Years ago I bought a smart table lamp and found it amusing that I could control it using my phone’s Bluetooth connection. And while the lamp wasn’t as bright as I would have liked, I made do with it.
As my smart home grew to include Google Assistant, I was disappointed that I couldn’t better integrate the lamp with my other lights.
I’ve wanted to replace it for a while now with something that would work better with my smart home and integrate with Assistant. Thankfully, Govee have what looks to be the perfect replacement with its new Aura Smart Table Lamp. We were provided a sample for review from our friends at the company and have a this review to share.
Design
The Govee Aura Smart Table Lamp uses a compact circular design coming in at 7.9 inches tall and 4.1 inches wide. There is a rubberized base to keep it from sliding around and on top are five buttons to control it.
Furthermore, the power cable is around 8ft. long which should give you more freedom when finding a placement. A complaint I had with my last smart lamp was the cable barely stretched from the outlet to where I wanted to place it. I was pleasantly surprised the Aura Smart Table Lamp had some slack left after positioning it.
User experience
The Govee Aura Smart Table Lamp features controls on the top to power it on/off, switch different lighting modes, and change the intensity of the light. While it’s great to have an easy tactile way to manage the lamp, you’ll most likely use the app because of all the options Govee includes, or a voice assistant such as Alexa or Google Assistant to control it.
Beyond powering it on and off with your voice, the Aura Smart Table Lamp also supports changing the color and brightness. The only things I couldn’t seem to control with Google Assistant were changing the scene modes making it react to music.
For those options you’ll have to open up the app. Before diving deeper let me just say, I was blown away by what Govee offers up.
App
The Govee app is the singular most valuable thing about the Aura Smart Table Lamp. Without the app, the lamp would be little more than a simple light that displays different colors.
However, with the Govee app, the Aura turns into a lava lamp on steroids. Sure, the app does all the normal things you’d expect such as turning the light on/off or changing the brightness and color, but that’s only scratching the surface.
When you open the “Scenes” section of the app, the Aura Smart Table Lamp comes to life. There are a ton of different presets divided up by categories to choose from, and while a few simply show a pretty gradient, some are full motion. It’s impossible to do these justice in photos, especially the scenes that include motion.
A couple of my favorites were “Snow flake” and “Cherry Blossom Festival,” which imitate snow or flower petals falling down. The “Fish tank” and “Ocean” scenes were also very cool and I had a blast going through all of the scenes while showing them off to my friends.
On top of using the preset scenes, the Govee app also allows you to create your own custom scenes with different colors and movement. This is ideal for getting festive around the holidays.
Now, if you’re not into all the fancy scenes and want just a simple lamp, then the Aura is perfectly suited for that as well. You can even control which shade of white you’d like to use, such as a cooler whiter tone during the day and a deeper amber color for later in the evening.
Speaking of, the Govee app also features a sleep timer, wake-up light, and a way to schedule the lamp to turn on or off based on your needs.
Brightness
Of course, we can’t leave out one of the most important functions in a lamp review. The Govee Aura Smart Table Lamp is rated for 350 lumens, and what that means in the real world, is that it gets quite bright.
With the Aura lamp set at maximum brightness, I was able to light up a small bedroom with ease. My previous lamp barely got bright enough to read next to, making the Aura a big improvement.
Now, don’t expect it to compare to a floor-standing lamp or ceiling-mounted fixture, but it should be enough to view your surroundings in the evenings or to do some reading.
Final thoughts
When I first started browsing I was only hoping to get a nice looking lamp that I could turn on or off using Google Assistant. With the Govee Aura Smart Table Lamp–I got way more than that–and between all the different modes, scenes, and customizations I can see why it retails for $60.
The Aura is much more than just a lamp, paired with the Govee app it becomes a customizable light show of colors dancing in your home. You can pick up the Aura Smart Table Lamp right now from the Govee website for $55 or on Amazon for $48 after applying the 20% off coupon.
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