Meross Smart WiFi Bulb Review: Small design, big customization

Article hero image

AppleInsider may earn an affiliate commission for purchases made through links on our site.

Smart lighting is a great addition to your smart home. The flexibility and accessibility of voice control of lighting adds usability and flexibility to a home.

While smart sockets can make any bulb smart and can be controlled in the Home app, they can only turn the bulb on and off. Smart bulbs let you do that and more by adjusting brightness and color.

The Meross Smart WiFi Bulb may not have the most recognizable design for a bulb, but it still packs a good amount of light, plenty of functionality, and deep customization for the size it is.

The Meross Smart WiFi Bulb scales out to four inches tall and weighs 1.23 pounds. This lightweight design is great for putting on hanging shelves, a desk, or a bedside table without worrying about it taking up too much space.

The lamp is connected to power via a detachable cord that connects to the lamp via USB-C and then connects to a charging brick via USB-A. With the ability to connect to the lamp via USB-C, you can purchase and plug in a longer cable – just in case the included cable is too small to reach a power outlet.

Meross Smart WiFi Lamp is made entirely of plastic and is an LED lamp. It has 16 million RGBCW colors and connects to Home kit via a 2.4 GHz connection with Wi-Fi.

On top of the lamp you will find touch controls with which you can operate the lamp when you do not want to via the app. There is an LED light in front of the lamp to indicate whether it is on and off.

The lamp is dimmable in any desired color. You can see it Siri to set the brightness to any percentage and it will set it to that brightness percentage.

Tapping the touch controls on the top of the lamp has different functionality depending on how long you hold it.

A short tap turns the lamp on or off and cycles through the main colors it offers. Holding the lamp for a long time adjusts the brightness from low to high.

While these tap features are useful, you’ll find it easier to control the bulb with your voice via Siri or via the Home app. Doing so will allow you to set the lighting exactly to the setting(s) you want.

There are two buttons on the front of the lamp. Tapping the “M” button changes the working mode and tapping the Timer button sets a timer or completely resets the lamp.

Depending on what you use the lamp for, it may not be bright enough to light up an entire room. It will be able to illuminate the room, but if you are looking for more light, you may need to get a second one.

To operate the Smart WiFi Bulb, add it to your Home via HomeKit. This allows you to set the brightness, change the color, turn it on and off and connect the lamp to other HomeKit accessories so that they work together.

Connecting the lamp to HomeKit is easy. You just scan the HomeKit code that comes with the product and once the two are connected you can name it and indicate which room the bulb is in.

HomeKit capabilities let you add the bulb to a scene you create, automations you set up, and Siri shortcuts you put together. Specific scenes can change the brightness, color and power you want the bulb to have when activated.

Commands requested from Siri are fast and smooth, and there was never a time when Siri couldn’t access the device or took too long to make changes to it.

If you have more than one, you can link them via the Home app so that you can operate them at the same time. Just as you can change certain aspects of one lamp, now you can do both at the same time for both.

Adding the bulb to one device transfers it to all your other connected Apple devices via the Home app, so you only need to add it to one device to control it from all of them.

While you can only control the bulb from the Home app, one is designated Meross app you can download from the App Store to store all your Meross made products.

There are also additional functions that the Meross app can do that the Home app can’t.

Within the Meross app you can perform all the basic functions that you could do in the Home app: turn the lamp on and off, set the brightness and choose which color you want via a color wheel. One feature you can do in the Meross app, but not in the Home app, is to set specific effects.

With effects in the Meross app, the lamp can change different colors, show different fading in and out animations, and the speed of the effects can also be changed. Every aspect of an effect can be adjusted to your liking – be it the colors displayed, the brightness of the lamp during the effect or the speed of the effect as a whole.

Although you cannot create new effects, you can modify the existing effects from scratch.

You can also manually update the firmware from the app and also check the Wi-Fi signal of each device.

These are nice features to have if you want to set the mood for certain events – be it reading, partying or just relaxing – but they’re not a setting you need to control the bulb. Whether you download the app or not, you can get all the important functions you need for the lamp.

• Works well with HomeKit and Siri
• Many color options that the lamp can display
• dimmable
• USB-C connection
• Light and small
• Easy to set up
• Clear app

• On the more expensive side
• Maybe not bright enough to light up an entire room
• Effects are only accessible in the Meross app and not in the Home app

The Meross Smart WiFi Lamp is a good lamp for your desk and bedside table, but perhaps not the best to illuminate your entire room. On the other hand, it is still a very good smart lamp that packs a lot of customization into it.

The integration with HomeKit is easy to set up and works almost flawlessly when Siri is asked to perform a variety of commands. They interact with Scenes set with other accessories as well.

The price for one might be on the high side for some people — usually $30 to $40 depending on the model you get — but compared to other HomeKit accessories, it’s one of the cheapest.

If you are looking for a good smart lamp with a lot of customization in a small and light design, the Meross Smart WiFi Lamp may be one of the best options for you.

You can buy the Meross Smart Wi-Fi Bulb at Amazon for $26.99 with a coupon on the page for a discount available at the time of publication.