stores. Meanwhile, you still can get the Xiaomi LED desk lamp on Lazada Malaysia for around RM 145 to RM 189. I have to say, that is considerably cheaper than the Philips Hue counterpart.
