Desk lamps - Xiaomi Yeelight MJTD01YL and PHILIPS Eyecare Smart Table Lamp 2

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1

Welcome,

For a long time I was thinking about choosing a desk lamp for the room. Initially, I thought about Blitzwolf, I have a phone charger and several cables from this manufacturer, they are well made, I was scared by the shiny casing (collecting dust and micro scratches).
Finally, it fell on one of two lights:
Mijia PHILIPS Eyecare Smart Table Lamp 2 - https://www.gearbest.com/table-lamps/pp_009157622429.html?wid=1101231&lkid=19932389
And
Xiaomi Mijia Yeelight MJTD01YL - https://www.gearbest.com/table-lamps/pp_363779.html?wid=1101231&lkid=19932391

It’s true … on the internet we find dozens of reviews of both products, thousands of photos, a lot of opinions, but there is a lack of focus on the most important element - photos of how it shines.
Like you, I also had a dilemma which one is better, it would seem that Yeelight dominates the product produced by Philips, because we can set the color 4000K (or the color from the product of Philips) and others such as 2700K, 3500K, 5500K, 6500K and your own settings, but is this match really won by Yeelight?
Due to the lack of reliable reviews by order, order both desk lamps and compare. It will not be a typical review, there will be no mass of photos, etc. I only present differences in the control and lighting method of both products.
I set the white and ISO balance for both products identically, I changed only the exposure time (from near and far - only in these two cases).

Yeelight lamp - 2700K

Yeelight lamp - 3500K

Yeelight lamp - 4000K

Philips Xiaomi 4000K lamp - here it is worth to stop for a moment, because the photo shows the difference in the color of both products. Philips shines neutrally, very pleasantly. Yeelight is also a great product, but it is worth noting that in this color you can see a lot of pink. This is not a bad thing if we choose a lamp to the forest, but is it a desirable “color” in this type of lamp that stands on the desk and we spend a lot of time with it? I do not think so, however.

Yeelight lamp - 5500K

Yeelight lamp - 6500K

Yeelight lamp - brightness in succession 1, 25, 50 and 100% and “ambilight” mode - by the way this mode looks much better than the one from the Philips product, in which at the back we find a dedicated lamp “ambilight”

The second set of photos shows the way the lamp from Philips is lit - I did not set the application only with dots on the touch casing, the last picture shows the main lamp + ambilight

Looking at photos, the difference is minimal, unfortunately the brightness and many white elements effectively blur the difference between these products.

You can see the difference in these two pictures taken by phone:
Philips

Yeelight

These two pictures clearly show how the Yeelight is set to 4000K and Philips, which “has” 4000K. Philips is more neutral and we do not witness pink in its color. In fact, Yeelight shines a bit more neutrally (but quite differently than Philips).

Choosing one of these two lamps, it is worth answering the question whether the color of 4000K from Philips will not be too cold? In my opinion, no, I’ve been using it for about 2 months and will stay with me for longer.

control:
Both lamps can be controlled using the application
for Philips - MiHome application
for Yeelight - Yeelight app
Philips lamp has a touch panel that allows you to select brightness, turn on or off the ambilight, we can turn on the lamp only in ambilight mode holding the switch for about 1 second (we do not have the possibility from the application !!!) and mode using the light sensor.
The Yeelight lamp allows you to control the brightness by turning the knob or change the color (without using the application) by pressing and turning the knob.
The control is very intuitive and it is rather an individual matter.

Execution - very good. In Yeelight, the workmanship is made of metal, the stand is plastic.
Philips, made of plastic (on the Internet you can read that the skeleton is made of metal to strengthen the structure) and the movable element of silicone (strength according to the manufacturer 100,000 use), in addition to be resistant to yellowing, but we will see in a few years.
Both are made impeccably.

A full display of the possibilities of the Philips lamp:

Yeelight:

(the blue color of cold colors is just the wrong white balance setting by the camera)

Summarizing:
Philips shines more neutrally, Yeelight allows better color matching, but the color itself is more “pink”. The performance in both is at a very high level, the look is rather an individual choice of each of us, I like the Yeelight more, but Philips is smaller and has a touch panel.
The disadvantage is the lack of a USB port for charging devices or wireless charging for newer phones.
It is worth paying attention to one more parameter - diodes. While in the case of Philips, we will certainly get good quality diodes that meet the standards of “healthy light”, but in the case of Yeelight we are not so sure. On the internet you can find information that the diodes used come from Osram - if it is, we can also be sure.
Brightness? - it’s enough, I personally use Philips and Yeelight lamps in the lowest light mode.

And the most important question to choose?
I leave myself a Philips product, it provides more neutral light, after consulting people who are in love with light - this kind of “lighting” is more suitable for the home.
Choosing Yeelight remember to buy a European plug into the outlet. In the set we only get a charger with a Chinese plug.
No matter which one you choose - I can assure you that you will be 100% satisfied.

2

I was really tempted to get that exact Xiaomi desk light. It’s an attractive design with good CCT and brightness adjustment. However, it was a little pricey for only 300 lumens.

Instead, I put together a lamp using a Viltrox L116T panel, a flexible gooseneck mount, and a DC power supply. The price came to about the same total, but it’s closer to 1000 lumens max and provides even higher quality light. It’s also easy to flip over for use as a ceiling-bounced room light, and can be battery-powered for use as a portable photography light. When ceiling-bounced, it pretty much eliminates shadows. But there was some shopping around required, and some assembly, and it’s not as pretty to look at.

FWIW, here’s some L116T measurements by maukka.

Anyway, there’s a reason why the Xiaomi light is pink at 4000K. ANSI white color space is curved, but when mixing two individual tints to get in-between CCTs, the blend follows a straight line. This means, when the end points are perfectly white, the point halfway between them will look a bit pink. That’s okay though, because most people find slightly pink lighting to be more pleasant and more vibrant than pure white. It’s like the old saying about wearing rose-tinted glasses.

3

Thanks for your review, zieloczek. I came to that point where I realized the blazing hot inefficient halogen light I’d been using at my bedside needed replacement. It’s overwhelming to see so much choice on the market, and even more disappointing that mainstream makers aren’t offering much… you have to dabble into all kinds of Chinese lights to find something innovative. Yet, innovation with poor or low quality implementation can be a problem. Thus, it’s hard to know what to choose. While it would be attractive to get a light at less than $30 that’s worthy of the job, I’d want it to last a good solid 10+ years, as my previous light had been doing. It’s a shame that there aren’t more companies making LED halogen bulb replacements, as there were a number of halogen bulb designs that makes it difficult to create one LED that replaces many.

I actually did not want to get an LED lamp with any charging ports on it. That’s extra electronics that I just don’t need or want. And while a number of tint choices is great to have, I’d want them all to be usable for me. But with the Yeelight, the lowest is too warm and the highest far too cold. I’d never use them.

I opted for the Mijia Philips. I haven’t gotten it yet, but expect it’ll arrive in 2 weeks.

The two main things that drew me to it are the dual illumination options (very clever) and the very artful design (no hard seams, joints, exposed wires). The Yeelight has a lot of potential, but I really don’t like that exposed wire. A couple of other brands have “clones” available for about half the price, and IMHO they have a better joint design than the Yeelight. I like that the Mijia Philips is WiFi enabled & can be controlled remotely. A bit of a gimmick, but it could be useful. It’ll be interesting to find out if the app has the capability of controlling more than one lamp at once, and how you could identify them for selective control. Also, if it can work on older Android phones. My thought would be to have an available old Android phone dedicated to do the controlling.

As for brightness, there are brighter lamps on the market, but frankly for bedside usage it looks pretty usable to my eye.

4

I initially reported this as a “bust”… but now that I’ve gotten the chance to use it at night, I’m feeling differently.

My initial impression was soured by a few problems.

  1. It does not ship with a USA plug power supply. It comes with an EU plug that then requires an adapter for a USA power socket. However, it should be possible to find a substitute power supply native for 120v that won’t require an adapter.
  2. The 4000k CCT 82 CRI product specifications led me to believe this would be a warm leaning neutral. Because of that, my initial impression had me feeling it was on the cool side of neutral white. Now after using it at night, I’m finding it’s more balanced, more neutral than first thought. And actually, as far as reading lights go, it’s better on your eyes. I’m just so used to a very warm Tensor lamp that burned like raw incandescent orange.
  3. The documentation is atrocious. You have to install a “Mi Home” app for remote control of the light, which opens up a few more features. But… the directions do not achieve joy. My supported Android phone cannot find the lamp, so I cannot connect. On-line I discovered a few tips about using WiFi, but there’s no setting I could find in the app for that. Plus, it has to be a 2.4GHz network… while most everyone in the USA is now using 5GHz.

The app allows for remote control and for some things like setting a timer. But, I really don’t need those features. And as far as updates go, I expect at this point since this Version 2 was released in 2014, with no Version 3 having appeared 5 years later it’s doubtful there will be a need for firmware updates anyway.

The light sensor is pretty neat. When you’re in a dark room, it always starts off in the lowest setting, which is main off and rear on. Otherwise, it’ll remember your last intensity setting when you hit the power button. A kind of “conditional” memory. The “eye sense” mode will adjust the brightness to suit the room lighting. I think in the app there’s some way to calibrate it (meaning, the “median” lighting would lean brighter or dimmer). Overall, it’s actually a “sensible” brightness setting by default. I don’t know how much I’ll use it, though. The night light default mode (rear light only). is something I appreciate a lot. Btw, the brightness level governs both emitter banks and you’re not able to control them separately (maybe in the app—I can’t know until it’s registered).

The rear light bank control is an obvious toggle and it’s independent of the main light bank. So you can have rear only, main only, or both. However, the auto-adjust mode requires the main to always be on (you can toggle off the rear LED if you want).

It’s a very sleek, modern looking lamp that has ample brightness and versatility. I’m expecting I’ll grow to liking it more over time. If the Mi Home app was better, I think this could’ve been a successful seller in the West. But 5 years after release, there’s still no US based retailers offering it.

5

Nobody’s mentioned flickering/PWM. This is very important for desk lamps as it causes eye strain.

6

None. No PWM… and I’m a bit of a stickler when PWM is present. I’m still annoyed when I see it on my Aurora A8. If it weren’t such a nice light in other respects, I would’ve sold it at loss.

7

I have tested flickering several times - in my opinion it does not occur.
I tested using a telephone and camera.

8

Btw, the power supply issue isn’t so bad… the light rating is 12V 0.75A (9W). So really any 12V 1A power supply with the right plug (5.5mm x 2.1 mm) will work. And they’re quite common. I even found one in white. Photo 1, Photo 2.

9

A few more updates on my Philips Xiaomi EyeCare Smart Lamp.

  1. I’d bought two 12V 1A power supplies from two different vendors. The cheaper one failed. While the lamp did power up, the controls became inoperative and I couldn’t control the lamp. The second one worked like a charm and is superior to the original power supply — solid casing, thinner profile, and thicker wiring. All functions worked as normal and no indications of any tolerances being pushed.
  2. The Mi Home app (Mijia) was a bust on Android. However, on iOS I made some progress. With my 5th gen Apple iPod Touch, I was able to load the Mi Home app and it found the Philips lamp WiFi signal. The lamp’s flashing amber LED changed to a solid blue, so it took the WiFi network info and was able to add itself to my defined 2.4G network. But… and this is the unfortunate sour turn… the Mi Home app timed out in the connection process with the lamp. So despite it being on the network, I could not control the lamp with the app. It’s not a huge deal. I would probably not use the app much at all, in actuality. But it would’ve been nice to try out some things like the timer control.
  3. UPDATE: I was able to make a little more progress on Android. I have an older HTC One M8 running Marshmallow Android. I was able to get the Mi Home app installed and it found the lamp. It was able to successfully pass WiFi info to the lamp and it responded. However, the final task was for the Mi Home app to bind to the lamp by showing it as an added device. It failed to do that. I did see a message to “bring lamp closer to router”, but despite doing that, just 10 feet away, I had the same problem. I confirmed the lamp has the correct info, by changing the WiFi name. As soon as I did that, the status LED on the lamp started flashing blue. Then, once I changed the WiFi name back, the LED stopped flashing and remained solid blue (with no network info, it would flash amber). So, the lamp is on the WiFi network. My hope is that a future version of the Mi Home app will possibly address this issue. I’ve notified Xiaomi.

Overall, the lamp is really nice. My only remaining gripe is that the emitter tint is neutral white with a hint of green. There’s no CCT adjustment (i.e. no alternate bank of emitters grouped by CCT). I did try out a minus green filter that is just an 8th in strength. It removes the slight green cast with not much of a perceived drop in output. So I’m going to get a larger sheet of this filter, cut a piece to match the capsule shaped primary lens, and use an adhesive to adhere it. There wasn’t any other alternative, because I couldn’t figure out how to open up the head and I’d rather not take a chance in breaking it. I suspect the black plastic end piece may come off, but I’m uncertain and don’t want to damage it. If that could be removed, then it would be super simple to just slide a filter inside it with no adhesive required.

10

Nice to have the ongoing followup as you use the light more :+1:

Thanks!

11

It’s now over 4 years later… and I’m still using this lamp. It’s terrific. The filter sheets that I cut and adhered using optical adhesive are still perfectly in place, no bubbling, and no fading.

The rear facing light is terrific. Often at night when I work on my notebook, I’ll have the rear light on for some slight ambient light which makes things easier on my eyes. The rubber neck that connects the base post to the LED bar is in perfect shape. No degradation. Now, I have a newer phone and the latest Android OS on it. And still, I can’t get the Mi Home app to find the device. But, I’d given up on that feature way back and don’t feel flummoxed over it.

Philips Xiaomi did come out with a version 2S that looks very slightly different. The base bottom half is colored a medium blue, which comes up the sides and is visible, and the shape is slightly squared off–possibly a little smaller footprint. The end plug of the LED bank is blue also. I didn’t see any indication of spec changes. There is also another version that comes after that, where they’ve done away with the rear facing LED bank and now the flexible neck is thinner. For “rear facing” you are instructed to bend the light down and thus it points to the rear.

1 Thank